Meeting 789 was called to order at 7:30 pm sharp by Sgt at Arms. On the Chair was Daniel I. Some important items were presented to the meeting for the attention of the members.
Guests at the meeting were Tayla and Shridhar.
Club Treasurer, Peter K. presented his report, including Profit and Loss Statement from 1 July to 11 November. Cash at the bank is currently $2539.10.
Cub VPE, Chih D. informed the meeting that club President Udana A. had sent a letter to Victoria University Chancellor regarding our hire of University room for club meetings. In this letter we presented three proposals to VUT to get rooms for free and some quid pro quo from the club. VUT has acknowledged receipt of the letter and will get back to us.
Sgt at Arms, David G. informed the meeting that VUT had answered our separate inquiry about the cost of rooms for 2018, and hiring for a financial year instead of the calendar year. VUT responded that hire to end of June 2018 would be $1200, and another $1300 for the second part of the year.
Vice President Public Relations, Daniel I. informed the club that all District and Club officials had received an email form TMI Headquarters confirming that we’ll be online with Pathways in December, although no exact date was mentioned.
At the end of the Business Session control was handed over to Meeting Toastmaster Jacqueline B., who had previously accepted to step into the role after the scheduled Meeting Toastmaster presented her apology. Thank you, Jacqueline, for stepping in, and for your warmth doing the task.
Heman A. was Table Topics Master and all his questions were around the meeting’s theme — Truth. The topics were interesting and allowed the respondents display their knowledge and opinions.
The topics were evaluated by Wendy P., DTM who added something of value to each respondent, and a general message: when answering a Table Topic, get rid of the lectern as you don’t need it to hold notes; this will remove a barrier between you and the audience.
After the tea break, we were treated to three interesting and well delivered speeches.
First, Chih D. spoke on “Crypto currency”, the new and mysterious (for us codgers) digital assets. He explained their genesis, how they can be used, what is a “digital wallet” and several other interesting facts.
Second, Peter K. presented his 8th speech, “It’s ok to be posh” about the importance and relevance of having good manners in life.
Third and the last speaker was David G, who spoke from one of the advanced manuals. The title of his speech was “It will be all right” and it dealt with the scaremongering perpetrated on the public by the media, presenting and showing us all the negative things happening in the world. David contention is that despite all the negativity of the media, we are all right.
Our guest Tayla accepted to fill the role of Harkmaster, the checker of how well we pay attention during the meeting. She had 6 questions and caught some of us unawares, all of them delivered with a wide smile.
The Harkmaster was Patty K. She briefly and efficiently notified us of all those “noises” which do not add any meaning. She noted that some of us have a decided preference for “ums” while others have it for “ehrs”.
Greg H. was in charge of the timekeeping, a job he did with military precision.
As we had so many apologies, we could not have a General Evaluator, so we did instead a “round robin general evaluation”. It turned out to be “good different”, to paraphrase the Aldi commercial.
Daniel I.
Werribee Toastmasters VPPR