Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Last Meeting of the Year: Yuletide and Fortune Cookies

The year has come to a close and the last meeting of the Club, although attendance was down, the spirit and the entertainment was definitely not.

All the members attending wore colourful hats ranging from cowboy to snow hats to Christmas hats and even Bob the builder ,also known as Geoff Coomb Davis, was present.

A warm welcome was extended to all and to our guest Hennie du Toit, by our President Glenis,who then handed over to the Toastmaster for the evening ,Elaine Stewart Coyne. Elaines theme for the evening was “tune out and tune in”.

This sounds a bit strange but when you think about all the hustle and bustle going on around us at this time of year, we should tune out and not get caught up in the rat race but rather be grateful for what we have and tune in to all our blessings. Elaine has a wonderful, relaxed nature which immediately puts everyone at ease to sit back and enjoy.

The word of the evening presented by Gillian Nutt was Yuletide, which is another word for the Christmas season.

There were two speeches presented and both were from the advanced manuals. The first speaker Louise Solomons, with her speech Words do not come easy to me , spoke as an Afrikaans speaking person trying to learn English, which has many different meanings for the same word. Totally confusing!!!! She was evaluated by Antoinette Baatjes.

The second speaker was Marianah Lourens with her soliloquy “A Selection from Ellen Gunderson Traylors “Esther”.

This was a monologue whereby the speaker was not to make contact with the audience but to rather get across to the audience the feelings that she was experiencing. This is extremely difficult but was handled very ably by Marianah ,who was evaluated by Nicholas Mitchell.

The Table Topics presented by Colleen Love invited the audience to eat a Fortune Cookie and then to give their interpretation of the message inside. This caused much hilarity especially with Quinton, whose message read “ If you want the rainbow you have to tolerate the rain.” This was very apt for our resident weatherman but then he recalled that when he was small his Mom had always told him that if you found the rainbow and crossed over it you would change gender. For most of us this was the first time that we had heard this but the laughter caused by this comment was fantastic.

The Toast presented by Denise Pudney to Family and Friends was very appropriate for this time of year.

The Table Topics Winner was none other than Roger “the Dodger” Ah Kun, who certainly looked very dashing in his red shirt and matching red Christmas hat.

The Top Toastie Award for the evening went to Louise Solomons for her very entertaining 15 minute long speech.

Please remember that the next meeting will be 25th January 2011 at the Caritas Care Centre in West Street.

President Glenis ended the meeting by wishing all a very Blessed Christmas and everything of the best for 2011.

Take care, drive safely and see you all in 2011