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The Maungakiekie Mouthpiece
Vol 22 Issue 15 – 24th January 2012
Maungakiekie Toastmasters Meeting Report
Toastmaster meeting on 24 January 2012 for Maungakiekie Toastmasters Club was an
exciting one because of Evaluation Contest.
You could feel the atmosphere the moment entering Jack Dickey Hall.
First of all, it was noticeable that we had club guests from different toastmasters clubs as
judges.
Secondly, the contestants were gathered in the front corner for Teresa to brief the rules
and orders while Andrew Pass called for those who had duties for the contest to kitchen.
The tense was definitely in the air. Just before commence of the meeting, Michael Wallace
realised that the podium was not in sight, which was remedied straight away.
Hammer gave a thunder sound echoing in the hall and MichaelWallace, the Sergeants At
Arms, started the meeting by a greeting for Chinese New Year – Year of Dragon. He
presented a poem, Chinese Dragon/Breathing Fire/Happy Happy New Year/Gong Xi Fa Cai
(Wish you a prosperous year in Cantonese).
Joan as President welcomed everyone and announced that she was a dragon!!! Then she
handed the meeting to Robert Wong as the Chairman of the evening. As per usual, Robert
vividly described his friend’s experience in a Chinese Restaurant ordering Peking Duck with
plum sauce and background music, which aroused laughs.
Raju executed his role as Hospitality (Guest) Officer
He welcomed judges from various toastmasters clubs and introduced the guests.
There are three guests.
1. Trisha Weston who is a medical scientist, came to know our club via website. She
would like to learn to speak affectively in groups.
2.
Tania Engles, from Onehunga Toastermasters Club, was interested in how other
club’s meeting was running.
3.
Paul Engles, who came to support his wife, Tania Engles.
Raju also emphasized the mission of Maungakiekie Club:
The mission of a Toastmasters club is to provide a mutually supportive and positive learning
environment in which every member has the opportunity to develop communication and
leadership skills, which in turn develop self-confidence and personal growth.
After apologies of night by Robert Wong, Cameron Brill, the Grammarian, presented the
World of Night, Bloviate, which led a few laughs. According to Wikipedia, Bloviation is a style
of empty, pompous, political speech which originated in Ohio and was used by US president,
Warrent G. Harding, who described it as “the art of speaking for as long as the occasion
warrants, and saying nothing”. Cameron provided examples of sentences and also mentioned
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his other duties of night besides introducing the world of night, for example, looking at the
grammar of members as well as the counting of ahs and hms.
Theresa Gu as Contest Chairwoman started her role by a greeting, Happy Chinese New Year
in Mandarin, compared with Robert Wong’s one in Cantonese. Then she requested everyone
to turn off any electronic device for a necessary uninterrupted environment. The
announcement of the order of contestants brought the meeting to the evaluation contest.
1
Stephanie Woodward
2
Paul Aked
3
Simon Smith
4
Helen Korte
5
Sarah Scott
6
Michael Diggins
7
Joan Hook
The contestants will evaluate a speech presented by Marianne, the guest speaker, with a
speech titled, The Foodie Thing.
While the contestants were called to the kitchen for their evaluation, Theresa called for
the table topics to fill in the gap and was agreed by Chairman. What an improvisation!
As Table Topic Master of the evening, Cindy brought out the theme of table topic, Chinese
New Year. Tina was called upon to give her opinion on “Should NZ have holiday every New
Year, either Maori or Chinese New Year?” With no any hesitation, Tina stated that of course
New Zealand should because everyone loves holidays. Then she shared her story of Chinese
New Year celebration with John Key in present in Auckland Chinese society. We then heard
the opinion of Paul, guest of the club, on why Chinese New Year gains more popularity in New
Zealand.
The time for evaluation contest arrived.
The first evaluator is Stephanie Woodworth
Stephanie welcomed everyone, especially Marianne. She felt that fabulous words brought
Marianne’s speech to life. Stephanie also liked the organisation of her speech. Stephanie
thought that the conclusion was a bit of abrupt, which should be referring opening. She
recaptured her evaluation, that the speech had a great introduction and conclusion can be
more reinforcing.
Paul Aked was the second contestant.
He began with the title of the speech. And provided what he felt with respect to the
content of the speech. NZ products are great. Marianne didn’t try to persuade the audience.
Paul had three recommendations.
a. To slow down and just bring a couple of names at one time
b. Hands by sides
c. Vocal variety
In summary, to Paul, it was a great speech. He emphasized to just slow down with hands by
sides as well as with vocal variety.
