Meeting # 846 – Rhyme Time
Who chose Rhyme Time as the topic of today’s session?
Who I ask, I do, I do, I do.
Steve, the Grammarian, asks “What is a rhyme, a correspondence of sound?”
What is its function? A familiar pattern can be used as mnemonic device- memory- which can be useful to Toastmastees…
Steve read his own poem that minded me of The Cat in Hat by Dr Seuss.
Louise Green used great rhymes to introduce our 1st speaker Daniel McKirdy who title his speech You Know You Have Health Cover.
There was a stealth of wealth that came from his speech. Did you know that the top insurance claims are for spinal surgery, heart surgery and knee surgery? Nor did I !
John Macvicar introduced Bee Bathish who’s speech Honduras Box was about convincing us to eat sustainably. How do you do that, you ask?
First, by eating ethically produced food. Basically, how much water and energy does it take to produce grains and/or meat. I did a bit of research and found that “If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million,” David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Secondly, consider Justice. Are farm workers and animals exploited to produce the food you eat? Consider buying from Fair trade and other ethical stores
Thirdly, Health. The closer you are to the production of food, the better it is for your health. Go to the Farmer’s Markets around Christchurch and support our farmers!
Trade offs are between all three. Start reading your food labels!
Terelle Hegarty introduced Garry Musson who’s topic was 10/80. The controversial topic of “do we do a drop or don’t we’. Garry explained what 10/80 was, and what it does to our unique NZ flora and what would happen if we didn’t use it. A bit of a curly topic. Garry started being anti 10/80 to now considering its possible use. What I didn’t know was that 10/80 doesn’t last in the environment because it’s water soluble.
These speeches were a bit on serious side for Rhyme Time but the Table Topics brought us closer to children’s rhymes. Each speaker had to combine the rhyme to give us a 1.5 minute speech. First it there was me, Natalie Perzylo who had to think why Jack and Jill couldn’t go up the hill. Rain Rain Go Away, Alanna Bogart got out the rain boots and Denise had to explain her spider phobia because of Miss Muffet.
Mary Had a Little Lamb- and Sandra had a Schnauzer (called George Clooney.)
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, and Jennifer’s painting was put together by her father.
Boaters Bulletin given by Sabine Parry
· Breakfast meeting Dec 16
· Improv at Court Theatre- Dec 15
· International contest
· Division G table topics- workshops
· Website is getting a make over
David, the timer, had the last great rhyme On time, How sublime!
14/10/2016 written by Natalie Perzylo
Read MoreMeeting # 843 – Spring Splendour
Toastmaster for the meeting was David Clarkson and the meeting’s theme was “Spring Splendour”.
The Grammarian was Mark Burtenshaw and his Word of the Day was “Vivacious” which was well used by speakers.
First speaker this morning was Denise Ford with her ‘Icebreaker Speech’ entitled “ A True Cantabrian”. This was an appropriate title as Denise’s forebears came to NZ on one of Canterbury’s 1st four ships, the Cressy. We learnt a lot about Denise who is a self-confessed ‘greeny’ - who has a love of the the bush, the beach and wetlands. This was a fine effort for her first speech.
Second ‘cab off the block’ was Mark Glanville with his speech “Gratitude”. This was a ‘vocal variety’ speech in which Mark ably demonstrated his vocal skills whilst encouraging us to succeed by having “an attitude of gratitude”. The key is to counter adversity by listing all those things we have to be grateful about, expressing gratitude to people when it’s appropriate and helping others.
Alana Bogart was the final speaker. Hers was a humorous speech entitled “The Consequences”. It was a review of how we deal with young children regarding the consequences of their actions. Children are great at outsmarting (educating) their parents. So it’s essential if we are to avoid those unwanted and unforeseen consequences that we set the boundaries for them so they feel secure, always stay calm to avoid extending bad consequences and keep our instructions simple so that our children can avoid what we know to be adverse consequences.
Table Topics Master today was Rachel Walton. Her’s was a great “Agony Aunt” session and the topics were:
‘What’s the difference between a wife and a mistress?’ _ Danny De Hek
‘Can a baby be born at 8lbs after 5 months? John MacVicar
‘Dogs or cats – which are the best?’ Duncan Murray (guest)
‘My boy’s 73 – how do I stop still chasing women?’ Roydon Gibbs
‘I joined the Navy to see the world – now how do I get out/’ Steve Mydlowski
How would you have done with these impromptu topics? All part of the fun at Boaters!
23/09/2016 written by David Clarkson
Read MoreHumorous Contest
The Humourous Contest was held on Friday 12th August at Speight’s Ale House, Bealey.
The Sergeant at Arms, David Clarkson, opened the meeting and introduced the Contest Chair, Steven Mydlowski who warmed up the audience with some jokes.
We had seven contestants. Their names and speech titles are listed below.
Helen McLeod – Lesson From My Mother
Vivien Cowey – Always Get a Goldfish
Alan Calder – I’ll Be Right Back After this Break
Danny de Hek – Rules of Humour
Rodney Ford – Nuclear Family
Alannah Vickery – Too Quick to Judge
David Cooper – Bright Ideas
We had five guest judges listed below.
Chief Judge – Phil Gourdie
Judges: Beryl Williamson, Beth Bradley, Helen Peat, Mike Johnson(not pictured)
The winners were:
First: Vivien Cowey
Second: Helen Mcleod
Third: Alan Calder
written and captured by Alana Bogart
Read MoreMeeting #844 – Speech Marathon
Toastmaster Roydon Gibbs took us through a fantastic week of prepared speeches.
Jennifer started our Marathon off perfectly with the reminder that it’s all about running your own race.
Terrelle – Enlightened us with what will be her intro/conclusion for her PhD submission speech that she will deliver shortly in regards to Woman in Construction in a Post Earthquake setting.
Alannah – Had the Marathon leap to Paris – We heard of the beauty, the laughs, the bikes and fun of this beautiful city. Alannah also secured the Toastie award for amazing us with doing a front flip off a bike but STILL landing on her feet…
Charlene – had us all agreeing whilst being tired that we should ditch daylight savings! Being the first week post Dailylight savings this was timely. We were all a bit tired so easily agreed with her reasoning!
Kevin took us through a day in his life… Whilst this was a simple speech Kevin made this an absolutely fantastic entertaining speech!
Sabine took us through some fun language difference between NZ and German. Sabine was sure that we were mistaken and not all German words sounded angry. By the end I think we all agreed!
Another fantastic Boaters Toastmasters
Caleb Vercoe, 30th September 2016
Read More