The 2010 Algoa Toatmasters Humorous Speech Contest

On Tuesday, 10 August, the Algoa Toastmasters Club held its annual Humorous Speech Contest. It was a cold night and the Club's home, the Westview Sporthall had as much cheer as a Siberian gulag on Christmas morning, but as the eight competing speakers took the floor, the air started to heat up with laughter.

First out of the stalls was educator Rhona Murchie who implored her audience to abandon soap – soap operas that is. Apparently the hyper-real characters of the soapy-verse are making day trips into our reality through the idle minds of hairdressers and impressionable tweens and causing havoc. So protect your minds people. When you hear the following: Like sands through the hourglass – dive for that remote control. Your very sanity is at stake!

Mimi Makapula mined her own extraordinary life for laughs. She took her audience on a trip down memory lane. While there is apparently a limit to how many times you can fold a piece of paper (seven – this writer looked it up), a young Mimi learnt on the school playground that there is no limit to how many times you can divide a cheese and polony sandwich when sufficiently motivated to do so.

Distinguished Toastmaster Tom Horne retired as an engineer eighteen months ago. Since then he has turned his empirical mind to that undiscovered country of womanhood – the kitchen. Tom has learnt to cook. Although to hear Tom describe his boiling of a gammon ham maybe Tom should abandon food preparation and stick to Ford Focuses.

Be-pearled English Department Head, Louise Erasmus, regaled us with an epic journey from her youth - a jaunt across the land that gave the world maple syrup and Celine Dion. Louise unfortunately was joined on her trip across Canada by one Murphy (née Law). Everything that could go wrong did. Louise had to brave an unscrupulous Yellow Cab driver in New York, the French-speaking Québécois, cold showers in Toronto (in November!) and being turned out of a car outside Banff because she was South African (this was 1987 after all). But Canada couldn't bust Louise. She was and still is made of sterner stuff than most. She even survived crossing Canada on a transcontinental Greyhound bus.

Attorney Nicholas Mitchell has three children, with number four currently in development. Nicholas reminisced about the joys and pains of parenthood. The pain must be something. Nicholas sported a grimace like he was passing a kidney stone. From "out-the-mouths-of-babes" moments like his young son offering to buy his father a machine to make him thin, to the daily exercise in futility that is breakfast and getting ready for school, Nicholas is willing to bear it all for the joy that his children bring him.

The Club's newest member Reinhardt Botha professed his official and unofficial job description as a professor of Information Technology. Officially his job is all bytes and binary code. From time to time his students confuse professor with life coach. One day he is dispensing life-changing career advice, the next a female student is sitting opposite him asking whether she should get married or not.

Michael Warren was out to warn us about a nefarious cult – no we're not talking about Scientologists here, but SMPs – "Smug Married People". As a happily single gent Michael will have none of the underhanded tactics employed by the "marrieds" to rework his successful solo act as a duet. Michael is not ready to swallow the matrimonial hook, line and sinker and lose his "I-ness to become a We".

Finally Mark Barry was out to scrutinise the advertising industry. Where once ads were used to remind, inform and persuade consumers, today they're head scratches. What exactly does a boxer dog with porcelain dental veneers have to do with selling Toyotas? Wimpy is now using dancing men in their PJs to sell breakfasts and apparently all you have to do to entertain your kids on the weekend is to take them to KFC. Barry surmised that advertising has just become a new form of entertainment.

After the scores were tallied, Nicholas was announced as the winner. Michael came a very close second and Mark rounded out the top three. Nicholas will now go onto to represent the Club at the Area Humorous Speech Competition on Friday 27 August. Congratulations to all the speakers. Special mention must be made of Rhona, Mimi and Reinhardt for holding their noses and just jumping right into this their first speech competition.

Finally thanks must go to the Club's VP of Education, Colleen Love, who single-handily organised the event.

The next Club meeting is 24 August. Watch your inboxes for a programme.

It was a busy night for the Club’s newest member – Reinhardt Botha

This past Tuesday saw Reinhardt Botha inducted as the Club's newest member – but wait, there's more! Reinhardt was awarded the Top Toastie floating trophy by Colleen Love and he picked up the prize for being the best Table Topics impromptu speaker. That is the second time in a row that Reinhardt has taken the Table Topics prize.

Table Topics Master for the evening was Pauline Wilson. The scenario was this: your cruise ship is sinking fast and you can only take one item with you to help you when you "go into the drink".

Reinhardt took knitting needles. He thought it would be a good idea to use them to harpoon dinner and once he and the other survivors made it to deserted shores he could go island boar hunting with these twelve inch acrylic needles of death!

Between bloody hunts he could use the knitting needles for their original purpose. Reinhardt hoped that the sight of a burly gent knitting socks on the beach might attract the lady survivors looking for a hunter-killer-knitting type to populate the island with.

The three prepared speakers for the evening were Mimi Makupula, Craig Stephenson and Marianah Lourens. Mimi was doing her second speech from the Competent Communicator Manual. Mimi took a lesson from her own life to inspire the audience to use forgiveness to build a bridge from one's past to one's future.

Intrepid traveller Craig was out to dispel the myth that travel to exotic lands was only for the young, the rich and the irresponsible, by laying out a plan that could get anyone off their bums and out onto the road and seeing the world.

Marianah did an interpretive reading from an Advanced Communicator Manual. She read from Mitch Albom's For One More Day and utilised her experience as an actress to use gesture, body language, pitch and tone to make the reading come alive for her captive audience.

