Meeting Theme - It’s Chriiiiiistmas!
Best Speaker - Nasar, Dynamic Leadership Completion - Krystyna, Best Evaluator - Natalie, Best Table Topics - Visitior
Meeting Theme - The Traitors
Best Table Topics - joint winners Jacqui & Visitor (far right), Best Speaker - James
Meeting Theme - Sport - the good, the bad and the ugly!
Best Speaker - Joint winners Kate & Nasar, First Timer Award - Hichem, Best Table Topics - Visitor, Best Evaluator - Natalie
MEETING THEME - The Road Not Taken
Best Table Topics - joint winning guests, Best Speaker - Dan, Best Evaluator - Geoff
Meeting Theme - Visit Poland
Best Table Topics - Visitor, Best Evaluator - Pam, Best Speaker - Nasar
Hollie was off for this meeting, so I’m returning to tell you about our last meeting. We had two prepared speeches – I did one all about what your book recommendations tell me about you. I also had you give me your book recommendations which you can see below if you are looking for your next read:
Nick also spoke with killer advice on writing well – you can tell from this post that I may not have taken all the advice.
Greg ran Table Topics and asked us about stepping outside our comfort zone, and we wrapped up with the usual evaluations.
The roll of honour is:
· Best Speaker: Nick
· Best Evaluator: Adrien
· Best Table Topic: Duaa (a guest)
We had two guests as well:
James
Duaa
Sarah
A massive hello to our newest member, Krystyna as well – welcome to the club
Who | Book | Author | Amazon |
Lejla | Utopia for Realists | Rutger Bregman | |
Karen Lee | Lucky Man | Michael J Fox | |
Karen Lee | What Dreams May Come | Richard Matheson | |
Anita | Heath Robinson: Wonderful Contraptions and Extraordinary Inventions | William Heath Robinson | |
Duaa | Breaking the habit of being yourself | Joe Dispenza | |
Duaa | The Magic | Rhonda Byrne | |
Anonymous | Awaken the Giant Within | Tony Robbins | |
Greg | Homo Deus | Yuval Noah Harai | |
James | The Ride of a Lifetime | Robert Iger | |
Elaine | Feel The Fear and Do it Anyway | Susan Jeffers | |
Elaine | The Happy Pear Vegan Cookbook | David and Stephen Flynn | https://amzn.eu/d/2MGLiNH (there are several "Happy Pear" books – Elaine assures us the recipes are fab) |
Mario | Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion | George J. Thompson | |
Mario | The Road Less Stupid | Keith J. Cunningham | |
Geoff | The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k | Mark Manson | |
Geoff | Scatter Brain | Shaparak (Shappi) Khorsandi | |
Geoff | Ultra-Processed People | Chris van Tulleken | |
Hollie | The Power of Now | Eckhart Tolle |
Who | Book | Author | Amazon |
Karen Lee | What Dreams May Come | Richard Matheson | |
Natalie | 1984 | George Orwell | |
Natalie | Wuthering Heights | Emily Brontë | |
Natalie | (all of them) | Dan Brown | |
Natalie | Little Women | Louisa May Alcott | |
Greg | Engleby | Sebastian Faulkes | |
Pam | The Dogs Who Came To Stay | George Pitcher | |
James | Orphan X | Gregg Hurwitz | |
Melanie | Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years | Sue Townsend | |
Melanie | Five People You Meet In Heaven | Mitch Albom | |
Hannah | An Orchestra of Minorities | Chigozie Obioma | |
Hannah | Children of Blood and Bone | Tomi Adeyemi | |
Geoff | Fahrenheit 451 | Ray Bradbury | |
Hollie | The Great Gatsby | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
Last night's meeting was all about welcoming our new President, Elaine, and our new committee members, Hollie and Melanie. It's looking to be a great Toastmasters year. The theme was Our Toastmasters Club.
Louise won the best speech with her talk on breaking the cycle, with special commendations to Zaki for his speech on fasting and Hannah's Ice Breaker speech. Paul led the round of table topics on the summer theme, where we learnt what Mario did on a specially-laid carpet.
I won both table topics and best evaluator and no - it wasn't me who counted the votes.
