Our president Sarah opened the meeting by welcoming everyone
and spoke briefly about personal growth, recalling a time when she was due to
give a presentation and her mind went blank even though she had learned it all
and practiced for weeks, and got very upset later on. She also realised that
she was only human and that we all hit bumps in the road sometimes and not to
be too hard on ourselves. She then handed the proceeding over to our
Toastmaster for the evening Declan, who explained the format of the night and
introduced the various members who would be performing all the different roles
on the night. Our Topicsmaster for the night, Brian, took the stand and his
questions were both varied and diverse, which generated a huge amount of
responses from our members. Humor was a big theme throughout, maybe one of the
most entertaining topics sessions we have enjoyed lately! Well done Brian and
to everyone who spoke!
Declan then introduced our first speaker of the night, Pat, giving
a speech entitled “A Little Respect” on a PowerPoint presentation. Pat explained
that each speech from this particular manual addressed different aspects of
public speaking, and how important it is to have the respect of the audience you’re
speaking to. He went through the main points a speaker should be aware of when
giving a talk, like not to annoy your audience, be aware of their age, race, and
ethnicity. Keep it simple, make sure you scope out the room before hand so that
everyone can see and hear you; in a nutshell research your audience as it will
pay off in the long run!
Next up giving her icebreaker speech entitled “My Field” was
Margaret, capturing our imagination
from start with a powerful quote from John B Kanes iconic play “The
Field”. Land was a tread that ran through her life, from growing up as one of
eleven children on her father’s dairy farm in Dublin, and then the family moved
to Mountbellew in Galway when she was a teenager, where she met her future
husband at the local agricultural college.
When the recession hit in the eighties they decided to immigrate to
America; seven years later they returned with a new baby daughter and their two
boys. Bought some land and set up an organic vegetable production unit and
began selling organic lambs. A year
later they had their fourth child a baby daughter, Then in 2010 her husband
John died suddenly, after five years of struggling to cope with the demanding
workload on her own she decided to sell up and buy a house with a acre of land,
and low and behold, one day while driving in Connemara she spotted her dream
home or perhaps dream field.
Our third speaker of the night was Marie from her “Dynamic Leadership level 1, Feedback and
Feedback”, the speaker is given evaluation and tips on how to improve their
second speech then that feedback is incorporated into the same speech the next
time is given. The title of Marie’s
speech was “The Kevin Ball Repatriation Trust”. The aim of Marie’s speech was
to raise awareness and to highlight how many Irish people die abroad each year
and how the families struggle with the finical legal and emotional implications
of this.
Our fourth and final speaker of the night was Martin with a
speech entitled “Shared Vision” from the “High Performance Leadership Project”, that helps you to improve your leadership qualities by leading a team in
something you find important; either within Toastmaster or externally. Although he did stress that no matter how
wonderful technology is, the real genius is the person behind it; technology
can be a good servant but a poor master.
After the tea Frances took over the second half of the
meeting as General Evaluator and introduced the different members who evaluated
the speeches. Afterwards, Frances thanked all the speakers and evaluators and
then handed back to Sarah who presented Margaret with her ribbon for completing
her icebreaker speech. Then she thanked everyone for coming.
Our next meeting is on Wednesday 17th of April at 8pm, and
everyone is welcome!
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