Tonight’s Club meeting was all about achievements and top drawer speeches. It was also peppered with some life-affirming insights, courtesy of our Toastmaster for the evening, Colleen Love.
Toastmasters Area E1 Governor Yvonne Anderson was our guest tonight. She announced that our Club’s President Marlene Van Wyk will succeed her as Area Governor. Yvonne also presented Marlene and Michael Warren with their certificates for their recent achievements in both the Area and Divisional Speech Contests.
The biggest cache of certificates was for Nicholas Mitchell, but he was not on hand to receive them. Today he drove up to Gauteng to compete in the speech contests at Ladumacon 2010 later in the week.
Tonight Marlene delivered an entertaining but sobering speech about retirement titled: “Can you AFFORD to live longer?” Quinton Jacobs regaled us with another story from his adventurous summer sojourn to Antarctica called: “Hotel Valeskarvet”. It is in fact the base for the South African National Antarctica Expedition (SANAE IV). Don’t expect 24-hour room service and a mint on your pillow at this “hotel”
Thomas Duthie was voted the winner of Table Topics for his turn as a lippy Dane who while trying to pitch the Kingdom of Denmark as the best host country for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Tournament launched into a tirade against current FIFA President Sepp Blatter.
Many participants in the World Cup-themed Table Topics tried on some accents. Thomas channelled a Viking ancestor to great effect while Alison Immelman (fronting Australia’s bid for the 2018 World Cup) started out with an Aussie twang but switched to a hammy Canadian brogue halfway through her pitch.
But Marianah Lourens was the biggest achiever tonight. She picked up the Top Toastie floating trophy for her contributions to the Club’s success this year. In delivering her tenth speech tonight Marianah fulfilled the requirements of her Competent Communicator Award (one point for our Club). And in a few weeks time she achieve her Competent Leader Award (that will be another point for our Club). Marianah is single-handily responsible for 20% of our Club’s point for this Toastmasters year.
Congratulations Marianah!
