Howling at the moon!

Toastmaster Jenny kicked the night off by introducing Pat, a very experienced speaker to give an explanation on our new project, Pathways. Pat explained that in the old Toastmasters system roles and therefore the skills learned from them were done in an isolated fashion. In Pathways, many different communication and leadership speeches are merged into projects to provide a greater challenge to the Toastmaster. This new approach is more suited to real life situations and provides more efficient  training for the Toastmaster. He also revealed that the project is computer based, which shows how our international group is adapting to the world around it. 

Cormac was our Topicsmaster for the evening. His questions were very open ended and this created a welcoming and lighthearted atmosphere to the Topics session. One of the first questions were: "What makes you feel alive?". A lot of good speakers, and two guests stood up and spoke; surely he was very pleased overall. 

Our first speech was by a lovely woman named Aisling, doing her Ice Breaker speech. It was very informative and fun, I feel the audience really got to know Aisling. She incorporated storytelling and humour into her speech which is very impressive for an Ice Breaker.

Our second speech was by Pat, a speaker respected. His storytelling and execution were on another level. He has everyone in stitches but still managed to drive home his points. Very impressing! 

Our final speech was by Margaret and her coherence of speech was greatly received. She also used vocal projection very well. 

The evaluators had nothing but positive things to say about the speeches and I agreed with them totally.

Cormac was also our creative corner. He had an outside of the box thinking when he was giving examples of him getting out of his comfort zone and trying new things. That is a common theme in Toastmaster’s and he demonstrated it perfectly by asking everyone to stand up and howl like a wolf. The writer of this blog found this very strange but also very exhilarating also, it was definitely a feeling and a creative corner that will not forgotten any time soon. Very impressed with his courage! 

The Grammarian of the night used the word "exuberant" which means full of energy, cheerfulness, and excitement. It was used six times. The Ah Counter counted over twenty filler words used on the night.

All in all, another great night and how well the night turned out! Special thanks to all those who participated in roles and everyone who turned up on the night. Special congratulations for all of those who spoke also, especially the guests. Looking very much forward to our next meeting! 

Galway Toastmasters next meeting is Wednesday 10th October at 08:30pm at Menlo Park Hotel. All are welcome and we hope to see you there!