Autumn - The Second Spring

Last Wednesday 3rd September saw the jovial return of Galway Toastmasters after the glorious summer recess. It was a pleasure to reacquaint ourselves with the old familiar faces and meet new ones.

We were warmly and enthusiastically welcomed by our club president Margaret, who stated the mission and ethos of Toastmasters, which is an international organisation. Control of the meeting was then passed over to Gary, an experienced Toastmaster, who chaired the proceedings of the evening with great aplomb, with his trademark style of charm, wisdom and winning humour.

Yaheli gave us an interesting, lighthearted and varied Topics session with themes from charity fundraising events - topically stemming from the huge success of the MND ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ - to quotes from Oscar Wilde such as “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future”. Have you a past or a future?’. The contributions were spontaneous and stimulating and yielded six add ons from eight topics. A great warm up to the prepared speeches. 

The richness of the meeting was captured with four excellent speeches:

• Stage 4 from John C  titled “Flying High”
• Stage 6 from Aisling titled “Switch Off”
• Humorously Speaking Project 1 from Frances
• And the Entertaining Speaker Project 2 from Pat C

A sample from these were “Boats are Fun”. Frances with her background of sailing informed members of some of the terminology used in the boating world and enlightened us on the upcoming World Robotic Sailing Championship International Conference, that Galway has the priviledge of hosting. 

Aisling’s speech “Switch Off” was aptly introduced by playing a short, mellow, tranquil music demo which carried our minds across to yoga and meditation, the connection between body and mind, and informed us of the health benefits in today’s stressful world.

We always learn something new, interesting and exciting when we come to Toastmasters in the sharing of each other’s wealth of personal experiences. 

All the speakers were given positive feedback with praise for their achievements and suggestions for further improvement. The evaluations were superbly completed by Eddie, Jenny, Rita, and Ruairí.

“Ostensibly” was the word chosen by the grammarian John Be and it was used generously throughout the meeting. 

Pat O, in the Creative Corner, delivered a poignant poem to embrace the start of the Autumn Season - “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.

And finally, a very fine, articulate, succinct summation of the entire evening was given by Majella. 

Overall, a very enjoyable, relaxed meeting and a jovial start to autumn, the second Spring, at Toastmasters.