26 October 2010 – Names, superheroes and Bruce Lee’s nail polish

The Toastmaster-for-the-evening was the quick witted Michael Warren who stepped into the role at short notice.

He entertained the Club with the remarkable history of personal names and revealed the origins of many members' names.

The Table Topics Master for the night was Colleen Love who borrowed the format from regular guest and recent Speechcraft graduate, Jason Schoeman. Participants were asked to draw a name of a superhero and an object to use as a weapon.

Nicholas Mitchell was a Powderpuff Girl who strangled his enemies with a pair of jeans; giving new meaning to the term: "crimes of denim".

Thomas Duthie gave his Incredible Hulk a Bronx-accent and armed the green beast with a cake of soap.

Toastmaster Michael Warren made a turn as the Karate Kid who found he could do more damage wielding a handbag.

There were two prepared speakers for the evening: Reinhardt Botha and Craig Stephenson.

Reinhardt gave his audience a different perspective on the whipping
boy of the Internet Age: mobile phone usage in schools. He argued that instead of educators dismissing their use as in irritant, mobile social media should be embraced as the next generation of educational technology.

Craig Stephenson delivered his third instalment in a speaking series on travel planning.

Nicholas Mitchell presented an educational on evaluating prepared speeches. He offered essential advice on how evaluators can provide a critical analysis of a speech while still buoying a speaker's self-confidence.

Chenielle Badenhorst delivered the Toast of the Day and toasted to the creative entrepreneurship needed to solve South Africa's chronic unemployment problem.

Last week's Top Toastie recipient Jason Schoeman awarded the floating trophy to Marianah Lourens for the support and advice she has imparted to him. It was a one two punch for Marianah who also picked up the Best Table Topics trophy for her turn as a nail polish wielding Bruce Lee.

The next meeting is on Tuesday, 9 November.

Ray Bradbury’s vuvuzela, metaphor cake and inner peace (another meeting of the Algoa Toastmasters Club)

This past Tuesday's meeting was the first one for October and had the supreme, and serial, evaluator Nicholas Mitchell in the driver's seat as Toastmaster-for-the-evening.

Our guests were first-timers Barry Serfentein and Mike Wolf and repeaters: Jason Schoeman and Wendy Davis. Jason has been a frequent visitor to our meetings. He comes to us by way of Colleen Love and Gillian Nutt's current Speechcraft programme.

Table Topics Master was Craig Stephenson who started off a round-robin story by reading the opening paragraphs of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Each participant had to build on the story from where their predecessor left off. Most were able to emulate Bradbury's distinctive metaphorical style - that is until Distinguished Toastmaster Tom Horne snuck a vuvuzela into the plot.

Elaine Stewart-Coyne won Table Topics. The runner-up was Jason Schoeman.

The prepared speeches kicked off with an "icebreaker" speech presented by recently inducted Angie Kivido. Her speech was titled: "Snapshots of a work in progress". Her audience learnt that Angie is quite the hustling Dominoes player and that she has scaled Africa's loftiest peak: Mount Kilimanjaro.

The second speech was delivered by Mimi Makupula. The goal of her CC4 speech was to use rhetorical devices. Mimi used the ingredient of a cake (eggs, flour, "bicarb") as a metaphor to the same effect as: "when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade."

The final speech was the first advanced speech by Gillian Nutt. Gillian is a health practitioner and she introduced her audience to a concept widely accepted in Eastern medicine, but little understood in the West: the human body's innate energy system.

The Toast-of-the-Day was presented by Placxedes Ndhlovu. She toasted inner peace.

The winner of the Top Toastie floating-trophy at the last meeting, Debbie Stephenson, awarded it to Jason for his enthusiastic participation in meetings, although at this point he is still a visitor to the Club.

The next meeting is Tuesday, 26 October