What motivates a group of fifteen people to come to an empty hall of a cold November evening? Why great entertainment of course!
This week's meeting was our second in person meeting. While the weather outside was chilly, the ebullient* atmosphere in the hall certainly kept us warm! Our Toastmaster Declan opened the meeting and called on our role holders for descriptions of their roles and gave us a flavour of what was in store for the evening. Each role holder described what was involved in their role and once that was complete, we were ready for a hearty topics session.
Our Topicsmaster, Avril, had us all engaged with a wide variety of topics including sports, nightclubs & a great debate on homework. We found out our audiences' opinions on running later in life; sportspeople our members would take on a night out; and the feelings behind participating in group or individual sports. It was fantastic to hear about people's individual accomplishments of planning to climb Kilimanjaro, getting to Everest Base Camp and running the Dublin City Marathon. Mayo football and the loss of several county finals were also sore points for some when describing the feelings of passion & disappointment of sporting activities. Overall, conversation and 'add-ons' were flowing at this warm up session!
Eugene kept spirits high with his delivery of his speech "De Ack Sent" as part of his Humour pathway. The objective of this pathway is to build a collection of humourous stories for your repertoire. We were kept engaged by this fascinating topic of accents and through the careful use of observational comedy, everyone was entertained. Eugene ended his speech on a high with a story of "Ack Sent" misunderstandings and a bubble machine.
Following on from this Frances was kind enough to take us through an insightful overview into the roles held within Toastmasters. As many of our members are new, it was wonderful to get this valuable information from a seasoned Toastmaster!
After the break, Niamh delivered a positive and constructive evaluation of Eugene's speech to aid with improvement. Bríd took charge of creative corner by sharing an interesting story on the invention of the chocolate chip cookie. Finally, our session was brought to a close by our general evaluator, Frances, who gave a critique of the evening along with some helpful tips which will be used to improve future sessions.
Members are already looking forward to the next Toastmasters session on the 8th December 2021 in the Menlo Park Hotel. Hope to see you there!
* Our Grammarian, Jenny's word of the meeting meaning: cheerful or full of energy.
Image source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238125-weve-figured-out-why-bubbles-make-a-pop-sound-when-they-burst/
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