Hope to see you all on the 19th.
"Congratulations Elaine – President-Elect"
Wednesday's meeting was exciting – we had club elections for the new committee. Many familiar faces but were beyond excited to welcome some new committee members (okay – beyond excited may be a bit of a stretch, but we are excited).
Before I tell you the results, we have had a meeting.
In two prepared speeches, we heard from Muhammad, who talked about Ramadhan, why millions of Muslims worldwide dedicate themselves to fasting every day for a month from sunrise to sunset and how non-Muslims can benefit from fasting too. This allowed me to tell everyone my fascinating (really) fact that Muslims who live in the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai must fast for 2 minutes longer if they live on the 80th floor or above and three extra minutes if they live on the 150th or above as the sun takes that bit longer to set.
Even though it wasn't his first speech, Nick H delivered his Ice Breaker, where he introduced himself to the club and told us several stories about his life.
We had a few table topics on "opportunities", and everything was evaluated.
Then we had the annual club committee elections. I'm pleased to announce your committee next year will be:
President: Elaine
Vice President Education: Karen Lee
Vice President Membership: Pam
Vice President PR: Hollie
Secretary: John
Treasurer: Geoff (me)
Sergeant at Arms: Melanie
Immediate Past President: Natalie
Thanks to everyone for stepping up, and welcome to the committee to Hollie and Melanie.
The next meeting is Wednesday 21st; why not come down and see what it's all about
- Geoff
Nick, Nisar & John
Last night we had a really full room, filled with loads of members and quite a few guests, for a night of inspiration and learning. Franci our Toastmaster for the night used the theme of Environment to bring many issues to light, which was continued by Karen Lee in the Table Topics section of the night.
We had 3 cracking speeches on a variety of subjects. Anita brought us an inspiring ‘use them or lose them’ speech about the benefits of resistance training when getting older. Next up was long time member, Susan, who reminded us not to wait to do something,as sometimes time runs out. Lastly Muhammad talked about how in our ultra-connected lives people can still be lonely, and what we can do about it.
It definitely was a thought provoking night.
Winners
Best Evaluator - John Champion
Best Speaker - Susan H.
Best Table Topics Speaker - Nick Harvey
As one of our newest members, Nisar Khan received his First Timer ribbon for doing his first role in the club, Timekeeper.
Perhaps we shouldn’t disclose who has an extra girlfriend in reserve, although this was talking about this person’s youth (and may have been tongue-in-cheek). I can disclose that we had three prepared (or not, in one case) speeches, table topics and evaluations.
New member Paul gave his Ice-Breaker speech – “The Boy In Holland”, telling us about a trip to the beach in Holland and how it nearly ended in disaster if not for a mysterious intervention.
Anita is a new-ish member. She’s been with Toastmasters for a long time but took a break recently. She’s back, and we forgive her break – especially with her speech about rebuilding her life.
Then there was my speech – my prepared speech needed props. However, frozen points on the train line meant I didn’t have time to go and get them after work (and was a wee bit late to the meeting, sorry – blame the weather). Instead, I improvised a speech I had been thinking about delivering – how to write a speech when you have that dreaded blank page and no ideas.
Table topics were delivered by Hollie using a Christmas party game she never got to play. We drew out a card which described a historical event, and we had to create a two-minute speech around this subject – it could be a made-up story, something it reminded you of, the historical event acted out in a combination of speeches, interpretive dance and mime (okay, maybe not this last one). Either way, it was fun.
We started with three guests this meeting but ended up with two – Nisar joined in the break, so welcome to Nisar – our newest member. Chris and Nick were our other guests.
Ribbon Winners:
- Lejla, Muhammad and Nisar: New Members (Muhammad joined a few meetings back, but the ribbons were still on backorder)
- Lejla: First Timer
- Natalie: Best Evaluator
- Nick (guest): Best Table Topic (joint winner)
- Paul: Best Speaker and Best Table Topic (joint winner)
Next meeting 1st Feb – drop me a message if you want to come as a guest
- Geoff
#publicspeaking #toastmasters #confidence #leadership #didsbury #manchester
