The Jotter for meeting no. 1045 – 2nd November 2022 – by David Meriken
A feature of the meeting were the 8 guests – Rob, Rosalie, Meg, Doug, Melissa, Maddie, Mitra and Jenny – who added variety and interest to the meeting and were welcomed by the 12 members present on the night. Elaine gave a particularly impressive ‘welcome to guests’.
There were many highlights including:
- Two outstanding but very different prepared speeches. Mike told 3 hilarious short stories about crazy antics with friends. But one story did not happen. Which one? “Camping with bullets!” Then Karen enthralled us with 3 amazing brain facts that explain “why we don’t see eye to eye”, and perhaps why world peace is hard to obtain.
- Wonderful evaluations from Barbara and Dean gave us all some valuable tips on public speaking.
- Four brave guests agreed to take Elaine’s Table-topics challenge and speak ‘off the cuff’ on topics related to adventure. They all did a fantastic job. Well done!
- Other members explained and presented their segments of the meeting with style.
- David W’s general evaluation highlighted the meeting’s good humour, cooperation, willing participation of all, and the social opportunity provided by the longer supper break.
- And Fran, as Toastmaster for the evening, held it all together and kept the meeting moving along with typically assured and economical performance.
Jotter for Nov 15, 2022 – by David Whyte
Members and Guests
There were about 13 present including 5 guests. Three guests (Rob, Doug and Mitra) were back for a second visit, and the others (Helen and Di) have been to Jetty Speakers and are seeing if our club meeting times suit them better. I remind readers that Coffs Harbour club meets on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of every month, 7 – 9pm. Jetty Speakers club meets on 2nd and 4th Thursdays, 7 – 8.15am.
If I had to choose one word to describe our last meeting, I would say “thoughtful”.
Warm up – Barbara
The quote for the evening chosen by Karen (our VPE) was: “Forgiveness is when we overcome our emotions that keep us connected to the past”. With this as her starting point, Barbara asked for our thoughts on forgiveness. Not an easy topic, and perhaps even confronting, but we all dug deep.
Speakers and Evaluators
Speaker 1 was Fran who repeated for us a speech she once gave to celebrate 30 years of U3A (University of the Third Age). As Speaker 2, DavidW spoke about the importance of telling and hearing personal stories as a way of connecting with each other. David was practising the speech he will give at the Area contest tomorrow evening (Tuesday, Nov 22) on Zoom. The Evaluators Claire (1) and Elaine (2) analysed the speeches, pointing out what makes speeches work well and how they can be improved.
Table Topics – Gerry
Gerry had time for 6 Table Topics and I suspect she was matching topic with speaker. In any case the 6 speakers sounded like they had already given their topics some thought. How would you go speaking for 2 minutes on the following?
Mark – What technology would you like to see invented?
Helen – What is your favourite food to cook?
Di – What have you learned from your children?
Rob – Cats or dogs?
Doug – What would be your “ultimate” career?
Mitra – An issue you are passionate about.