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Last Meeting of the Year: Yuletide and Fortune Cookies

The year has come to a close and the last meeting of the Club, although attendance was down, the spirit and the entertainment was definitely not.

All the members attending wore colourful hats ranging from cowboy to snow hats to Christmas hats and even Bob the builder ,also known as Geoff Coomb Davis, was present.

A warm welcome was extended to all and to our guest Hennie du Toit, by our President Glenis,who then handed over to the Toastmaster for the evening ,Elaine Stewart Coyne. Elaines theme for the evening was “tune out and tune in”.

This sounds a bit strange but when you think about all the hustle and bustle going on around us at this time of year, we should tune out and not get caught up in the rat race but rather be grateful for what we have and tune in to all our blessings. Elaine has a wonderful, relaxed nature which immediately puts everyone at ease to sit back and enjoy.

The word of the evening presented by Gillian Nutt was Yuletide, which is another word for the Christmas season.

There were two speeches presented and both were from the advanced manuals. The first speaker Louise Solomons, with her speech Words do not come easy to me , spoke as an Afrikaans speaking person trying to learn English, which has many different meanings for the same word. Totally confusing!!!! She was evaluated by Antoinette Baatjes.

The second speaker was Marianah Lourens with her soliloquy “A Selection from Ellen Gunderson Traylors “Esther”.

This was a monologue whereby the speaker was not to make contact with the audience but to rather get across to the audience the feelings that she was experiencing. This is extremely difficult but was handled very ably by Marianah ,who was evaluated by Nicholas Mitchell.

The Table Topics presented by Colleen Love invited the audience to eat a Fortune Cookie and then to give their interpretation of the message inside. This caused much hilarity especially with Quinton, whose message read “ If you want the rainbow you have to tolerate the rain.” This was very apt for our resident weatherman but then he recalled that when he was small his Mom had always told him that if you found the rainbow and crossed over it you would change gender. For most of us this was the first time that we had heard this but the laughter caused by this comment was fantastic.

The Toast presented by Denise Pudney to Family and Friends was very appropriate for this time of year.

The Table Topics Winner was none other than Roger “the Dodger” Ah Kun, who certainly looked very dashing in his red shirt and matching red Christmas hat.

The Top Toastie Award for the evening went to Louise Solomons for her very entertaining 15 minute long speech.

Please remember that the next meeting will be 25^th January 2011 at the Caritas Care Centre in West Street.

President Glenis ended the meeting by wishing all a very Blessed Christmas and everything of the best for 2011.

Take care, drive safely and see you all in 2011

Another Toastmasters Meeting: Full of Porky Goodness

Can you believe that last evening was the penultimate meeting of our Toastmasters Club for the year 2010. We may well ask where has this year gone???

The evening , as usual , was most enjoyable with a warm welcome extended to the members present and to Rachel, a guest of Rhonas.

During the Exco reports a well deserved presentation of her Toastmaster badge was made to Mimi Makupula by Louise Solomons. Mimi has completed her CC5 speech in her Competent Communicator Manual.

President Glenis then handed over to our Toastmaster for the evening., Denise Pudney. However before handing over to Denise ,Glenis extended heartiest congratulations to Denise on her 60^th birthday to which the members responded by singing Happy Birthday.

Denise had a humorous theme for the evening, which was the difference between the thinking of a man and a woman.

Table Topics was presented by Mimi, which involved the participants receiving a picture of an animal and naming it by a different name and giving reasons for that name change. The winner of the Table Topics for his description of a little pig as “porky goodness” was Nicholas Mitchell.

Chenielle Badenhorst, who presented her CC2 speech entitled “Moving House,” gave some hilarious insights and also suggestions on how to prepare to move house and some essential items required.

Quinton Jacobs presented a folk tale from the advanced story telling manual entitled “ The Judgement of the Baboon”.

Marianah Lourens gave on educational on Goal Setting and Planning, which explained how members can achieve their Competent Leader award.

The Toast of the Day to “Frail Care” was ably done by Debbie Stephenson.

Special mention must be given to Rhona Murchie, who gave her first evaluation on the CC2 speech presented by Chenielle. Well done Rhona!!

The General Evaluation for the evening was done by Antoinette Baatjes,which was as usual efficiently presented.

The Top Toastie Award was awarded to Rickie Woods, who remains a very loyal member of Algoa Toastmasters despite being in pain from a back injury.

A sensus was done at the meeting and it was voted upon that the club would use Caritas Care Centre as their meeting place from the New Year. More details re this will follow at a later stage.

A date to remember is the Saturday 11^th Dec which will be the Christmas Party to be held at Westview Village Hall at 6.30 for 7. This will be in the form of a fun filled evening and all members attending are requested to bring a plate of eats.

Once again a wonderful, enjoyable evening was had by all present.

Take care,stay safe and see you all at the Christmas Party on the 11^th Dec.

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

Debbie speaksssssss! (that is how an albino python would say it)

Our Club's Toastmaster-for the-evening on Tuesday night was E1 Area Governor and former Club President Marlene Van Wyk.