Our Toastmaster for the evening was Gillian Nutt who kept the meeting well ordered by performing her vital role in a wonderfully understated way.

Our next meeting will be 10 August. The usual format will give way to allow for our Club's humorous speech contest. Prepare yourself for some side splitting fun! Watch this blog and your email inboxes for details.

 

The World Cup is over, but the new Toastmasters year has just begun!

Tuesday’s meeting was our first for the new Toastmasters year. Toastmaster for the evening was Elaine Stewart-Coyne who seized on this fact to offer pointers on how members could reignite their passion for the Toastmasters experience.

Some of Elaine’s suggestions included mentoring new members and participating in Toastmasters conferences like the Mexicon coming up in October. Another was for long-term members to redo a speaking manual, which is exactly what Ricky Woods has done.

Ricky, a Distinguished Toastmaster and a member for 14 years, went all the way back to the beginning and delivered the very first speech from the Competent Communicator Manual: “The Icebreaker”. Ricky revealed that there have been many changes in her life since she gave her first “Icebreaker” speech, but that the Toastmasters experience and the friendships she made had served as a constant in her life.

Alison Immelman’s third speech was delivered while wearing a knitted Lapland hat. The hat may have been funny but Alison’s subject was seriously though provoking. She asked us to always consider the true agendas behind the media messages we receive.

Both Candice Finkelstein and Louise Erasmus were all about the “hard sell”. Both delivered their ninth speech from the Competent Communicator Manual.
Candice presented us with some hot cooler boxes we should never be without, and Louise pushed the benefits of Burmese cat ownership. Who needs Eskom on a cold night when you have a Burmese cat on your lap?

Comedian-in-residence, Antoinette Baatjes, entertained her audience with another one from the Humorous Speeches Manual. Fancying herself something of an amateur social anthropologist, Antoinette introduced us to some new subspecies of humanity: “know-it-alls” (KIAs) and “incompetent fools” (IFs). Apparently these KIAs and IFs are responsible for much of the angst in our lives. Antoinette advised us that we are doing ourselves no favours by biting our tongues and that the best way to promote inner peace are toe-to-toe confrontations with these acronyms - or you could buy a Burmese cat.

For the second time this year, a visiting guest beat out the membership to take the prize for best Table Topic impromptu speech. The Table Topics Master was Debbie Stephenson who asked participants to put their case to the IOC as why their particular activity should become an Olympic event at the 2020 Games in South Africa. Reinhardt won for suggesting that kite flying and South Africa’s blue skies would go great together.

And closing off the meeting, Mimi Makupula passed the Top Toastie floating trophy to Colleen Love for efforts in introducing others, like Mimi, to Toastmasters.

The next meeting will be on 27 July. Until then watch this blog for profiles of members who were recently awarded Competent Communicator, Leader and Advanced Communicator Awards.

One month to the World Cup but Marianah is already kicking goals of her own

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!

The road to Palm Desert: The Division E Speech Competition

Shirley Renwick of East London won the Division E Speech Competition on 17 April. She will now go on to represent the Eastern Cape at the District 74 MaxiCon Annual Conference in Gauteng in May. Joining Shirley at the Conference will be our own Nicholas Mitchell who will compete for Division E in the impromptu speech and speech evaluation competitions.

The Conference is the final stop on the road to the Toastmasters International Convention, to be held in Palm Desert, California in August. Winners of District Contests, including District 74 (Southern Africa), will compete is a series of speech contests at the Convention which culminates in Toastmasters International awarding the World Champion of Public Speaking.

Good luck to Shirley and Nicholas! Remember to watch this blog for all the news from the District 74 Conference in May.

A visiting guest wins Table Topics

In what might be a first for our Club, a visiting guest won Table Topics at the April 13th meeting.

The Table Topics Master for the evening was Glenis Whitehead. The scenario: a crowded doctor’s waiting room. The receptionist announces to the walking wounded that the doctor only has time for one more patient. Cue all manner of theatrics as Table topics participants had to argue as why they should be the doctor’s last patient for the day.

There was Adam Engela’s sick Julius Malema and a hirsute Candice Finklestein with a crippling case of razor rash, but it was first time visitor Mimi Makupula who won Table topics with a hilarious, hearing impaired patient, who also had ants in her pants.

There were two prepared speeches for the evening. Rhona Murchie presented her “icebreaker” and introduced herself to the Club as the ultimate hyphenate: mother-teacher-student. Louise Solomons presented a talk on the arithmetic of success in which love, money and knowledge don’t add up to much; rather it all comes down to an individual’s attitude.

Alison Immelman was inducted as a new member and Thomas Duthie was re-inducted. Thomas also picked up the Top Toastie floating trophy for stepping into the role of evaluator at very short notice.

At our next meeting (27 April) Gillian Nutt will complete her Competent Communicator manual and we will induct our newest member: Zuki Skade.

Hold this date: Saturday, 5 June 2010

The Algoa Club will mark its jubilee anniversary (that’s fifty years) with a dinner at the Port Elizabeth Golf Club on Saturday 5 June. Tickets will be R120. Past members as well as friends of Algoa Toastmasters are invited to join the Club in celebrating this important milestone. Watch your email inbox for invitations and more information on how to buy tickets to the Algoa Club’s biggest celebration in five decades!