Posts in “Meetings” category - Toast of Broadway

Humourous speech contest

admin_ — Tue, 19 Feb 2019 04:08:47 +0000

Toast of Broadway Toastmasters club had our annual Humourous speech contest where our members can compete for the privilege of representing our club at the Area speech contest. The contest was run by our newest member Louise. Despite the fact that Louise had never attended a Toastmasters contest before, she ran the entirely thing so smoothly, and played a great game to warm the audience up at the start. We had six guest judges from other Toastmaster clubs all around Auckland.

It was a close call between our speakers, but one of our newer members Clarence won the contest and will be representing our club at the Areas M2/M4 Humorous Speech and Speech Evaluation Contests. Good luck Clarence!

After some tea, coffee, and biscuits, it was time for Table Topics. Danielle (who loves to spice up Table Topics) had a great theme – she asked a question that someone could either be for or against, and then at some point during the speech she would say ‘switch’ and the speaker would suddenly have to begin debating the opposite point. It was great fun and many of our guests came up and gave it a go!

A big thank you to our VP membership Danielle for arranging this contest, to Louise for running everything smoothly, to the judges for their time and expertise, and to everyone who participated in the meeting. We look forward to seeing you at our next meeting on 4th March 2019.

Clarence – First place

Jon – Second place

Tanya – Third place

Evaluation and Table topics contests

admin_ — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 08:50:29 +0000

Toast of Broadway had our first two contests for the Toastmasters year. We began our meeting with the Evaluation contest. Contest chair Xiang ran a smooth contest especially considering it was her first time being a contest chair. Our test speaker Ivo provided us with a wonderful speech titled ‘Teamwork makes the dream work’ that was perfect for our contestants.

It was a close call, but Ollie won the contest and will be competing in the area contest next year. Great job Ollie!

After the break it was time for the Table Topics contest. This was also the first time being contest chair for our Treasurer Tanya, who did a great job and came up with an interesting (and lengthly!) topic: If you were to come up with a mythology to explain a natural phenomena, what would it be and why? (there was more but this author can’t remember the start). President Jon took the prize and will also be competing in the area contest.

Thanks so much for all of our members for pitching in and helping run the contest, and a special thank you to our test speaker Ivo, and the judges from other clubs: Rae, Lance, Elaine, Wallis, Margaret, and Russel.

Good luck to Ollie and Jon!

Evaluation contest participants

Table topics participants

Evaluation contest – 3rd place: Danielle, 2nd place: Damian, 1st place: Ollie, Contest chair Xiang

Table topics contest – 1st place: Jon, Contest chair Tanya, 2nd place – Ollie, 3rd place – Katie

Reverse meeting!

admin_ — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 22:32:24 +0000

We spiced up our usual Toastmasters meeting format with a reverse meeting. This was Toastmaster of the evening Danielle’s idea and overall it went very well! As the title of the meeting suggests, a reverse meeting has the order of everything done backwards.

We started with the President ‘Closing’ the meeting, followed by the General Evaluator, Table Topics speeches, Speech evaluators, Prepared speeches, and finally with the Toastmaster welcoming everyone to the meeting. A speaker was thanked for their speech before their speech, and introduced to the stage after they had already spoken, confusing stuff! We had a few hiccups as to when we were supposed to say something, but they were minor and we all laughed them off.

Jafar was our Grammarian for the evening, and chose the word of the day: Corroborate (verb – confirm or give support to (a statement, theory, or finding)). This was used a few times throughout the meeting, sometimes humorously.

Overall it was an exciting and fun meeting. Thank you to all our members, guests, and Danielle for running a great night. See you all next week!

Passing the torch

admin_ — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 00:57:11 +0000

Time flew by as each speaker presented their speech. Rishant brought us his perception of leadership – focusing on what he could learn from to change his leadership style. Jafar’s speech focused on how one can make money. His humour livened up the room. To quote “The person who says money doesn’t bring happiness hasn’t walked into the right store”.

We had Brett come in from Orion Toastmasters to share his knowledge on presenting a speech. This was Katie’s first meeting as Toastmaster – the meeting ran with no hiccups. Our word of the day was sibilate – interesting choice by Reuben.

We said good bye to one Toast of Broadway’s veterans, Neil. As he passed on the torch to the new gen of toastmasters. Neil has been with the club for 13 Years. On to the next one.

The one with meaning..

admin_ — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 17:39:32 +0000

30^th of July brought us a very thought provoking meeting at Toast of Broadway. Jafar spoke about the meaningfulness of life. Katie made us question the use of Artificial Intelligence, and how fast it is entering our lives. Sota spoke about a young Japanese Soft-Ball talent who has made waves in the US. Rishant presented an interesting table topics session that included all of our guests.

Xiang made sure the meeting flowed in her role as Toastmaster. She did this very well – especially since there were quite a few last minute agenda changes. Xiang made sure we had enough content to keep us on time.

Our word of the day was Epiphany – a moment of sudden and great revelation or realisation. This was chosen by our Grammarian, Sarinah. Our meeting was kept on schedule by Danielle (our Timer), we finished at 8:15PM on the dot.

All in all, a great meeting with a few new faces….. on to the next one.

A very visual evening

admin_ — Tue, 19 Jun 2018 22:21:32 +0000

Our recent meeting on 18th June was a very visual one! Both Damian and Jon were presenting their Competent Communicator speech number 8 – ‘Get comfortable with visual aids’. Jafar and Rishant were using descriptive and emotive language so that we could all imagine and feel exactly what they were talking about. Table topics master Reuben led a fun table topics session, with some thought provoking and somewhat tricky topics for our members and guests. Thanks to our guests for braving it and heading up to speak in front of us!