The theme for the evening was based on Elizabeth Gilbert's travel memoir Eat Pray Love.

Marlene asked speakers and those officiating what they would do if they could step out of their lives for a year the way Elizabeth Gilbert did.

Craig Stephenson (Grammarian) wants to play barista for a year at the Venice Train Station. Denise Pudney (Evaluator) wants to rent out her house and travel around the world for a year. Louise Erasmus (General Evaluator)would spend the summer months under the big skies of Montana.

The Club continues to grow! Leeann Roos was inducted by VP of Membership Louise Solomons.

Table Topics was presented by Chenielle Badenhorst who asked participants to present an impromptu "day in the life" speech from the point of view of an exotic pet. By way of an example, Chenielle described a typical day for her pet dachshund – using a German accent.

The prize for the best Table Topics speech went to Michael Warren for his hissing albino python. He beat out the likes of Thomas Duthie's gangsta-ferret and Tom Horne's justifiably nervous guinea pig.

There were four prepared speakers for the evening.

After a year as a visitor to the Club and eight months as a member Debbie Stephenson finally delivered her much awaited "icebreaker" speech. Debbie has used the last few months to gain the confidence to present her first speech by participating in Table Topics, officiating at meetings and delivering several Toasts. Debbie, an Australian, recounted how a chance meeting bought her to her to new life in South Africa nearly forty years ago.

Alison Immelman presented her fourth speech to the Club. Her breathtakingly creative use of language transported her audience into a recent experience of hers where she was stuck on a Virgin Airlines flight parked on a runway for several hours.

Alan Hunter presented an important lesson in constitutional law when he tackled an issue ripped straight from the headlines – the proposed Security of Information Bill. While media workers have been making the most noise about the Bill, Alan argued convincingly that this matter should be of concern to all South Africans.

The final prepared speaker was Marianah Lourens who delivered an interpretive reading of C.J. Langenhoven's poem: Die Stem.

Quinton Jacobs presented an educational talk on how to beat glossophobia. For those of you who didn't take Latin or Greek in university, glossophobia is the fear of public speaking. Quinton suggested that nervous speakers use positive mental imagery to clip the wings of those stomach butterflies.

Mimi Makapula provided the Toast on the night. After the experience of watching a pedestrian being hit by a car Mimi reminded members and guests to live for now as there are no guarantees that there will be a tomorrow.

Before the gavel fell on another entertaining and informative evening, Chenielle Badenhorst presented Debbie Stephenson with the Top Toastie floating trophy in recognition of Debbie confronting her own glossophobia.

The Club will meet again on 12 October.

Toastmasters are adrenaline junkies!

Last Tuesday’s meeting had Toastmaster-for-the-evening Craig Stephenson compare the Toastmasters experience to heart-thumping, white-knuckling and sweaty-palm-inducing activities like bungee jumping off a bridge and skydiving.

This comparison was apposite, considering that the fear of public speaking is the most common phobia. (Apposite was our word for the day, courtesy of Grammarian Nicholas Mitchell.)

Table Topics was hosted by Debbie Stephenson. She asked players to speak for one minute on the titles of Frank Sinatra songs like “Strangers in the Night” and “My Way”. E1 Area Governor, Marlene Van Wyk, took the prize for her impromptu speech inspired by Ol-Blue-Eye’s cover of the Beatles classic “Yesterday”. Coming in a very close second to Marlene was visiting guest, Jessamy.

The first speaker “to jump off that bridge” was Zuki Skade. Zuki was presenting his “icebreaker” speech. Zuki’s revealed the highlights and the lowlights of his extraordinary life. It was like a bestselling author reading a sample chapter from a thrilling biography. Zuki has certainly whetted the Club’s appetite for more.

The second speaker for the evening was brand-spanking-new member Chenielle Badenhorst. She was inducted just three weeks ago but was so eager to begin her Toastmasters journey that she jumped at the opportunity to present her “icebreaker” when another speaker had to drop out. For the enthusiasm she demonstrated she was awarded the “Top Toastie” floating trophy.

In another life Chenielle graced the stages of Europe as an opera singer. This might explain her thoroughly captivating stage presence and confidence.

Chenielle also introduced a neologism into the Club’s lexicon. She wondered what you would call a former Toastmaster – a “post-Toastie” perhaps.

Our third speaker was Louise Erasmus who marked a milestone by presenting her tenth speech to the Club and completing her Competent Communicator Manual. Louise’s speech was titled: “Coping with Cancer”.

Louise’s family has recently been touched by the dread disease but Louise explained that she has derived the strength to cope from the support of her friends and family, educating herself on the facts of the disease, and relying on her faith.

The final speech saw the welcome return of Quinton Jacobs. This intrepid weatherman has been away working in Jo’burg for the last three months.

His speech was a project from one of the advanced manuals. Quinton gave his audience some insights into science of meteorology. Did you know that a weather forecaster could be held liable for air crash deaths if a plane is downed by weather that the pilot was misinformed about? (Yikes!)

It was another successful and informative meeting. (Who needs DSTV!)

Our next Club meeting is Tuesday, 28 September.