Congratulations to Coffs Harbour member Michael Gallagher who has won through to the Divisional finals in Sydney. He is a finalist in the International Speech Contest and the Evaluation Contest giving him the distinction of making a total of nine contest finals in all during his time with the club.
Like all of us Michael started out with a fear of public speaking. He has been active in delivering speeches at the club and entering contests and has taken on board the supportive feedback that club evaluators have given him over the years. He is now without doubt, an extremely accomplished speaker and a living example of what you can achieve if you have a go.
Michael Gallagher gets in some impromptu speaking at Cavanbah Hall.
. Hey anyone can do it!
Great news for the Coffs harbour club and the Coffs Coast district! The Toastmasters International Area 29 International Speech and Evaluation contests have been scheduled to be held in Coffs Harbour at Cavanbah Hall on Saturday 13th April.
What a great opportunity to get along and see two of Coffs Harbour’s best speakers Michael Gallagher and Fran Kerkhoff compete against other club winners and vie for a place in the Divisional finals. Both Michael and Fran have been here before and have what it takes to deliver on the big occasion.
Come along in the morning from 10.30am and see some exceptional public speakers and entertainers. All welcome. A light lunch and refreshments are provided as part of the $10 entry fee.
What a contest! The annual Coffs Harbour Toastmasters International speech contest delivered four wonderful speeches presented with style and grace. But , as they say, there can only be one winner and on this occasion Michael Gallagher took the honours with his humorous view on family.
Michael opened with a story about an Aunt who was supposedly the first person to achieve flight using a creative aircraft powered entirely by fruit bats. The legitimacy of this story is still being verified with members of the Bellingen Flying Fox Historical Society. Fran Kerkhoff was runner up with another stunningly presented performance and cleverly supported by an attractive hand puppet. Sounds very much like a session in the Australian Parliament except the puppet was attractive!
Maurice Lane had an equally amusing and cynical look at taking responsibility through his amusing story about losing luggage at the airport while Barbara Stewart had the audience enthralled with her touching story of a real life war hero and his hero Missy.
Special thanks to Rowena McGregor who travelled from Bellingen to be test speaker for the evaluation contest. Michael Gallagher claimed a clean sweep of the awards by being adjudged the winner of this contest with Fran Kerkhoff closely behind. What sensational entertainment.
Next meeting 19th March.
Long time Toastmaster Willa Hogarth was recently recognised for her writing skills at the recent Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival. Willa who has served on the club’s executive was selected to spend an intensive week under the mentorship of acclaimed novelist Marele Day. This award is considered a highlight in the early career of a budding writer.
“When I heard I’d been chosen I imagined it would be a writers’ wonderland and it was” Willa was quoted as saying. Willa’s book is titled Room Without Windows and we hope to see it on the shelves of all good book stores soon. Well that is Willa’s dream anyway.
This experience will no doubt make good listening for Willa’s next speech.
Now it was Socrates, and not James Dyson who made that famous quote “Know Thyself”. In broad terms the message from Socrates is that one must know themselves if they are to be successful and I could not agree more with the wisely old sage.
Socrates may be a little older than James but they do have a little in common at present. You see James has won through the Toastmaster International speech contest in the speech evaluation category and travels to Sydney to earn the right to represent Australia in the USA. Why the connection? Well you see the whole purpose of speech evaluation is to give the speaker constructive and meaningful feedback on their speech. We can’t improve unless we get feedback and ‘know ourselves’ a little better.
We wish James all the best in his quest.
He is pictured below welcoming a new member Steve Gothard recently.
COFFS Harbour’s Michael Gallagher hopes to take his talent for public speaking to the world.
The local Toastmaster will travel to Sydney for the District 70 Final to decide who will represent NSW at the world championship of public speaking in the United States.
