Keeping Afloat - 30th March 2022

President Eugene opened the meeting remotely commenting on how effectively all the hurdles were dealt with, particularly with the technology work done by Martin who ensured all meetings ran smoothly.

This evening’s Toastmaster, Avril, invited all the various officers to  outline their roles. The Grammarian chose ‘Jovial’ as the word for the evening and Jenny kept us in suspense as to what would be involved in the Creative Corner.  

Topicsmaster, Astrid, introduced a novel idea challenging all toastmasters to speak about kitchen objects: a salt cellar, an orange, suntan lotion, tonic water and a mixed fruit box.  Each members weas invited to draw an object from a bag.  This challenged participants to think quickly on their feet but the success of the event was evident by the amount of add-ons  that occurred for each object drawn. Initial speeches were entertaining, creative and interesting and it was interesting to witness how the various items evoked memories and challenges.

Tomás’s icebreaker speech, gave us an insight into life in Angola in a presentation entitled ‘Into Africa - Reflections on a Year in the Hardship Zone’.  This speech brought us on a tour of Angola where Tomás had worked in the Oil industry detailing his experience, the history and the unique geographical features in Angola which were also presented colourfully on PowerPoint.

The Scream, also an icebreaker speech, by Colm, focused on the fear of public speaking.  Attendees were surprised to hear of his struggle with public speaking, and the negative impact it has had on his life and health.  He revealed how he used the Covid Pandemic as a time to focus on the importance of being able to speak in public, leading him to Toastmasters. 

The third speech from Astrid ‘With the Help of Hobbies’ focused also on a personal topic - about how hobbies were instrumental in surviving trauma in life.  With the assistance of two passions – sailing and being an Airbnb host, Astrid gave a clear rationale as to how her hobbies had ‘kept her afloat’.

The General Evaluator, Mick, introduced the evaluators for this evening who in turn gave their evaluation of the evenings speakers.  Speakers were praised for: the use of props; measured use of text in PowerPoint; good eye contact; humour; maintaining audience attention; voice and tone; body language and hand gestures.

Suggestion made to speakers from the evaluators were to

• watch the time restrictions
  
• keep in mind the importance of structure
• use smaller cards rather than sheets of paper
• do roles in toastmasters to practice skills
• make a speech again soon to maintain the momentum  

Officers returned to report on the various tasks.

Martin, the Ah Countered kept a record of how said what ‘ah’ type fillers with the most common words being – ah, and, so, am.

The word  ‘Jovial’ was used 17 occasions and the Grammarian, Martin also noted and shared idioms used throughout the evening.  

Creative corner by Jenny introduced us to a poet that was creative with his use of language.  ‘The Jabberwockey’ from Alice in Wonderland, was indeed a brave use of langauge and also fun.

The General evaluator praised all the officers but also gave some recommendations for improvement especially on issues of time.

He believed that all toastmasters leave meetings with three things; speaking skills, listening skills and the art of how to run a meeting properly. He advised that each speech can have a simple structure of Beginning, a Middle and an End and that listening is an equally important skill in communication.    And it was evident that evaluators had perfected this skill with their recommendations and praise.

Next Meeting: 13 April 2022