Last Monday’s meeting was about our own Irish connections. Our president Jessie MacNeil-Brown opened the session reminding us that Toastmasters is all about communication, leadership, listening, and friendship. And our Toastmaster, Jenny Cutler, enthusiastically guided us through the evening introducing the different sections.

Timekeeper Monica Chong explained to us her role with an analogy on how early people prefer to arrive at the airport, “similarly you shouldn’t arrive at the end of your speech too early or too late. Grammarian Sinead Mhuircheartaigh introduced us to the word of the evening: “lucky”.

Richard Russell chaired the table topics by asking us to explain “factoids” about ourselves, from driving a tractor in India to setting one’s bedroom on fire at age 7. Alison O’Mahony did a very skilful evaluation of the table topics, providing great commendations and recommendations (including a reference to the number of times our president smiles).

Andrej Kuttruf delivered a strong and interesting ice breaker, “Finding my focus”. He recommended us that if we “Focus on something, everything else falls into place”. Stephan von Posern, with a speech entitled “No Books” recommended us to improve our speaking skills not by reading books but by reaching deep into ourselves; “keep a diary and write down everything that comes to your mind. And if everything else fails just ask Andrew Chucks”. Sally Maier-Yip, in a speech from one of the advanced manuals gave us great tips on how to love ourselves more. And finally, for the Cardinals Challenge we had the courageous Alex Hancock bringing together “Rowing, Prince Harry and salt”.

Winners of the night
Best Table Topic. Danny Callaghan with his factoid about the time he got locked in Waitrose with Barack Obama.

Best Evaluator. Paul Welsh who commended the power of the personal testimony in Sally’s speech

Best Speech. Stephan von Posern for his speech “No Books”.

Last Monday’s meeting had an atmosphere of fun and thoughtfulness. We stepped back a bit to ask ourselves about our criteria to define high quality.

Our enthusiastic Toastmaster, Monica Chong gave us a list with the criteria used by contest judges to define a good speech. She also asked us what criteria we use to evaluate things in life. Word of the day from grammarian Andrej Kuttruff was “lackadaisical”, unfortunately we were a bit lackadaisical to use it. Our toastmaster Danny Callaghan skilfully explored the world of advice, the responses included best and worst advice, advice for approaching the opposite sex and even some advice for Kate Middleton and David Cameron.

Henry Lam’s inspiring icebreaker conveyed his amazing vision on sustainable food for everyone and left us wondering when he will cook for us. Sinead Mhuircheartaigh transported us in our seats with a beautiful account of her year in Paris, a great mix of lyrical language and hard comedy.

Trang Le enthusiastically acted her speech “Examples of parenting techniques”. She reminded us that there are different techniques but one thing in common is love. Jess Forster in her last speech before maternity leave encouraged us to pick a few small changes that can make a difference in global warming. We even filled a form that she will hold us accountable for when she comes back in September. General Evaluator, Glenn Jones: “Fantastic meeting, I look forward to the next one”.

Winners of the night

Best Table Topic. A tie between Laura McCracken with her advice to get to the top by being authentic, and Bruce Hurd with his advice to woman: live your life and enjoy what you do.

Best Evaluator. James Barnett who impeccably evaluated Henry Lam’s icebreaker.

Best Speech. Sinead Mhuircheartaigh for her speech entitled A year in Paris.