A chockaholic meeting

Chaired by Angela, with her two new hips, it was a most enjoyable meeting on Tuesday 19 May 2026 with 8 in attendance plus one guest, plus three online.

Angela’s theme of “chocolate” tonight was very tasty as she regaled us with fun facts about chocolate and how it is made.

Grammarian Rory’s word of the day was “bittersweet” because he likes dark chocolate! It means an experience or memory that is both memorable and regretful at the same time. In his report Rory said that Quentin took the cake with mentioning the word of the day four times.

Table Topics by Megan followed the meeting theme of “chocolate” and cakes.

Dale described her raspberry steamed pudding jam cake with vanilla ice cream and custard which is a family favourite.

Sandie loves cake and everything sugary and remembers making a cake for her brother’s birthday, an orange cake for his 40th birthday, but he didn’t like it.

Kamilla told us about a cake she recently made for a 40th birthday, a carrot cake. She found a fabulous recipe online which she made and decorated, so she had to make another one which she took to work. It has become so popular she gets asked for it all the time.

Rory also told us about yet another 40th birthday celebration at a Chinese restaurant, and they brought out the birthday cake which was a funky table tennis themed cake which was sweet and light, but the ping pong paddle and ball were not edible!

Sonya said her earliest cake memories was with her grandparents and the Christmas steamed pudding full of money. She also mentioned other cakes she has encountered, including a gluten free Alice in Wonderland cake.

Chetna’s story about a “chess” cake was interesting as it was a black and white cake with chess pieces.

Angela’s story about a cake was from years ago an awesome enormous chocolate and pink cake for her son’s birthday and how he just wanted to “dive in”.

Quentin’s cake story started by asking who’s been to France, particularly Versailles, where was visiting, and the cafe didn’t have any cake so he had to eat chocolate mousse instead!

Jinny shares her birthday with her little sister and didn’t get the cake she wanted.

In his Table Topics evaluation Ron commended Megan as table topics master with her theme by holding up a cookery book to remind us it was to be about cakes, and how each speaker managed to talk about a personal experience with cakes. Best Table Topics speaker was Rory.

Jinny’s speech, introduced by Quentin, was a Level 2 project “Understanding your communication style”, called “Five stages of grief”.

When Jinny started, she sat on a stool and had her tablet with notes on her knee. She told us about her journey in the evaluation contest and how she competed in the District 72 finals of the Evaluation Speech Contest. She described her tortuous trip down to Timaru. She finally arrived on stage to deliver her evaluation but couldn’t think of any recommendations at first. But she completed her evaluation, and was feeling good at her performance. However, she was unplaced, and then the five stages of grief kicked in. I thought Quentin’s evaluation could have started at the point that Jinny started with the Five Stages of Grief and just focussed on that aspect.

Sandie and Kamilla’s memory master duo focussed on some of aspects of each speaker’s talk, and Sandie threw the chocolates, then they swapped roles.

If you want to find out how Toastmasters works, then come along to Spinnaker Toastmasters Club and enjoy an evening of fun, laughter and learning. Just contact us on spinnaker@toastmasters.org.nz and we’ll get back to you.