“Mansplaining”

Spinnaker’s 19 March 2024 meeting was chaired by Dale who was online. The theme of the meeting was “International Women’s Day 2024”, and Grammarian Kathy came up with “mansplaining” as her word of the day which means where a man tries to explain something to a woman as if they know nothing and is condescending about it. This caught everyone’s attention and the word was used several times by speakers.

Angela as Table Topics Master challenged her speakers with topics such as “painted nails on males”, “who would be brave enough to disobey Dale?”, “what does International Women’s Day mean to you”, and “your favourite female superhero”.

Speaker 1 was Megan introduced by Ron, an inspirational speech entitled “Life is like a …”. Megan explained that life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get! But life is like the journey of a garden, or maybe its the journey of a garden that’s like the journey of life. She has been working on her garden and made some observations which match life.
1 – ask for advice, receive and listen to it – seasoned gardeners love giving advice;
2 – there will always be factors out of your control – look at what your garden has to put up with, what’s important is how you react to these situations;
3 – you need to accept that you’re going to fail – but you will also have lots of wins, learnt to focus on the wins.

Evaluator Ron said he thought it was an excellent speech about gardens and life. Megan used hand gestures well and her structure was exceptional. Ron’s challenge was to move about away from the lectern and avoid the notes.

Speaker 2 was Gary, introduced by Jacqui. This was a Level 3 elective, from the Visionary Communication Path entitled “My name is …”. Gary said “Preparation, Conversation, Light bulbs”.
Preparation – opportunity to talk to strangers about Toastmasters
Conversation – building the speech on a topic that audience can relate to, try and cover the big 3, speak clearly, have some humour and don’t have too many facts
Light bulbs – have light bulb moments.

Evaluator Jacqui said “here was a man explaining Toastmasters – did we feel mansplained? No we didn’t!” He had brilliant structure, teasing the audience and keeping us engaged!

Speech 3 by Jocelyn, introduced by Mike, from the Engaging Humour Path – Why we should praise teenage boys!” Jocelyn drew on her years of teaching teenage boys – what does that make you think of? “I am prejudiced in favour of teenage boys” Jocelyn said. She then told us 3 stories about her interactions with teenage boys.

Evaluator Mike said Jocelyn gave a great speech in praise of teenage boys, using large hand gestures, good use of stage presence, little use of notes, and plenty of vocal variety.

Speech 4 by Darrell, introduced by Katina, was Using Descriptive Language – “Politics, religion, divine retribution” – a contest speech practice run for the humorous contest.

Evaluator Katina loved the speech because it had a clear structure, was a good story and was easy to listen to. She said the story was compelling with the idea “can it get any worse?”.

Finally as Dale wrapped up the meeting, she said it was a pleasure to be the virtual host for the evening.

If you want to learn how to prepare and deliver a speech, whether it be in front of your fellow club members, at a conference, or at a contest, then come along to Spinnaker Toastmasters and find out how it’s done. We welcome guests every meeting who can join in or just sit and observe. Contact us on spinnaker@toastmasters.org.nz to let us know you’re coming. We’d love to welcome you.