This meeting was a Beautiful Beginning for the holiday season.
We sailed through it with ease thanks to our upbeat Chairman,
Jill McCormick.
Marlene Finlayson, our Vice President of Membership,
personalized her introductions of our guests, as well as
welcoming them on behalf of us all. A very nice touch.
Marlene was also our Table Topics Master. Her topics were, in
her words, “A different slant on Beautiful Beginnings”. They
certainly got the Speakers’ creative juices going. We had some
excellent mini speeches, but Gerhard Rentsch took the prize with
his back-up singers: The Gerhardettes!!! Marlene’s bridging was
outstanding in this session – totally off the cuff and ‘just
right’ every single time.
Li Ying Kao evaluated these Table Topic Speakers. She was
described by the General Evaluator as “An experienced evaluator
who did an excellent job.” She was very professionally efficient
and succinct, with well placed strengths individual to each
speaker, along with good friendly helpful suggestions.
Parvaneh Bahrami made her debut as a member by telling us a very
cute joke.
What’s in your pocket???
Gerhard easily combined the Wordsmith and Ah Counter roles -
both very well explained in the beginning of the meeting. He
especially loves the job of listening for the rich language we
often use in our speeches, but he was no shirker when it came to
um’s and ah’s either. He ended that report by instructing us
with “You do the math!” It sounds like our pig was dealing with
high finance this time!
Bless Jim Sinclair for stepping in at the last minute with an
Inspiration which was so amazing that you would have thought he
had spent the week preparing it!
He gave good sound advice inspiring us to be in control of our
attitude because “The ability to have a beautiful beginning each
and every day is really all up to us!”
Dave Stewart often has a new story or slant on his roles and
this night was no exception. He told us about his mother’s old
clock which was inscribed with “Tempus fugit” (time flies). He
assured us that his job was to make sure that time wouldn’t fly
away from us that night, and he was as good as his word. Between
he and Jill the meeting was well paced right to the end.
After a Toast “To a Measured Approach” (to New Beginnings), our
Toastmaster Stuart Manning did an excellent job of setting up
the Speakers for their very different presentations. Both
Speakers required special ‘set ups’ to prepare the audience and
Stuart did this well. As Neville Cohen, the General Evaluator
commented “He filled in all the right elements to help the
Speakers’ success.”
Ruth Sol created quite a stir with her After Dinner Speech on
parenting skills. Some of the studies she quoted literally
blasted away many of our beliefs – don’t you love a
controversial topic??? It really got the juices flowing and the
minds going.
In his Evaluation, Don Ekroth was quick to point out the
excellent qualities that impressed him in Ruth’s presentation.
Then he helpfully pinpointed an area which he felt could have
been even better. He followed it up with specific illustrations
to help for another time. We all benefit from these evaluations,
not just the Speakers, so hearing the Evaluators’ personal
opinions on strengths and suggestions influence the audience as
a whole.
Our guest speaker was Eleanor Kendall from the Nechako
Toastmaster Club in Kitimat. She got us in the Christmas mood
with a ‘First’ (a new beginning) in our club – a story told with
puppets! The puppets illustrated the lovely little Christmas
story she has been presenting to groups of young children.
Winding up this meeting of Beautiful Beginnings was Neville
Cohen, our General Evaluator. He began with some general
comments on the evening as a whole, and then zeroed in on our
individual performances which, for the most part, impressed him
very much!
Remember: Our next meeting will be a Dinner Meeting at Cheers
Restaurant.
Social time between 6:30 and 7 pm. The meeting will begin at 7.
Guests are Most Welcome to join us. They can contact Pam @
986-1025 or
kpelliott@shaw.ca.
See you there!
Club 1085
