Valentine’s Day, American Presidency and Contests

 

7^th February 2024 

Our club President Kathy opens the meeting, welcoming members and new guests, and making a few announcements about the oncoming contest and the Area Division.

The Toastmaster for the evening was Frances who introduced the various officers to give a brief explanation of their roles, as well as the speakers with their prepared speeches.

Brian held a entertaining and interesting topics session asking the following questions:

1.    If I(Brian) was running for the American Presidency, would you vote for me or for Trump and why?

2.    Do you think Valentine’s Day is overrated or is it a wonderful chance to express love?

3.    What do you think makes someone successful in life?

4.    How do you treat yourself?

There were many add-ons which illustrated a great interest in the topics. Brian won the vote by a small margin.

The Grammarian was Stephen who gave the word of the day: Superfluous, meaning unnecessary, especially through being more than enough.

Ali did a great job as Timekeeper, keeping track of the allotted time for each speaker using the “traffic light” system.

The Ah-Counter Paul noted that there were quite a few filter words used throughout the meeting.

The first speech was given by Pat Ryan as his ice breaker speech entitled “Does the world need philosophers?”. It was a very interesting speech with a good history on philosophy and how it came about. One phrase he uses that stood out was “the Earth is only a speck in the vast expanse of the Universe”.

Our next speaker Eanna also gave his ice breaker which was called “The Domino Effect”. It was a very moving speech with Eanna describing how living with cerebral palsy had impacted his life. While he says that his disability has brought many life challenges, it has also made him very empathic and compassionate to others and given him the ability and patience to do things differently.

Our final speaker was Mona who stepped in at the last minute to give a very lively speech entitled “Yoga on and off the mat”. She reveals that she is a yoga instructor and that anyone can do yoga if they make a commitment to consistently show up to improve and get better. It’s about enjoying the journey to obtaining that goal.

Each of the evaluators gave their evaluations, praising each of the speakers for their wonderful speeches, and gave feedback on what they can improve on.

The Creative Corner was given by Kathy with a fun and challenging game called the “Gibberish Dictionary”. This is where someone had to make up a word on the spot and then tell everyone exactly what the word means like they knew what they were talking about.

The roles were filled for the contest on 21^st February and the regular meeting in two weeks. Jenny, our Area Division Manager, praised the club committee for their hard work in keeping the Galway Club running as well as it does.