The meeting
No theme.
WOD: virtuous
Roger in the chair and six in the room. Seven apologies but five if you discount the District Governor and Immediate Past DG (sorry gents). Evidence of a reasonable level of interest in the club, actually. Hey- this is Toastmasters; the glass is resolutely half-full! Amy as General Evaluator pumped us full of strong recommendations; Barb as Grammarian struggled to make us virtuous while alerting us to ardently alliterate for to illustrate and illuminate our inspirations. Colin kept the time with a cool tech toy that saves on table-top real estate but has brilliant LEDs to keep us on track. As Tony Stark put it so eloquently in Iron Man 2: “I want one”.
Yours Truly left the meeting feeling upbeat! Although I suffered signifcant technical difficulties with my computer, which led to some well-founded recommendations, I felt the meeting had the characteristics I hoped for when mooting the advanced club – particularly incredibly detailed evaluations designed to challenge the speakers.
Venue: We were back where it all started at the Hokowhitu Village Centre. With the intimate numbers we sat around the board table and felt professional.
The Speeches & Evaluations
Astarte gave us “The Stroppy Supervisor”, her speech from the Advanced Manual Interpersonal Communication (#5 - Asserting Yourself Effectively). This involved a presentation, a role play and a discussion. Keren got to role play Astarte’s stroppy supervisor and did it to alarming perfection. Colin rose to the occasion and provided a dense and focused evaluation which noted the commendable but really addressed the recommendable. We were all delighted; we want the advanced club to challenge us to grow and improve. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Keren gave the same consideration to your ‘umble correspondent in evaluation of my speech “Some Important Considerations about the forthcoming referendum on the electoral system”, which was done as the speech from the Advanced Manual “Speaking to Inform” #1: Speaking to Inform. She was strong on the commendation, but rose to new heights on the recommendations and I feel very lucky to have been the recipient of such care.
Table Topics
Keren had a busy night and delivered a themed set of topics around the idea of travelling in time. She asked Yours Truly, for example, what I wouldn’t miss if I travelled back, say, 200 years (my answer: the hurried pace of modern life). As chair, I provided Keren with one that occurred to me on the theme, to round up a very successful session, which was then evaluated by Amy & Astarte, both attired serendipitously in black and red, giving us a double act. Again, we were treated to some thoughtful CRC.
News:
Next Meeting: 18 January 2012
Venue: Hokowhitu Village Centre
Albert Street
Hokowhitu
We’ve decided to settle on the Hokowhitu Village Centre for the foreseeable.
Your investment: $10 commitment fee and $5 per meeting until we charter. (Hmmm…“your investment”. Sounds like I’m selling insurance. But I can’t think of a better way to say it.) We’ve had a rethink about the joining criteria. Until now we’ve been saying that you had to have completed your Competent Communicator Award and have served as a club officer in order to be eligible to join. We decided that we really didn’t want anybody running off and telling Mummy we were being mean, so we’ve decided to drop that thing about being a club officer. In retrospect it isn’t necessary.
New joining criterion: Completion of your Competent Communicator Award.
That’s all. How hard is that? What, pray tell, are you waiting for? Time to face your passion – the Advanced Club is waiting for YOU.