White Rock Toastmasters

Tonight's meeting was pure joy! At least that was the theme for the meeting and it was reflected throughout the evening as we celebrated the joy of being in Toastmasters. Our Chairman, Ilan introduced the meeting and the theme in his usual capable style. He then led us into the agenda introducing our Inspiration speaker, Alan who spoke about his exhilarating experience of pure joy on a sailboat. He used the story to remind us that we all can pay attention to those moments ...when we experience joy and practice making more moments of joy. Our Grammarian, May introduced the word of the evening, "exhilarating" which quickly became well used by all. May also did an exquisite job of noting several turns of phrase by our members throughout the meeting in her final report. Our Timer, Christine reminded us of the importance of learning to keep track of time and respecting people's time by not going on too long when speaking. Our Table Topics session was joyful as Riz led us from one topic to the next with great questions on the theme of pure joy. The members delivered heartfelt and humourous talks of up to two minutes on the various questions they were given. Our guest, Megan even took a shot at Table Topics and entertained us with her tale of complicated soup! Well done, Megan! Our second half of prepared speeches was led by the Toastmaster, Alan who began by reminding us that we are Toastmasters and should therefore look for opportunities to practice giving toasts at dinners, events and family gatherings. He proceeded to present a classic Irish toast as follows: May you never lie, steal, cheat or drink, but if you do: May you lie with the one you love May you steal away from bad company May you cheat death And may you drink in the moments that take your breath away. We were blessed to have three speakers, all speaking from advanced manuals. Fatima gave a humourous speech, entitled, "Work in Progress". Jollean's speech was called, "I'm Getting Old". Randy scared us all in a humourous fashion with his speech of, "The Haunted Hotel". All three speeches had us laughing and enthralled. Our three Speech Evaluators, Christine, Riz and Mike provided excellent feedback using the classic techniques of commenting on the skills the speaker has and providing suggestions for where the speaker could expand their skills. Our General Evaluator, Marlene provided her precise review of the meeting and gave effective feedback to all the members who hadn't been evaluated yet. We had a fabulous meeting and now look forward to the next. Guests are always welcome each Monday night at 7:30 at Elgin Park Secondary School. Our winners tonight were: Christine and Riz shared the Best Evaluator award, Randy won for Best Speaker and Alan won the Best Table Topic Speaker award.

Tonight's meeting was another great example of why we all enjoy Toastmasters meetings and why we keep coming back. We even welcomed a guest to join the fun. The theme tonight was "Inlaws and Outlaws". Brent, our Grammarian chose "Kinship" as the word of the day. Our Table Topics Master, Riz had a lot of fun with the theme as he chose topics around it. Randy and Alan shared the honours for the Best Table Topic as they both delivered humourous speeches on their respective ...topics. Alan had to respond to "What kind of outlaw would he like to be?" and Randy's topic was, "Which inlaw would he like to outlaw?". In the second half of the meeting, Toastmaster Rosie introduced our two speakers who coincidentally gave the number five speech from the Competent Communicator manual which focuses on the use of body language. Our first speaker, Jamie delivered a totally humourous recount of his experience traveling to, and around Japan. Travel always provides a rich source of stories and humour, and Jamie had us all laughing at his descriptions of train travel. At this rate it won't be long before Jamie earns his Competent Communicator designation. The second speaker, Marlene, has already earned her Distinguished Toastmaster award and therefore it's not hard to imagine the comedic and brilliant performance she put on for us to enjoy. Her speech was an excellent example of what Toastmasters' training can provide in the skills that Marlene portrayed tonight. We were all laughing as she recounted the story of her first camera and yet woven through the jokes and the comedy was a serious and thoughtful message of the value of anticipation and patience, something she suggested may be lacking in the modern world geared toward instant gratification. We all left with a great sense of enjoyment and that we have improved our ability to communicate effectively, articulately and perhaps, even humourously. We look forward to next Monday night at 7:30 when we get to gather and practice our skills in front of a friendly audience again. PHOTO: (left to right) Ilan won the Best Evaluator award, Randy shared the Best Table Topic award with Alan (far right), and Marlene won the Best Speaker award.

