Member News

Jotter 948

 

About 24 attending including 4 guests.

 

Speeches to order

One thing about a special event is that speeches aren’t just for practice, but must be done to order. Last Tuesday’s meeting saw the induction of the new executive for 2018/19, with 4 short speeches befitting the occasion. Area Director Sue Ashley (who inducted the new committee) gave a speech on the value of contests.  Outgoing President Deebee spoke about growth he has experienced and observed in others over the last 12 months. Pauline, the incoming President, spoke about 6 qualities desirable in a club, and in alphabetical order no less!  Awesomeness, Boldness, Compliance, Diversity, Efficiency and Fun. And DavidW, on the club’s behalf, said a few words of appreciation for Sue’s support over the last 2 years.

 

There was one other speech: Fran’s last speech from the CC manual with the aim of inspiring listeners. Fran spoke about the healing effect of laughter and the ‘incredible power’ of a smile to acknowledge others. Food for thought before the break for refreshments.

The trimmings.

Events are better with the right ambience and good tucker. Table cloths and tea lights? Tick. Black drapes and mood lighting? Tick. A cosy arrangement of tables with speakers at floor level? Tick. Background music? Tick. Good tucker and time to enjoy it? Tick. Tick. Tick.

Fun time

Barbara was challenging as usual. If you think you’ve been out of your comfort zone before, try standing up and singing 2 lines of a nursery rhyme to a roomful of people. This was followed by a rapid fire quiz from Janet.

See you all in the new (Toastmaster’s) year.

Next meeting: July 3. 

Jotter 943/ April17.

“In quotation marks”
Tuesday April17 was our Area joint meeting
REACHING OUT (4 clubs).

IT WORKED SO WELL!

Several weeks ago Barbara rang me with ideas to bring variety into meetings. The upshot was she was ‘Guest VPE’ last Tuesday and showed us what she meant. Her theme for the evening was ‘painters and paintings’ and, importantly, people stepped up to contribute. The 3 main speakers put together speeches on the theme, and in the very engaging Warm Up we all painted word pictures of beautiful sights in our lives. I especially enjoyed Table Topics when Janet projected about 8 well known paintings onto the big screen in turn, and 8 target speakers stood up to describe what they saw and felt. The audience looked and listened hard, through what had the quality of a dream sequence.

Janet’s choice of paintings included: Van Gogh’s “Cafe at Night”, Rousseau’s “Sleeping Gypsy”, Munch’s “The Scream”, McCubbin’s “On the Wallaby”, Renoir’s “The Ball”, Drysdale’s “Sunday Evening”, and more.

Perhaps we should try these ideas again before too long? A meeting strongly focused on a theme and/or a ‘Guest VPE’. Any suggestions anyone?

GUESTS                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Our 2 guests (and prospective new members) showed they already have what it takes. Both had something to say and wanted to say it.

THE NEXT EXEC

On April3 we have Nominations before the Election on May1 of the next 7 executive officers to take over in July. Think of nominating yourself for a role. As well as giving back to the club, you will find it a rewarding experience. If you want to nominate yourself or someone else, tell Kyle who is the Nominations Officer.

David Whyte

 

Jotter 940  Mar6, 2018

18 attended including 3 guests.

Overall.

Three speeches were delivered clearly and confidently without microphones or notes. John had 8 interesting Table Topics prepared. Respect to Mark, a guest on his very first visit, who when thrown the topic ”Who do you compare yourself to?”, stood up and spoke very creditably for nearly a minute.  Another guest, Lachie, served as Um Ah Counter (for his first time ever) and I suspect … um … learned a bit  … ahh … about himself in the … um … process. Sympathetic chuckles around the room signalled that we’ve all been there.

Timing is improving.

James was our punctilious Timer and his record sheet – annotated in red ink! – told its story in one glance!

The good news is we finished on time at 9pm, having still enjoyed a 15 minute supper. This was thanks to members being ready to leap to their feet or up onto the stage to speak, and keeping their remarks brief. However, with one exception, the Evaluations (both Speech and General) went overtime, as did the VPE Remarks at the beginning and President Remarks at the end. (Sometimes there is more to say and then the program should allow for this).

If we all aim for conciseness, we allow the meeting to expand in other areas.  So, for example, we allow the Toastmaster to be more creative, and all members to speak longer in Warm Up and Hats Off, and of courseTable Topics can be extended.

Pathways. Pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps!

In the Pathways system the club President, VPE and Secretary are the “Base Camp Managers”. However as VPE Base Camp Manager I feel a bit of a fraud. It’s as if I’m standing amongst the tents of base camp, peering through binoculars at a scattered line of solo climbers making their way up the snowy slopes. Narelle is in the lead, having completed 5% of Level1 (according to records), so when I’m asked how to do something online, all I can say, “Ask Narelle”. Anyway, one way or another, we’re getting there.

Next meeting: Mar20. Barbara is Guest VPE and the theme is “painters and paintings”.

 

Jotter  939  Feb20

 

Basics.

Focus: “Timing is everything”.

21 attended, including 2 guests (one for his first time).

Best wishes to Deebee and Jennifer who couldn’t make it because of family health and injury issues.

 

We did better!

We did much, much better with timing this time, with the meeting finishing just before 9pm.

This was largely due to everybody trying harder – being ready to speak when their turn came and speaking briefly and to the point. (I’m aware though that the stand-in President (yours truly!)  did ramble on a bit).  General Evaluator James noted that keeping to time is a matter of equity, that when we take more time than necessary we are taking it from others.  James also pointed out that if we had had 3 main speeches as planned we would have gone overtime yet again. Gremlins caused the 2 main speeches to stretch out longer than intended. One because the timing lights were not visible at a distance and the other suffered computer software problems.

