The room was overflowing with the members of our own club as
well as our friends from the Logos Toastmasters Club. This was
one of the best attended Joint Meetings with Logos we can ever
remember. Spirits were high with camaraderie and high
expectations. How were we going to fulfill these expectations …
With a Theme of “Relaxation” clashing with one of the most
jam-packed Agendas we have ever seen, how could we possibly be
harmoniously relaxed in such a potentially time-stressed
situation? The answer of course is: With exceptional Leadership.
Jill McCormick shined as the experience of her many years in the
club deftly led us through the evening with apparent ease. She
adapted where necessary to meet the high quality expected from
all of the Toastmaster members, and the many Guests who had come
to our meeting for the very first time.
Helping Jill accomplish this goal, and actually chairing a major
part of this meeting, was the “Toast-Master of Ceremonies’, Omar
Hung. This was a particularly challenging role for one of our
newer members. Because there were four speeches, we had turned
the Agenda upside down and even split it! Omar was front and
center introducing two Speakers before the Break, and then after
the Break came an audience-participating Toast followed by two
more Speakers. He rose to the occasion like a pro and deserves
our congratulations.
The other key person who ensured the momentum never slowed was
the Timer, Jim Sinclair. Never asleep at the switch, Jim was
essentially firm with our timing this night. He often challenges
himself to make his roles original. This time he treated us to
the descriptions of his ‘Olympic caliber stop watch’ and his
‘disco caliber lights’.
Logos couldn’t have chosen a better Ah Counter than Flori Boca.
In tune with the daunting time restraints she explained her role
quickly but thoroughly, and because she is so engaging, no one
seemed to mind paying their fines tonight.
Neville Cohen despaired that not many people had had the
aspiration to use his special ‘word of the evening’, aspiration.
However, for a man who is seldom short on words, he was a sweet
talkin’, fast speaker this time as he delivered a number of
memorable descriptions with which he had been impressed.
As mentioned earlier, we had the pleasure of hearing four
speeches. One of the most exciting aspects in joining
Toastmasters is the opportunity to meet such a wide variety of
people with different interests and backgrounds; consequently
learning so much from them all.
Take, for example, our first Speaker: Veronica Marshall
immediately struck a chord with almost everyone in the audience
when she humorously confessed to owning a number of unread, or
semi-read books on her library shelf. She broke these neglected
orphans into three categories, peppering her examples with
illustrative quotes. A favorite quote was “I look at them (the
books) as a child looks at cake.” By giving herself permission
to keep these books untouched on her own shelves, many of us
felt that maybe we too could give ourselves this permission;
blithely banish our guilt just as she does!
Li Ying Kao was very assured and confident as she evaluated
Veronica’s delivery. She had no problem enumerating Veronica’s
many strengths, and is especially to be commended for her
easy-to-remedy suggestion (which proved to be useful for the
next speaker, as well): If a Speaker has props that will fit on
a table, it is best to have the Sgt.@ Arms place a waist-high
(if possible) table in front of him/her, with the props sitting
on it so that she is always facing the audience (as opposed to
turning away to pick props up from a table behind him/her). Good
thinking, Li Ying.
Gerhard Rentsch gave us a glimpse of ‘one of his many lives and
adventures’. This time we traveled with him to visit the Pintubi,
an ancient aboriginal tribe in the Australian bush. He was there
on a scholarship, as a doctor, to help these people. While with
them, they opened his eyes to their concept of money – a far cry
from the capitalism in our society! His vivid recollections were
eye-opening, educational, and entertaining.
“He taught us an anthropological lesson.” commented Gerhard’s
evaluator, Jean Howson (from Logos). One thing she particularly
liked was “the light and shade in his voice.” It is always a
privilege to be evaluated by someone unfamiliar with you, and
especially one who delivers it with balance and humour.
Inducted tonight and immediately behind the lectern with a
speech was Andrea Clarke, formerly a Toastmaster in New Zealand.
Welcome, Andrea, we are delighted to have you as a member.
Andrea used this opportunity to practice a short speech which
she would officially be giving the next day. She had the honour
of thanking the donors of scholarship and fellowship money to
UBC graduate law students. Congratulations, Andrea, and the best
of luck!
Andrea was fortunate to have Lorraine Harvey, from Logos, as her
Evaluator. Lorraine’s evaluation was unique to Andrea,
specifically designed to help her tighten up and smooth out an
already well prepared speech. Lorraine’s objective was to help
her gain confidence in every aspect before standing in front of
her ‘real audience’.
The Speaker from Logos, Mary Charleson, was also using this
opportunity to practice a ‘real speech’ on this discerning
audience. Her ambitions project was to give a Key Note Address.
Mary is looking forward to becoming a member of the Toastmasters
Speakers’ Bureau. With this in mind, she used this project to
try out a shortened form of the speech she will submit to the
bureau. Her forte is in ‘forecasting future events – like
finding a black cat in an unlit room’. For example, forecasting
market trends by examining four specific elements. She did this
very effectively, in a confident yet comfortable, pleasant
manner. Though this was the longest of the four speeches it was
so interesting that the time flew by without our being aware of
it.
Dave Stewart, her evaluator, was suitably impressed with this
Speaker he had never before met. He was generous with his
acknowledgements of her many strengths, and gave good, helpful
feedback. He commented that when this speech is eventually
fleshed out with the luxury of more time it is sure to be a
winner. Even though this was the longest speech of this evening,
it will be a minimum of three times as long by the time Mary is
ready to submit it. It must have been difficult for her to
condense this large topic into such a short time frame, but as
Dave said – it was a good way to test the waters.
The last person to speak was also the last to demonstrate great
experience and leadership. The General Evaluator, visiting
Division Governor Myrna Taylor, generously shortened her
speaking time, thus allowing us to slip in a short Table Topics
session. This meant that every member in the room would have had
at least one opportunity to speak during the meeting, including
the memorably brief Table Topics Evaluator, Stuart Manning.
Thank you, Myrna, we really appreciate your foresight.
Consequently, she stood at her place at the table to give us a
greatly abbreviated General Report. In a surprisingly short
period of time she summed up the meeting with generous praise
and suggestions. One particular suggestion our Chairmen will
definitely take to heart and use during our occasional ‘time
starved meetings’: When you need to do everything in your power
to keep a potential over-time-meeting on time, then simply have
everyone but the people running the meeting and the formal
Speakers stand at their places at the table and speak from
there. Thank you for coming, Myrna. It really is important for
club members to meet the people who help keep the Toastmaster
machine working smoothly for us.
This was a meeting charged with energy and camaraderie. We would
like to thank the Logos Toastmasters Club for joining forces
with us once again. These annual get-togethers are a highlight
and we appreciated having you here.
Our next meeting will be on Monday November 14th when we look
forward to seeing all of our members, and reminding everyone
that we always love to have Guests.
Club 1085
