Back in the room – First class camping, first class leadership and first times

 

For the first time since February 2020 Galway Toastmasters returned to the Menlo Park Hotel for an eagerly awaited night of education, entertainment and enjoyment. Our meeting was also broadcast over Zoom like all our club meetings for the last twenty months but with the challenge of trying to manage in-person and online platforms.

Our meeting was opened by club President Eugene who warmly welcomed members and guests. He was also performing the role of Toastmaster for the evening and introduced the other roleholders for the meeting. They, in turn, explained what their roles entailed. The Ah-Counter and Grammarian role was held by Maria who gave us the word of the night “laconic” to try and use if possible during the meeting.

The final roleholder introduced was our Topicsmaster, Maria who gave us many interesting topics to talk about including: jobs you’d delegate; favourite quotes; what law you’d pass; something you’ve done for the first time recently and what activities make you lose track of time. These lead to many responses and even some from our guests which was wonderful.

Following the Topics session we had our two prepared speeches. The first, by Frances, was a humourous speech which contrasted the experience of camping enjoyed by Michael Palin on his adventures with her experience of camping on a more basic level. We heard about her preparations, the equipment she considered using and some of the adventures she got up to.

Our second speech was from Jenny and was on the subject of leadership. The objective of the project she was working on was to look at her own leadership styles and relate examples of where she has used her keadership style and experienced that of others. We were treated to some of her experiences working as a teacher and also examples of leaders she admired.

They were two very engaging and well thought out speeches that were a great way to start back as an in-person experience.

We then had our first tea break together in nearly two years. Tea, coffee and even some biscuits were served to us to help us maintain as safe an environment as possible. It was also lovely to be able to have a chat with someone in the same room!

After the break Pat, our General Evaluator introduced the two people evaluating the speeches we heard before the break. Declan evaluated Frances’ speech while Niamh evaluated Jenny’s. Both pointed out the work that the speakers had put in and highlighted examples of good use of language, gesture and speaking speed. They also both gave the speakers a suggestion for something they might work on in a future speech.

Next we heard from our Grammarian and Ah-counter who reported back on our use of the word “laconic” during the meeting and also on our use of filler words such as “um”, “ah” and “so”. This report makes us more conscious of these and helps us try to eliminate them.

Our final contribution before the General Evaluator’s report was our Creative Corner which was delivered by Avril reading Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”. It was a lovely, reflective piece just before the end of our meeting.

Our General Evaluator, Pat, then gave us a report on our meeting. Like the speech evaluators he highlighted what went well in our meeting and made a few suggestions for things to improve. As this was our first in-person and online meeting there are lots of little areas we can look at to make the experience even more enjoyable.

In his other role as Vice President of Education, Pat then tried to fill the agenda for our next meeting. Most roles are now taken and any outstanding ones will get filed before the next meeting.

Pat handed the meeting back to Eugene, the club President, who thanked us all for coming. He invited the guests to return for future meetings and assured them of an equally warm welcome. He then closed the meeting.

The next meeting of Galway Toastmasters will be on November 24, 2021 at 8.00 pm and will be held in the Menlo Park Hotel and online over Zoom.