 

Real Life.

Our missing main speaker was replaced by Barbara who stepped in to do a Real Life item.

Real Life items require a volunteer (forewarned) to “say a few words at short notice” on a given topic. Barbara spoke to us as a bunch of trepidatious 17 and 18 year olds, giving us advice and encouragement on meeting the challenge of adult life.

 

Table Topics.

Danni gave her very first Table Topics. She was clear and concise and had 6 people up on their feet. Her topics were along the lines of ‘What would you do if …?”: eg … you were confronted by a murderous pygmy; … you were presented with $10,000 in India; … you were visiting an orphanage in Kenya.

 

Bunching up.

Is there anyway we can bunch up more in the hall to build a sense of conviviality, and to hear better and see better?  I wonder if we could squeeze 3 people in at each table, which would require one person at least to have their legs wrapped around the table legs! Any ideas anyone?

 

Next

Next meeting is on March6. The following meeting on March 20 is being organised by guest VPE Barbara on the theme of paintings and painters. Keep watching this space!

JOTTER

 

A great first meeting of 2018 on Tuesday, January 16.  We had over 20 present including 4 guests/ prospective new members.

The 3 speakers were very much at ease, and obviously enjoying their own speeches. We laughed at Damian’s encounter with a horse. (Damian could make a household budget sound hilarious!). Lyn had invented a witty explanation of the transition from apemen to Adam and Eve. And newbie Pauline introduced herself (in her Icebreaker speech) with anecdotes on the theme of “Princess or Trooper?”.

Other first timers included Leon as Toastmaster and Jennifer as General Evaluator. Warm Up (John) allowed us to vent our political frustrations. For Table Topics Narelle chose questions suitable to the new year on what might yet be and what might have been. Her 6 targets all found something to say. Good practice! And on top of all that, watermelon for supper! (Thanks Christine).

What’s in the pipeline? About 4 or 5 people have launched into the new education program, Pathways, with more promising to follow. And for our next meeting on February 6, we already have an almost full program.

That’s it. See you all on Feb6.

 

—

 

 

 

The JOTTER…Coffs Harbour Toastmasters news letter

And that was Saturday.

Back to the Bowl-o.

Last Saturday Area 29 Contests were held at Park Beach Bowls Club in Coffs. What a great venue! A quiet, carpeted room, with picture windows onto the dune, and a delicious sandwich lunch, all for a very modest $5 entry fee. About 30 people attended from the 4 clubs between Grafton and Nambucca Valley, and this included judges and District level officials from outside Area. Top quality speeches as usual. Hats off to the dynamic Dysons for winning first place in the 4 categories – James in International and Evaluation, and Janet in Humorous and Table Topics.  Hats off also to all who contested or officiated, and especially the 3 who left at lunchtime after competing or chairing. These 3 had apparently fitted the contest into already very busy lives.

 

The mix.

It was the usual mix. Old timers showing their experience and newbies learning the ropes. There were more than a few who doubled up. James and Deebee, for example, after competing, put on different hats and came back as Chair or Sergeant at Arms. Similarly Donna and Paolo seemed to be everywhere as Timers, Counters and Sergeant at Arms. Special thanks to Kay Simmons who drove up from Port Mac to deliver a test speech for the Evaluation contestants to evaluate.

 

Pathways down the track.

Justyn Phillips took the opportunity (as a District90 Pathways Ambassador) to remind us yet again that Pathways, the new Education Program, will start in December.  The current program is a basic manual of 10 projects, followed by a choice of advanced modules which cater for special interests.  in Pathways, on the other hand, you choose one of 10 specialised paths at the outset. Pathways is already rolling out elsewhere in the Toastmasters universe and an interesting statistic is that the most popular path (20%) has been ‘project management’, followed by ‘giving presentations’ and ‘mentoring’, and then the remaining 7 paths are more or less on par.

 

 

Getting Together Combined Toastmasters Meeting.

 

Our last meeting on Feb21 was a buzz! Three clubs came together for a joint meeting which had been advertised in the Advocate and on local radio. Let the numbers speak!

• 19 members of Toastmasters (Coffs Harbour 13; Bellingen 4; Nambucca Valley 2).
• 19 guests (8 of them were totally new to Toastmasters).
• Total audience 38

 

I found the 3 main speeches spellbinding. Speech 1, by Kyle Maloney of Coffs Harbour, was a series of yarns from his experience of dealing with medical emergencies. Speech 2, by James Dyson of Nambucca Valley, with the help of a Power Point slideshow transported us to medieval Byzantium and the building of the Hagia Sophia cathedral.  Speech 3 was especially thoughtful and thought provoking. Phil Wilson of Bellingen spoke about Toastmaster speeches themselves, which, he said, by their very nature spring from honesty and so are an antidote to dishonesties in the world (Think ‘alternative truths’!).

 

In the Warm Up  everyone got to their feet and spoke for 15 seconds on their ‘vision’ (the word for the night) for the year to come. Table Topics (or spontaneous mini-speeches) got 7 speakers on their feet. The voted winner was Jean Ryan, a guest, who gave an entertaining mini-speech about a mysterious contraption which was put into her hands.

 

Overall the program was a close to normal Coffs Harbour club program. We did make sure, however, that we explained the rationale of items for the benefit of guests unfamiliar with the format.