White Rock Toastmasters is back at our usual home at Elgin Park Secondary on Monday night's starting at 7:30 and we are well into a busy fall, having already hosted our club's Humourous Speech and Table Topics contest. This past Monday, October 3rd was a wonderful evening of both thoughtful and humourous Table Topics and two engaging speeches. Our theme was Thanksgiving and this was reflected in the Table Topics session led by Brent, who masterfully chose great topics and the... members to address them. As you can imagine, the topics invited reflection and story telling of Thanksgivings past and the elements that we each treasure about this celebration. The second half of the meeting is dedicated to formal speeches and saw us engaged by two very different presentations. The first was a gripping true tale told by Riz, who demonstrated his incredible skill at keeping us on the edge of our seats. At one point, there was an audible gasp as he revealed a shocking part of his story. We all marveled at his harrowing tale and his delivery of it. Brent followed Riz with a President's status report and sharing of the executive's vision of the club for the year. He commented on how we are a great club with many experienced members and therefore in a good position to help new members. Brent also reminded us that this Friday is the area Humourous Speech and Table Topics contest which is being held at Elgin Park Secondary at 7:30 pm. While our club isn't the host club, we are providing refreshments. It was another excellent meeting and everyone had a speaking opportunity which is why we all are a part of Toastmasters. Photo: Rosie was awarded the Best Table Topics Speaker and tied with Fatima for Best Evaluator, Riz won the Best Speaker Award. Congratulations all!

Tonight's meeting was the last of the summer and the last meeting at May's hall that she has so generously provided for our summer meetings. Our next meeting will be on Monday, September 12th at our regular site of Elgin Park Secondary school on 24th Avenue. This meeting's theme was "choices" which was reflected in the Grammarian's choice of the word, "meditate" as the word for the meeting. It was well used in all its forms of meditate, meditation and meditative. Riz did ...an admirable job of Grammarian and Ah Counter, keeping track of our use of the word and our use of crutch words, like, you know those, um, ah words that we use, but shouldn't because they get in the way of articulate speech. One great comment, Riz made was how we use "and" too often to create "run-on" sentences that never end when we really should just end the sentence and take a breath. Rosie stepped up to the Humourist role as she always seems to have a wonderful joke at the ready which she always delivers in style. Alan was the Table Topics Master, and since tonight's theme was choices, all eight participants were each presented with questions relating to choices or choosing. Behrad cracked everyone up with his recounting of how, if he had one super power that he could choose, he would choose to be invisible to fulfill a childhood dream when he mixed up various concoctions in his mother's kitchen to create an "invisible potion"! Needless to say, he won the Best Table Topic award. Due to the number of people away on holidays we didn't have any prepared speeches for the second half of the meeting, but in true Toastmasters' fashion, we rose to the occasion and improvised to have a debate on the topic, "Should college and university education be free?". After only three minutes of preparation, both teams presented highly coherent arguments on both sides of the issue. While we didn't vote on which team "won", we did vote for the best speaker and the award went to Brent. We also finished with a wonderful surprise when our guest, Omar, announced that he has decided to join the club. It is with much delight that we welcome him as he ably demonstrated in the debate that he is already on his way to becoming a very skilled speaker. It was a fun evening where we all got to practice our speaking, quick thinking and listening skills. We are all now looking forward to our next meeting. PHOTO: Behrad, with the Best Table Topic award, Christine, with the Best Evaluator award and Brent with the Best Speaker award. (left to right)

Tonight's meeting was full of summer fun. The theme tonight was, "Time Travel" and Noel, as the Table Topics Master threw a slew of time travel related topics at us that were both funny and challenging. Alan won with the topic, "Convince a group of aliens to join our club". The second half of the meeting is always devoted to prepared speeches and tonight there were three! Fatima gave a wonderful speech about the value of smiling which quickly had everyone smiling along wit...h her. Alan gave a "Demonstration Talk" entitled, "Mike 101" which began with him bashing a mannequin head to show how some people treat microphones. Needless to say, it had its comedic moments as he proceeded to demonstrate how not to use a microphone. Riz was the third speaker, displaying his remarkable story telling skills as he presented his highly "impactful" story of crashing a car with his teenage friends. While many members are away on summer holidays, it was still a great turn out and we had a very productive and fun evening. Thanks to May for being the ever generous and gracious host for the summer. We return to our regular location at Elgin Park High School in September. Stay tuned for the next meeting dates. PHOTO: Alan poses with both the Best Table Topics and Best Speaker awards, while Noel, as stoic as ever, bravely holds the Best Evaluator award. Congratulations to our two award winners and all the club members who were able to attend.