A well attended meeting, but one that featured only two
speakers, Arun and Yours Truly.
David our Toastmaster for the night also adopted the role of
Sergeant at Arms.
Welcome back to Daniel after a few weeks overseas.
Arun was the stand-in Table Topics Master and his theme
reflected the meetings Theme of the Night: Aeroplanes. To me the most notable aspect of the meetings
Table Topics was that one of our five Guests, the first-time Harshal,
volunteered to tackle a question. As we all know, standing in front of an
audience for the first time is a daunting experience, but Harshal exhibited
excellence self-control and delivered his thoughts with confidence and with a
strong and measured voice. Well done Harshar, a difficult task delivered with
aplomb.
Arun treated us to an impromptu, but well delivered speech
around air flow affecting modern aircraft, the what and why of air pockets and
turbulence and the latest intention of Sir Richard Branson to build and put in
service a high speed airliner that will cut the trans-Atlantic travel time to
around three and a half hours.
Second time Guest David volunteered to be Timekeeper for the
night ….. usually a role conducted by an experienced member. And it was an
amazing thing to see someone so new to Toastmasters accept this key role.
Thanks Daniel and well done on handling the role so well.
Yours Truly spoke on
the dangers of Global Warming to all of us and what each of us can do to help
not only Planet Earth, but in the final analysis, ourselves.
This was my eighth speech toward the Competent Communicator
level.
The speech called for the inclusion of an audio-visual
component. Normally I follow the good practice of rehearsal, in this instance I
was not able to prepare as comprehensibly as usual and my presentation
reflected that.
Hopefully the shortcomings of my speech, notably in the area
of incorporating audio visual aids, will aid others when preparing a speech.
Learn from my experience and rehearse, rehearse and when you’ve done that,
rehearse again.
In addition to Harshal and Daniel we again welcomed
Ramya, Vick and Ross and the first timer,
Peter.
Ross, Daniel, Ramya and Vick, all advised their intention to
become members, so it will be good to see all four formally inducted at the
next meeting.
In summary another good meeting and thanks to all that stepped-up
to the re-allocated roles on the night.
