What has Toastmasters done for me?
The last meeting of Nenagh Toastmasters was held on Tuesday, February 3, in the Abbey Court Hotel with a great attendance of 23 members and one guest.
We were welcomed by our president, Marie O’Sullivan and control was then handed over to the Toastmaster for the night, Danny Doyle, an experienced Toastmaster. Danny’s first task was to welcome everyone, especially our guest Eoghan Kelly and explain the process of the meeting.
Danny then introduced the other members who, in their respective roles, would contribute to the running of the meeting. Margaret Cullinan was Topicsmaster and she provided the meeting with many varied topics that no one had any advance notice of, and the effect was to encourage members to think on their feet. Helen Spillane was the General Evaluator, giving feedback to the meeting on how the various parts worked and where there was room for improvement. Stephen Cullinan kept an eye on all the speakers to ensure that there was no use of inappropriate words to fill perfectly appropriate pauses, and Joe Ryan made sure in his role as Timer that each speaker stayed within the allotted time, something he said was beginning to slip a little and he would be firm in calling it out.
PREPARED SPEECHES
The meeting proper commenced with a number of prepared speeches. The first one delivered by one of our relatively new members, Joanne Callanan, entitled ‘What Toastmasters has done for me?’, during which Joanne described the changes that she felt she had undergone since joining Toastmasters a little more than a year ago and how those positive benefits she had gained had filtered down to her children. In an emotional and heartfelt delivery, Joanne explained how she would not have been able to deliver this speech before she had joined Toastmasters but that the confidence and support the club offered and continues to offer made it possible.
The audience responded with resounding applause at the end of her speech. David Healy provided excellent feedback to Joanne in his role as her speech evaluator, reinforcing the positive benefits of evaluation.
Next to speak was Willie Grace, with a speech entitled ‘Woods’, about how he had come to his love of wood and indeed what led him to become a carpenter. Willie’s speech was very well evaluated by Conor Boland, providing positive feedback to Willie and highlighting where he might make improvements.
The meeting was then given a very interesting educational speech by Rowena Bisschoff, in which she relayed to the audience the advantages of following the Pathways model on the Toastmasters portal to make progress in both speaking skills and the other skills that a member learns in Toastmasters.
ASSORTED TOPICS
Then we enjoyed a 20-minute break for tea, coffee and a chat before the second half of the meeting commenced and this consisted of an assortment of topics provided by Margaret Cullinan, the Topicsmaster, such as ‘Is the GAA condensing the match calendar too much’ to ‘What should be in your emergency kit’ to ‘Is it time to get on our bikes’, and many more. All of these topics are presented to members only, not guests, and the members have no prior knowledge of the topics, so it is a great way to learn to speak off the cuff for two minutes.
After the topics were completed, Margaret was given a topic by the Toastmaster, Danny Doyle. He then handed control back to the President, Marie who proceeded to Any Other Business.
If you want a great night out, meet new friends and improve your personal skills, then come along to our next meeting of the Nenagh Toastmasters on Tuesday, February 17, 8pm in the Abbey Court Hotel. All guests are welcome. So come along, see what we do and enjoy yourself!