A tribute to Dolly Parton

Spinnaker’s 1 September 2026 meeting was chaired by Katina, with two guests, and several members online.

Grammarian Ron’s word of the day was “vicious” which had both positive and negative meanings and he explained a few of them. Several speakers managed to blend the word into their speeches during the night.

Dale ran Table Topics, with the theme “A Tribute to Dolly Parton”. In her introduction Dale said that “Dolly Parton described her upbringing as “dirt poor”. She began singing in a church at the age of six, learnt the guitar at age 8, and began performing at age 10. She said she had written over 3000 songs. She has appeared in movies and musicals, radio and television shows, and there’s even a theme park called Dollywood. She was a philanthropist and business woman She said, “it takes a lot of money to look this cheap” when asked about cosmetic surgery. Dolly’s Wikipedia entry is 59 printed pages long and would take a couple of hours to read. Dolly Parton had an estimated net worth of $450 million at the time of her passing in August 2026, and had given away over $600 million to charity during her lifetime. Tonight, we are paying tribute to Dolly Parton. I have chosen some of her solo studio album titles for you to talk about.”

Speech 1 by Rach was titled “How to be cool”. Rach’s points were that it is very cool to stand up for the underdog, you must be present even when you are knackered, and it is extremely cool to wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle. In his evaluation Dirk said that he thought Rach was going to kill off Grant, he loved the built up suspense and twist at the end. Rach is a master storyteller indeed. Rach received the Speaker of the Night award.

Speech 2 by Katina was an introduction to her DTM Project. Katina is embarking on this project as the pinnacle achievement in her Toastmasters educational journey as the Distinguished Toastmaster award represents the culmination of years of work. Katina said she wanted her project to do something useful for Toastmasters, and that she was going to be developing a series of workshops on Evaluation, and delivering them around the Wellington Division clubs as a travelling workshop. She was going to use the “sticky learning” methodology, and was seeking permission from Spinnaker club to be the very first club to enjoy her workshop and provide feedback. Evaluator Dale said this was an excellent idea and was looking forward to the details so Spinnaker can support Katina in her journey to the DTM award.

Memory Master Rory used Snicker bars for the correct answers to his Dolly Parton memory questions.

Timekeeper Greg reported on everyone’s speech timings, and only got to ring the bell once!

Roman and Jinny (online) shared the General Evaluation segment, splitting the evaluation 4-each. First Roman said that Katina had brought the meeting together nicely, and even started three minutes early and finished right on time. Ron handled the last minute change to Grammarian nicely as Jacqui was busy visiting other clubs. Dale had obviously done a lot of research for her Table Topics and Ash’s table topics evaluation was enthusiastic and supportive.

Jinny then took over and said that it was great to have Dirk back in the game after a break, she loved how Dale had invited everyone to offer their feedback to Katina’s project speech after giving her own feedback. Rory’s memory master segment was thoughtful and she would have loved to get a virtual Snickers for a correct answer. Finally she reminded Greg to do an introduction of his timekeepers role at the beginning of the meeting so everyone knows what it’s about.

If you would enjoy an evening of learning and enjoyment, please contact us at spinnaker@toastmasters.org.nz and arrange to come to our next meeting on 15 September at 7.30 pm. We’d love to welcome you to our club.