It was Tanya’s first time running a meeting being toastmaster for the evening, and she did a fantastic job. We were on time throughout the evening, and overall it was a very smooth meeting and everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves.

Katie was our Grammarian for the evening, and chose a great word of the day: Stoic (adjective – a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining). This was used by two of our members, and is a word that all of our members can use in future speeches and evaluations.

This was our last meeting of the Toastmaster year, so president Paul said his goodbyes to the club, and provided us all with some kisses…. of the chocolate variety. Thanks for a great year of being president Paul. We look forward to seeing what our new committee with bring this coming year.

The new committee is as follows:

President: Jon Holtslag
VP Educ: Danielle Pattenden
VP Membership: Pablo Hurford & Sarinah Hurford
VP Public Relations: Rishant Shankar
Secretary: Reuben van Dorsten
Treasurer: Tanya van der Vvyer
Sergeant-At-Arms: Jafar Rizvi

Thank you to our five guests and all of our members for attending our meeting on Monday. We look forward to seeing you at the next meeting on 2nd July 2018.

Braving the rain

admin_ — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 23:26:08 +0000

It was a rainy night for our Auckland Toastmasters club last night, but our members and guests decided to brave the rain and make it to our meeting. Good thing too, because it turned out to be an interesting and fun night. We had four fantastic speeches from Reuben, George, Yuan, and Pablo, three of which were from the new Pathways learning system. Damian ran our impromptu speaking section of the night by taking on the role of Table Topics master at the last minute, working with the excellent topics that Oliver thought up for us. Thanks Damian and Oliver for the fun table topics.

When you start a new path in pathways, you give an icebreaker speech. Even though George has been a member for ten years now, it was time again for him to give us an icebreaker speech. We learned a lot about George’s journey in the past ten years as he wrote a new speech, and didn’t reuse his first ice breaker (which this author would have considered doing!).

Toastmaster of the evening Derek ran a smooth meeting, which managed to finish a minutes early, great for those wanting to get home earlier on these dark winter evenings.

Grammarian for the evening Xiang chose a fantastic word of the day: Agog (adjective – very eager or curious to hear or see something), which was used quite a few times, even by one of our guests, and we are all agog to see what word she will choose next time she is the grammarian.

Our next meeting is just next week, as we decided as a club to have two in a row instead of skipping meetings due to Queens birthday. This will also be the last meeting of the Toastmaster’s year, which means the current committee members will get a well deserved rest.

We look forward to seeing you all at our next meeting on Monday 18th June, at 6:15pm at the Parnell community centre.

A malicious evening indeed

admin_ — Tue, 08 May 2018 05:53:18 +0000

The Toast of Broadway team (as well as our guests) were lucky enough to listen to thought provoking speeches that covered a wide range of topics, from moving to a vegetarian diet, moving on a skateboard, to moving to Mars! Yuan did an amazing job running Table Topics for the first time, asking us some interesting and humorous topics. Both Rebecca & Sota shared their first evaluations, which were concise and contained good feedback. Congratulations everyone for expanding your skills and performing new roles!

Toastmaster for the evening Jon was a bit eager for a tea break, and almost forgot to introduce the evaluation segment for the evening, but luckily our members noticed and Jon quickly recovered.

Grammarian Danielle chose a fun word for word of the day: Malicious (adjective, – characterized by malice; intending or intended to do harm). Whilst it was only used once during the meeting, Danielle managed to share her wonderful grammarian’s report without any malice.

Our next meeting will have our Annual business meeting, which includes the election for our club’s next committee. So that our members know the details of each role, we had the current club officers stand up and briefly explain their role to the club.

See you all at our next meeting on Monday 21st May for more wonderful speeches, as well as our elections.

Icebreaker evening

admin_ — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 23:05:33 +0000

Last night we had a great meeting with some of our newer members doing roles for the first time. Both Katie and Rishant performed their icebreaker speeches, and did an amazing job too, we’re all looking forward to seeing what other interesting speeches that these two have in store for us.

Before our prepared speeches, we had a very insightful and humorous educational from an experienced toastmaster, Peter, who is from the Remuera Toastmasters club. This was very helpful, as after this educational Sarinah did a wonderful job of her first Toastmasters evaluation, putting what she had just learned into practice.

It was Rebecca’s first time being the gramarian for the evening. She had a great explanation of her role, and provided us with a great word of the day: Brouhaha (noun, – a noisy and overexcited reaction or response to something). Despite the fact that this word was new to many of our members, it was used a few times throughout the evening. Thanks Rebecca for expanding our vocabulary!

Reuben did a great job being toastmaster of the evening for the second time, and we can’t wait for the next time he runs a meeting. Thank you to our members, guests, and especially Peter for the educational.

See you all at our next meeting on Monday 7th May!

Debate practice

admin_ — Tue, 27 Feb 2018 02:10:19 +0000

We’ve had our third meeting for 2018, and the Toast of Broadway family are back into the swing of things! Our newer members are having a lot of chances to grown their speaking and leadership skills, with Sota performing the role of Timer for the first time, Jafar running a very smooth meeting with his first time as Toastmaster, and a great first general evaluation from Michelle.

The four speakers we had covered a wide variety of topics, ranging from Auckland house prices and what can be done about them, to our president’s Toastmasters journey so far, to donating blood!

Tatiana gave us a great opportunity to work on our debating skills with her table topics theme of debates. She first picked out two members (or a guest if they were willing!), and then provided a topic to debate on for one to two minutes per speaker. The above image has one of our guests in mid-debate, whilst George is hard in thought working on counter points!