Courage - 23 April

In the absence of the “official” blogger – you are going to get the ramblings of the “technical assistant”. Well not exactly ramblings – since you know that IT people are logical, direct and to the point- and so there will be an adjective-less, succinct blog – with clinical details of the evenings proceedings!

As usual – the meeting started on time. The President – who then morphed into the Toastmaster – warmly welcomed all – including a large – okay 8 – contingent of visitors.

The Table Topics was an attempt by Deborah Stephenson – with the assistance of Wilbur Smith - to get us to develop a truly warm, rural, African bush story. All was going well until Tom took to the floor – and the story was hijacked by an urgent WhatsApp message on a cell phone and a quad bike excursion to a party down the road!! This side-lining of the story won Tom the Impromptu speaking award.

The formal speeches once again covered many things – not quite “of shoes and ships and sealing wax – of cabbages and kings” Midlife – by Barbara de Scande (CC4) to a truly motivating Secret of Success from Gideon Smith (CC3), to an excruciating overview of Dental Pain from Mike Brosnahan(CC4) and finally a plea from Glenis Whitehead with Tots and Technology(CC9) to balance exposure of children to IT with a nostalgic look at what is truly remembered from childhood. So besides being entertaining – the speeches provided food for thought.

but moved from a hilarious overview of

With the Toast to Seasons – Ana Heydenrych toasted both the wonder we experience with the change of seasons as we transition from Summer into Autumn but also the transitions through the stages of our lives. This was so apt as Ana moves towards her role as mother.

As Top Toastie last week – Barbara awarded the Top Toastie this week to Reinhardt Botha for the enjoyable, encouraging evaluation (do I detect an alliteration?)

Our warmest congratulations to Marianah Lourens for coming 2nd in the International English Competition and Jessamy Kromhout for coming 3rd in the Evaluation Competition in East London this last week-end.

So where does courage come in? – You may ask! It was the theme for the evening – and as we know public speaking takes courage !!!

Yours in the interim

Belita