Simon Smith as the third contestant felt that Marianne educated us well with well chosen
topic as well as with right tone. He mentioned one new product in Marianne’s speech, avocado
oil sweet chilly ice cream ( I myself would like to try it if I can find it in the super market!).
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Recommendation was to do with reading notes since Simon felt very light entertaining with
such good choice of topic when Marianne read notes.
Next came Helen Korte as the fourth contestant.
Helen started her evaluation by greeting to everyone, especially to Marianne. She found that
the speech was very inspirational and was well done with wonderful words. Her
recommendation is to slow down with a few more pauses to create more impact. Helen also
pointed out that it shows nerves with hands in front. She concluded by emphasizing that it
was a well done speech and she is looking forward more speeches.
The fifth contestant, Sarah Scott, moved the podium with smile on her face before
presenting her evaluation. Sarah outlined what the speech was and gave a lot facts from the
speech. Sarah found that the speech was full of wonderful phrases and told us that
Marianne is a writer (no wonder that we heard a lot of fabulous words and wonderful
phrases.) Sarah recommended to slow down as well as to express with leisure plus less
information for flavour chosen. Sarah felt a lovely touch of humour in Marianne’s speech.
She summarised that the speech had great facts and the delivery of speech can be slowed
down.
Mike Diggins outlines what the speech was. He felt a hint of persuasion in the end and the
speech was informative. Mike enjoyed the word in Marianne’s speech. Enthusiasm is the
recommendation of Mike with vocal variety as well as hands by sides, of those was netted
off by a little bit of local pride, according to Mike. In summary, Mike thought that the
speech had a great summary with more vocal variety to carry the New Zealand pride to the
end.
Joan was the last contestant and she ran to the podium, showing her enthusiasm in
presenting her evaluation. She stated that she liked the topic, The Foodie Thing. Joan
thought the speech showed a good research. She recommended enthusiasm with more vocals
and gestures. Joan demonstrated how to step back and use hands during speech. She pointed
out that Marianne used her notes well and Joan liked her phrase. In summary, Joan liked her
research and recommended to slow down the speech.
All the contestants presented their evaluations and the votes from judges were collected.
Theresa invited all the contestants to the stages whom were applauded and were handed
with certificates of participation.
After 6 minutes break, Cindy resumed the table topic by calling upon Robert Wong. The
topic given was, what is special to be born in the year of dragon. Robert stated that all the
Chinese would like their children to be born in the year of dragon because dragon was the
symbol of power according to Chinese. Robert pointed out that population will be doubled,
which would create great problem to Chinese government. Judy Gillett was called upon to
state that Chinese heritage definitely is spreading. She herself has experiences to play with
Chinese in her tennis club who learn fast and play well. She does enjoy Chinese food although
she can’t use the chopstick.
After evaluations of table topics by Judith and Ajay, came the general business session.
Michael McMillan asked the vote of confidence on subscription fee increase. He provided
detailed revenue/cost reports for 2009-2011 and pointed out that the proposed increase
would be a reasonable one, compared with the international fee increase. The increase of fee
was voted favourably by members.
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Michael Wallace brought out the proposed picnic in Campbell Park and clarified that this
picnic would be informal picnic and not be the toastmaster meeting.
Mike Diggins and Cindy involved in training the judge for contest and encouraged members to
participate.
Joan called for contest speech for Ellerslie Sunrise contest of speech.
Grant as grammarian came to the front to present his report. In general, he thought English
and grammars were good. Michael was the one who used the word of the night whom was
awarded with gum boot. Grant also detailed the counts of hms and ahs. In
Finally, it came the result of the contest, which was announced by Theresa.
The 3rd Place
Sarah Scott
The 2nd Place
Joan Hook
The Winner ( Roll of drum....) Michael Diggins
Theresa invited the judges to present the observation and the judge said that it was nice to
go out to other club. It was noticed that Maungakiekie club offered wines, which might not
be the case in every club. The judge thought the contest was very educational, teaching
members to put down evaluation in a short time which is part of training. All the judges were
invited to the front and were presented small gifts as token of appreciation from our club.
After this, Theresa handed the meeting back to Robert and expressed her thanks for the
opportunity as a chairwoman of contest whom was awarded with Best Duty Holder.
The Best Table Topic Award went to Robert Wong, who also announced the closure of the
meeting.