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.

Warm as Toast... (ooh!)

Outside it was the first day of winter — but inside it was warm at the 977^th meeting of the Benjamin Toastmasters. The warmth of course was generated by the friendly atmosphere of the group. We welcomed Keiko who, returning to our meeting and the continent, took up the role of Toastmaster with her normal aplomb. Thanks to Tom who took up the um-ah counting for the meeting and Peter (L) who volunteered as timer.

Club business was short and sweet — with Peter (H) reminding us to bring our manuals to all meetings. Robyn was confirmed as President and Julio as Secretary for the 2012–2013 year.

Yuyu once again chose a great topic, this time for her 7^th manual speech. She researched why boys like cars, but I think really she was trying to understand why her 20-month old boy didn’t want any of the room full of toys belonging to her daughter! Yuyu reported on research looking at psychological and genetic factors that play out in the toy-choice of boys versus girls. Yuyu’s conclusion, that genetics probably played a greater role, brought us back to her warm and personal introduction, telling us that she will probably have to buy that new toy box!

Jenny evaluated Yuyu’s speech, congratulating her on her balanced use of research, her confidence and the warm smile that Yuyu uses to engage her audience. Jenny also commended Yuyu on her ability to ‘rejig’ her speech without losing its structure when she saw that she was out of time. Jenny’s experience gave Yuyu, and all of us, two great pieces of advice. The first was to make sure we speak from our diaphragm: this lowers our pitch and makes us less likely to inadvertently alter our speaking volume. The second was to take a stance when we deliver a speech — literally: placing our feet slightly apart gives us a more commanding presence on stage.

Ann continued with the evaluation theme, giving us some great evaluating advice from the latest Toastmaster Magazine. As usual Ann ‘hammed up’ what could have been a very dry reading of an article. Her sense of humour and dramatic skills ensured we were engaged for the whole time. One piece of very useful advice in the article was that evaluators should try to speak to those whom they have evaluated, afterwards, to ask “Was the evaluation given useful for the speaker? Will the recommendations enable the speaker to improve next time? Were the commendations unique to that speaker?”.

‘Round’ (not so! (Ed.)) Robyn then introduced a Round Robin as an alternative to Table Topics, following a recent suggestion from Yuyu. It is an exercise in both careful listening and impromptu speaking. The first speaker introduces a topic and speaks briefly on it; the next speaker is then invited to pick up on something from the previous speaker — they could agree with it, disagree with it, elaborate on it or take it to a new place altogether! From our topic, introduced by Robyn (‘free public transport’), Tom supported the notion of ‘freebies’ to take us to our famous landmarks; Dom talked about a nominal public transport fee in Sheffield and reminded us about the complexity of economic arguments which ignore social benefits of schemes such as free public transport; Niki took up this point and reminded us of political decisions deemed ‘courageous’ by those who may oppose them (think Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey in ‘Yes Minister’!!); Ann introduced us to two significant men in her life and their problems with TV volume and empty trains; Peter (L) reminded us that our beaches are one of Australia’s landmarks and encouraged us all to look after them, and Jenny concluded the Round Robin by reminiscing about how wonderful Sydney felt during the Olympics with free public transport. With such a diversity of points brought up as people thought on their feet after having to listen carefully, the Round Robin was certainly in the spirit of Toastmasters and was enjoyed by all. 

As always, we look forward to our next meeting!

Robyn