Table Topics and Humorous Speech Contests on 8 August (meeting 1028)

This was a meeting with a difference. All current members had the opportunity to speak in a competitive environment (friendly of course) in front of judges from other clubs. The judges were Nicola, Jim and John Burge (Area 17 Governor). We also welcomed a guest, Jacky and new member, Esther.

Before and after the contests, Keiko, in her usual inspirational manner, encouraged participation by our guest and new member who were not in the contests. We were able to get to know a little more about the new people by asking them questions of our choosing.

The contests began with our single entrant to the Humorous Speech competition, Dominic, who told us why marriage and communication was not so much a laugh but a scream! He told us why men are like horses and women are like snakes, and why when the children grow up we are left without much to say to each other. He left us with the lasting words of advice “say nothing and keep saying it!”

Next we had the Table Topics contest in which Peter asked us to speak on “common sense is the basis of true happiness”. This proved to be a challenging topic for many of us, and being involved in the contest, I did not hear many of the contestants speak. However I did have the pleasure to hear Geoff speak. He was well spoken and relaxed, his speech had a clear structure and a couple of examples. By the end we were convinced of the truth of this statement, and he went on to win the contest.

The next meeting is on Friday 22nd and we are back to our usual format (agenda will be out soon). Following our promotional UC market day stall this week, we hope to see a few new faces. :-)

Table Topics Tornado on 25 July (meeting 1027)

With some excellent advice from Ianon on Table Topics last meeting, and the Table Topics Contest on this week, it was the perfect time to have a Table Topics Tornado!  Everyone gets not one, but two opportunities to participate, and there were visible improvements between the first and second rounds.

Table Topics Tornado is a game where each person gets chosen at random to speak for approximately two minutes on the topics of the Table Topics Master’s choosing.  Then each person gets to evaluate the person who speaks after them, so it is not only a great opportunity to practice speaking, but a great opportunity to practice evaluation.  In the second round, a second Table Topics Master choses speakers in a different random order, and then the speakers evaluate the same person they evaluated in round one.

Peter was Table Topics Master in the first round, with a range of interesting questions including “Is something funny a way of being serious?”, “Do things go wrong at the last moment?”, “Is a cough something you cannot help, or something other people do to torment you?”, “What is the language of friendship?” and “Does money talk and is the secret to hold it long enough to hear what it is saying?”.

Keiko was the second Table Topics Master who put each of the speakers in a situation they needed to describe a reaction to.  These included “When you opened the door, what happened?”, “Mirror, mirror on the wall…”, “Mum, Mum!” (tug on the leg), “Money. You open your wallet and you have a lot”, you receive an award for “Best Australian”, “You have an invitation to meet Tony Abbott at Parliament House” and “Here is your new bike!”.

It was a pleasure to hear the more experienced members speaking – Ann with her grand gestures, Peter with his captivating tone and pace variation, Dominic with his insightful observations and detail and Keiko with her passion.  But, best of all was seeing the newer speakers performing so well.  Lili spoke confidently on both of her topics, but Nicole wins most improved showing us a glimpse of her future as a highly engaging speaker.  Also, guest (and soon to be member), Esther amazed us all with her natural speaking talent.  I (Karina)  had a great opportunity to speak about my children – twice!

Thank you to Ann for organising the Table Topics Tornado and Peter and Keiko for making it so fun.  Also thank you to Nicole our new Sargent at Arms and Dominic, our new President.

Our next gathering is this Friday 8^th August and it will be our Table Topics and Humorous Speech Contests.  Almost everyone in the club are contestants, so we would welcome any audience who would like to come and see what it’s all about.