With 2026
now in full swing Galway Toastmasters met for their open night. This event gave
guests the chance to attend a meeting for free to see what a typical meeting is
like. Members and especially guests were warmly welcomed by our Club President
Warren. He handed over to our very experienced Toastmaster for the evening
Frances to run the first half of the meeting. She introduced the officers for
the meeting who each gave a short description of their role.
Ian was our
Ah-Counter, Helen our Timekeeper and Connie our Grammarian. She introduced our
word for the evening – Perplexed. Speakers were encouraged to use the word
throughout the meeting whenever it could be appropriately included. We then had
two members who were each double jobbing due to illness visiting two of our
other members. Martin had the role of Scribe, who puts together the notes on
the meeting for inclusion on our blog and also the role of General Evaluator
who hosts the second half of the meeting and also evaluates the speech
evaluators and the overall meeting. The final officer was Christoffer who held
the role of Creative Corner which literally allows the member to present
something short and entertaining near the end of the meeting e.g a short poem
or story or even a dance! He also held the role of Topicsmaster which is where
members practice their impromptu speaking.
He departed slightly from the traditional questions and answers by
asking each member called upon to pick a number and he then asked them an
associated question.
The Topics
session included responses on:
The pros
and cons of setting up a nuclear power plant in Galway;
Fighting
off Vikings with a pasta spoon;
What you
would place in a picture frame;
Whether the
pen really is mightier than the sword and
How you
would become rich quick.
There were
a number of very good responses including from guests, which is a sign of how
accessible the topics were. No one was perplexed in the least.
Following
the Topics we had three wonderful prepared speeches. The first by Spencer, who
is a relatively recent member, was called “The Contracting Life Cycle” relating
to his experiences. The second by Michael was entitled “Don’t let the old man
in” and dealt with keeping ourselves young while Pat’s speech called
Toastmasters Time related time through the ages. These were three very
different speeches by members at different levels of experience. This was a
wonderful example for guests at our open night as it highlighted what members
can achieve with the support of the club.
After our
break Martin took over the meeting hosting duties as General Evaluator. He
introduced the Speech Evaluators Warren, Ali and Bea who each evaluated one of
the three speeches we heard before the break. All provided positive feedback while
also suggesting potential areas for the speaker to challenge themselves.
Next Ian
and Connie provided their reports on the Ah-counter and Grammarian roles respectively.
This was followed by a wonderful Creative Corner hosted by Christoffer who was
determined not to lower the high standard he had set with his Topics session. With
the help of three volunteers he created a story of a princess and a dragon. One
of our guests volunteered to take part in the Creative Corner which was wonderful
to see.
Our General
Evaluator, Martin then gave his feedback both on the Speech Evaluators, the
officers for the meeting and the overall meeting. He highlighted all the effort
the evaluators had put into their evaluations. He complimented all the officers
on their role introductions which are very helpful to guests and new members in
particular as they may not be familiar with the role of the Ah-counter for
example. He recommended that the club look at the layout of seats at the meeting
to make the best use of space. He then asked for volunteers to help fill the agenda
for the next meeting on 04 February 2026. Finally, he handed back to the
President Warren who closed the meeting.
Overall it was a wonderful Open Night ad showcased what our club has to offer.
We look forward to welcoming our new
members into the club over the coming weeks.
Dragon image Easy-Peasy Ai (https://easy-peasy.ai/ai-image-generator/images/friendly-dragon-clipart-cheerful-design)
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