We had a fabulous turn-out for this week’s meeting. There were several returning guests and three new visitors: Leona, Tracy and Margaret. Tracy has since become a member, which ticks the final box for the club to receive a Distinguished Club award – woohoo!

Our Area Governor Jenny did a stupendous job of Toastmaster. She started with Tom who introduced the word of the day “family”. I relayed one of his anecdotes about his grandmother to my family yesterday – very funny indeed – she sounds like a great woman!

Yuyu gave us a wonderful speech for Project 8 “Using Visual Aids”. Her speech was entitled ‘Sleep’ and showcased her fabulous research skills. A slide that we all found very interesting was entitled “Time to Sleep: A Chinese Way to Stay Healthy — human organs have their own time to rest, refresh and replenish”. She kindly forwarded it to the blog and it is included here ...*

Peter Ibbott (‘Peter the 2nd’) gave an Icebreaker speech that has set the bar very high for the remainder of his speeches! It was a very interesting talk revolving around his working life in health and the Defence Force. Although war may be good for “absolutely nothin’”, as Peter reminded us of the 1970s song, his talk detailed all of the health innovations which have come about because of war that are now part of our everyday lives. Well done Peter.

Dominic took us on another Round Robin version of Table Topics, starting us off by questioning whether our ancestors were better at energy conservation than we are today, and recalling his grandmother’s use of old tins to boil eggs. The family theme continued with Robyn recalling how the only gas heater in her childhood house was never turned on until tea time; Peter ‘the 3rd’ talked about how hard it would be to give up the love of his and his daughters’ lives — the shower — despite his efforts in other areas of his life to conserve resources; Tracy also contributed with a very confident talk recalling how the heating in her childhood home was put to good use reheating other things such as the water for bathing etc.

Evaluations of Yuyu’s speech (by Robyn), Peter’s speech (by Ianon) and the Round Robin speakers (by Leona) reminded all of us of the basics of good speaking — use of the lectern (put it where you need it); remember that visual aids are only aids to your speech rather than a reflection of the content, and that eye contact is vital! These helpful recommendations were among multiple commendations for all of Friday’s speakers — good speech structure; inclusiveness; warmth; clear voice control; and others.

Niki did a great um/ah count despite saying that she was too interested in the speeches! Julio as Timer kept us all on the straight and narrow, and Tom managed to win the ‘word of the day’ count (what a surprise!). Peter H (‘the 1st’) not only performed the general evaluation, he also gave out the new “Club Leadership Handbooks” to the 2012–2013 executive, showing everyone how the role of each job is carefully spelt out in the handbook. Our meeting was brought to a close on time by Dominic who was the day’s sergeant at arms.

We hope to see our guests and all members at our next meeting — the last for the current exec!

Robyn

*adapted from Internet. Possible origin: Qing Zhong Wu 2006, Human Body Usage Handbook, Hua Cheng Press, Guang Zhou, China.