Meeting 5th May 2015

This week we had the honour of a visit from next year's Area Governor, Sam Warner.  The SArea Governor visits each club in the Area twice a year to see how they are doing and to share ideas.  We had some great feedback but unfortunately Sam couldn't stay for our gathering in the bar as she had come all the way from Telford!

Our Toastmaster for the evening was Tanya who kept the meeting running like clockwork but also linked all the parts in a natural and confident way.  This is a difficult role as you are, effectively, on duty for the whole evening so Well done Tanya on a great performance in a role she has had only a little experience in.

James was grammarian and gave us the word "Rhapsodic" which was used a few times and was a new word for some members.  The Word Of The Day is a good way to try to gradually improve our vocabulary whilst adding the challenge of trying to fit it in during the night.
James gave a very thorough evaluation which is difficult in the very limited time a Grammarian has.  It is a great role for improving listening and summarising skills.

It was Alison's first time as Timekeeper but you would never know as she introduced the importance of the role and carried it out extremely competently.

Our first speaker was Shaun who gave his Icebreaker speech called "Self Actualisation".  A very confident and fluent performance without any reference to notes and a speech which gave us a good insight into how Shaun has got to this point in his life and were he seems himself heading.

Charles evaluated Shaun and is another fairly new member.  It was good to see Charles pick up on good points, including use of space and vocal variety, and also give some recommendations.  He did not fall into the trap of simply repeating the speech which is easy to do on your early evaluations.

The second speaker was Annabelle who is on speech eight.  The aim was to use Visual Aids which Annabelle did comfortably using a PowerPoint presentation to ask "What your handwriting says about you".  A very interesting and well researched topic which gave us some great insight into the subject of handwriting analysis.

Linda evaluated Annabelle in her usual fluent way.  Linda is a very experienced and skilled all round Toastmaster and always gives supportive and constructive feedback.

The last speech was from Mish called "A simple Act of Kindness"  This was Mish's tenth, and last, speech from the Competent Communicator manual and was aiming to inspire the audience.  At eight to ten minutes it is quite a challenge to find enough material to fill the time and Mish managed to get to nine and a half minutes and not get gaspy.  Both of these were personal goals.

Another very mature evaluation from Sanat on Mish's speech with very supportive positive comments and well  observed points for improvement.

We have a few very experienced Toastmasters in the group who have excellent speaking, evaluating and hosting skills.  This is a vital part of the group as it is the best way for new and developing members to learn.  Seeing well delivered speaking and evaluating is a great way to learn by example and improve your own skills.

We also have a fair few new or newish members who have all come along with their own skills and styles, some already working at a high level, and we can learn equally from these people.  As Sanat would say...
We learn a lot from each other by Osmosis... (Sorry Tanya, I know you hate that expression)

Dave was our Table Topic Master, another of our longer standing members, and this showed with the ease with which he led the session.  He chose some challenging topics, which is a great things as long as it is not every meeting, and the responses were hilarious.  Dave linked the topics easily and confidently.

Topics:  Our hidden talents
Sanat  was Brtain's first ever Male Avon Lady but blamed his wife's love for free make-up samples
Sam, our guest, had a hobby of  writing letters of complaint and classed herself as Queen of Complaining!
James was a secret Hell's Angel which he said was the dream of every boy and also some girls' but he did remind us of the danger.
Ben, our other guest, had a secret love of Playing Dead and explained how it was useful for quieting his kids down so he could get some peace.
Linda loved Bonsai.  Now Linda really does have a 38 year old inherited bonsai and gave use a lovely description of how she cares for it.  Although it sounds like really hard work...
Louisa had apparently spent 6 months in Borneo living with Gorillas and gave us an animated description of her inner Gorilla and how she blended in by becoming one of them.  I AM a Gorilla!
Marc was a secret train spotter.  A hilarious speech where he thanked Dave, the host, for introducing him to the hobby and effectively turned the tables on him.
Charles had a secret collective of My Little Pony memorabilia but he confessed that he preferred Thomas The Tank Engine because it was less sexist.  He can name ALL of the trains.

Louisa was our Topic Evaluator and is again an accomplished evaluator.  She did have to hurry at the end as she only had three minutes and it has been suggested that we need at least thirty seconds per topic so with eight topics she could have had an extended time limit.  Something we will probably discuss at the next meeting.

As acting Area Governor Sam did the General Evaluation and picked up some great points and gave feedback to everyone who had not yet been evaluated.  She also gave feedback as Area Governor and it was interesting to hear some of the things our club does that were new to her and to hear ideas of what other clubs do differently.
It is important to have these discussions to make sure that meetings don't get stale and also recognise what we do well to enable us to keep the evenings fun and worth attending.

Awards:
Best Table Topic - Sam
Best Evaluator     - Sanat
Best Speaker        - Mish