Chairperson Gary opened 18 June 2024 the meeting with the theme of “electricity” and he peppered the meeting with various facts about electricity.
We welcomed three guests who came as a result of seeing our booth at the Love Local Porirua Expo last week.
Grammarian Katina’s word of the day was “effervescent” which means giving off bubbles, fizzy, vivacious, energetic.
Table Topics run by Megan had the theme of nostalgia – things that happened in our childhood.
Dale – best friends from high school – a group of 10 friends that still get together today
Angela – visiting grandparents in Taumarunui as child and being sick all the way
Kathy – hobbies or things done after school – learnt the piano from the age of 5, and has started playing again now
Ben – a gift received as a child was a basketball hoop
Ho’o – introduced herself as being from Utah but is actually of Hawaiian and Samoan descent
Jason – introduced himself as being born and raised in Porirua, came along from Love Local Porirua contact
Jacqui – after school hobbies included reading, swimming and horse riding
Darrell – gifts received as a child from his dad who brought them back from the US
Katina – visiting grandparents in Germany as a child included learning to ride horses and receiving treats from them
Table Topics Evaluator Jocelyn thought we need to do more storytelling, it is fun and you learn more about people.
Speech 1 by Dieter, introduced by Angela, was a Level 1 Presentation Mastery project titled “Through thick and thin”, an introduction to body language and vocal variety. Back in 2016 he was in a dark place, working 6 days a week, stressed out from work. Then he decided to take control and joined a gym. It was a radical life change with cross-fit.
Evaluator Angela loved the speech and thought it had so much potential as a humorous speech contest with adding a little more effervescence to it such as more vocal variety and some dramatic acting.
Speech 2 by Ron, introduced by Kathy, was a humorous speech from the Engaging Humour path “Know your sense of humour”. Some ideas for the use of humour in a speech were to use “yes and …” to make our speeches more spontaneous and lighten them up a bit. Humour helps make our speeches memorable and relatable with a wow factor. We can use stories and personal anecdotes, clever use of language to describe things and make our speeches funny. Jokes and quotes should be relevant to your audience and to the message and to build a rapport with your audience.
Evaluator Kathy said that the funny stories woven through the speech were great. Kathy thought there were some very informative tips for preparing a humorous speech.
Speech 3 by Dirk, introduced by Darrell, was a level 1 Presentation Mastery speech titled “Robotic Process Automation”. Dirk should have begun: “Have you ever had a really boring job where you just do repetitive tasks all the time? Well have I got the solution for you!” He said that some examples are legacy IT systems in government which can be automated, such as data transfer, new recruit onboarding in IT and HR systems. Advantages are that it frees up people’s time to do something more high value, it’s really cool and he loves it.
Darrell evaluating Dirk said he attempted to explain technical topics in a simple manner but he needed to do more work on it to demystify things for the audience.
Best speaker was Dieter and Best Evaluator was Jocelyn, with the Best Table Topic Speaker being Angela.
If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog, and want to know more about Toastmasters, contact us on spinnaker@toastmasters.org.nz and give us your details. We’d love to welcome you to our next meeting.
Spinnaker Toastmasters Club, Plimmerton, Porirua, New Zealand 