What a difference a few months make when one looks at how amply we are beginning to inhabit Caritas on the odd Tuesday evening. Hard to slide yourself under the door at 17:44 anymore – patrons at ‘the bistro’ will notice!
The meeting on 22nd March started at 17:55 due to a few technical issues and late arrivals. There were 20 members and a bumper harvest of 6 guests! Apologies were sent by Alison Immelman, Colleen Love, Joan van Aswegen and our trusty weatherman Quinton Jacobs is still away on ‘ice safari’.
Club President, Glenis Whitehead, took care of the business section and Placxedes Ndhlovu politely reminded members to pay their dues. Tom spoke about the Youth and Leadership programmes, graduations at Lawsonville, Collegiate and Westering and the high standard achieved all round.
Louise Solomons had the happy task of awarding our distinguished IT professor, Reinhardt Botha, his pin to acknowledge that he has completed 5 speeches from the Competent Communication Manual. Congratulations, Reinhardt! The meeting was then handed over to our Toastmaster for the evening, Elaine Stewart-Coyne.
Elaine’s theme for the evening was Team Spirit. After her introduction of the members who would be helping her for the evening, Leann Roos ‘opened the batting’ for Table Topics – “The Truth Behind Funny One-liners”, plus her word of the day ‘ZEST’.
It was a full programme with 5 speakers ranging from CC4 through to AC3. Chenielle Jefferies Badenhorst took the club on a virtual verbal tour of Venice at Carnival Time (CC4 & evaluated by Alan Hunter) followed by Reinhardt Botha’s thought-provoking speech on ‘Learning to Learn’ (CC6 & evaluated by Antoinette Baatjes). Mimi Makupula (CC8 & evaluated by Louise Solomons) shared her thoughts on ‘Quitting Gracefully’. Craig Stephenson (CC10 & evaluated by Denise Pudney) rounded off his accomplishments in completing his Competent Communicator Manual by giving us another perspective on the ‘Big, Bad World’. Congratulations Craig!
Backache!! Something we have all experienced to differing degrees. Gillian Nutt (AC3 & evaluated by Marianah Lourens), conducted a professional talk and demonstration on ‘The Development of the Backache’.
With the disasters in Japan still so fresh in our minds Rhona Murchie proposed a toast to ‘Rescuers and Caregivers’. With the meeting drawing closer to its conclusion, General Evaluator, Ricky Woods, gave a very positive summation of the evening’s speakers and officers.
A few statistics from the evening:-
• Word of the day (ZEST) was used 14 times
• Best Table Topic. Despite the club’s proposed banning to exile, Michael Warren still managed to outsmart us, deliver an excellent retort and retain the ‘Michael Warren Best Table Topic’ (MWBTT) award. I am preparing a motion that at the next meeting we consider detention without trial.
• Top Toastie Award went to Marianah Lourens for outstanding disaster management. Not only did she rescue our President, Tom and Reinhardt from the rubble of a collapsed table, she also replaced the glass of red wine!
The meeting closed at 20:10.
CHENIELLE JEFFERIES-BADENHORST
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