“bafflegab”

“bafflegab” a noun meaning confusing or generally unintelligible jargon; gobbledegook. This was the word of the day for our 4 June meeting chaired by virtual host Dale.

Darrell was Table Topics Master for the meeting and he customised each topic to the speaker which was a nice touch for a change. Dale had to say why she felt part of the Levin community after five years, Megan described how green her thumbs are, Angela had to explain what she is going to do with all her free time post Presidency, Katina discussed what she misses about her European youth, Kathy listed the social apps she is using while working online, Dirk told us about scary and sweet moments with his new baby, Dieter explained how his sales pitch went after his Toastmasters meeting practice recently, Janine told us where she would most want to go back to overseas, and Jocelyn said that a teacher’s lot varies from week to week or day to day, depending!

Table Topics Evaluator Dieter said that having a unique personalised topic for each speaker was very thoughtful but didn’t give us a chance to “bafflegab” too much. Dieter gave his opinion on how each speaker tackled the topic and gave a solid recommendation for everyone.

Speech 1 by Katina, evaluated by Jocelyn began with “Can you remember the moment when you realised you could read?” The “bafflegab” turned into meaning and a whole new world opened up to her when she realised she could read. She then traced the history of writing and reading from ancient times. Finally she implored us to spend time teaching children to read and write. Evaluator Jocelyn said this speech was right up her alley as she loves books and stories draw people in. It caused her to reflect on when she learnt to read.

Speech 2 by Janine, evaluated by Kathy was called “Stories and Dreams”. Janine is taking a break this year to “faff around” in her words, and research her family history, and has discovered she comes from strong quirky women where two lived to be over 100 years old. They all dreamed and had many stories to tell. Evaluator Kathy said “Wow, didn’t we hear some stories and dreams from Janine”. She absolutely loved the speech, the content was brilliant, used versatile language and the way the story was told. She wanted to hear a bit more vocal variety, speed differences with pauses to give the audience time to think.

Speech 3 by Angela, evaluated by Dirk was “An old fashioned rant” with spontaneous interruptions from the crowd. Angela opened with “Everyone knows Hugh Grant eh! He keeps a gratitude list. Well, I keep a hate list”, and she proceeded to tell us her top three hates:
No 1 on my hate list – electric scooters
No 2 on my hate list – new snapper cards
No 3 on my hate list – Temu purchases
Angela also had to deal with interjections and interruptions during her speech.

Evaluator Dirk loved the Hugh Grant introduction then moved into her 3 point rant list which he thought were great examples. The interruptions were handled well and it was very entertaining.

We also welcomed our Area Director Roger Hynd who gave us a few comments on his visit to our club.

If you are interested in finding out how Toastmasters works, and want to join the fun at our twice-monthly meeting, then contact us on spinnaker@toastmasters.org.nz for more information. We’d love to hear from you.