2+0+1+4 = 7, the number of the building we meet in this year

Happy new 2014, Toastmasters!

We are meeting this year in Building 7, level A, room 51, and we look forward to having many visitors and new members from among the university staff and students. 

The meetings are on Fridays, fortnightly from 24 January. So the next on is on 7 February, and at 12.30 - 1.30 as usual. 

At the first meeting on 24 January, although it was a few hours before the start of the Australia Day long weekend , most of our members were present. We welcomed two guests: Karina and John, both of whom have been or are members of other clubs. There were two speeches and a thought-provoking collection of table topics, with Dominic as Table Topics Master. Word of the day, appropriately enough, was 'goals' - and Peter didn't mean the soccer type. 

Keiko is working on the storytelling manual, which is one of the advanced series. She told us (as is often the case with her stories) a tear-inducing tale. It involved one person's good turn coming back in full measure or more, 25 years later. Keiko is a wonderful story teller. She speaks from the heart, wastes no words in painting a complete picture, and her pauses give amazing power to the story as a whole. 

Geoff then gave us a hilarious account of bureaucratic inconsistencies, with numerous examples, all different, of situations where you might expect, logically, the government officer to do one thing, but something quite different happened. There were nods of agreement around the table, between laughs, as we remembered similar occasions in our own lives. 

The table topics really made us stop to consider, before answering. One example: Do we want our kids to be totally obedient or do we want them to be independent thinkers? What a question! All the topics were like that, and everyone had a topic. 

Carmen evaluated the table topics - the first time she has been an evaluator - offering us valuable points for improvement.

This was a very happy meeting - which is normal for Benjamin - and we look forward to a great year. 

Contests: 

Benjamin's internal contest for International Speech and Evaluation will be at the meeting on Friday 21 February.  Everyone is welcome, whether club member or visitor. 

Our club will then be the host of the Area 17 contest, which will be on 15 March, a Saturday. The Area contest is between all six Belconnen clubs, and all our club members will be needed to help with the various jobs needed to run this level of contest.

Next meeting: Friday 7 February, 12.30 - 1.30, Building 7, room A51. 

Building 7 is at the top left of the map (see the 'Meetings of..' page), and room A51 is on the Ginninderra Drive side of the building, on the ground floor.