What's Up?

We had an eventful Toastmasters meeting last Wednesday.  Despite a few hiccoughs with a last minute boardroom switch and our lack of meeting supplies, we carried on with a positive and productive meeting.

We were fortunate to have 2 excellent speakers – Jane and Mark – and a guest – Tony.  We also have a brand new member, Abbas. Welcome to the Club, Abbas!

Mark presented the #10 speech from the Competent Communication manual – Inspire Your Audience.  The title of his speech was “Let Food Guide Your Passion” and this was a test run for a speech that he is presenting to Undergraduates of the Department of Pharmacy and Nutrition at the University of Saskatchewan.  He spoke about his passion for food advocacy and it was very clear that he knows his subject well.  Mark is still a fairly new Toastmaster and is an excellent example of someone who has been focused on improving his communication and presenting skills in a very short amount of time.

Experienced member, Jane, presented an educational on the ballot criteria for the upcoming contests on Jan 22^nd and 29^th.  Prairie Schooners will be hosting 2 contests in the very near future – Evaluation Contest and International Speech Contest.  These contests are held in our Club each year and the winners go on to represent our Club at the Area and Division levels.  Jane briefed all Club members on what the judges will be looking for in the Evaluations and on the International Speeches.  This information will come in quite handy and I wish all participants the best of luck.

Three new members have recently joined our Club.  These 3 ladies have been a welcome addition to our Club and have been very eager to participate and contribute in meetings.  In fact, all 3 members took on a brand new leadership role at today’s meeting which was very new territory for all of them. I’m pleased and proud to report that they did an excellent job!

I hope this encourages others to take on a role that may challenge them.  Guests are always welcome to join us and check us out any Wednesday from 12 – 1pm at Federated Co-op Main Boardroom.

Happy New Year

The Prairie Schooners Toastmasters Club started off the new year with a bang, the theme of the meeting was New Years Resolutions.  Great turn-out of members with everyone giving their views on New Year Resolutions and what they may be - one can only conclude that we have very interesting members in our club.  We also had a guest - Abbas, who has only been in country 6 months and wishes to set up business here.  Abbas will be joining our club and will shortly be reaping the benefits of Toastmasters.

One of our newest members Jinzhe delivered her icebreaker.  We learned that Jinzhe was born in China and is an artist, an attribute that her mother realized when she was only 100 days old!

The second speech was delivered by Jane whose task it was to give a speech in praising a person (living or dead).  Jane chose to praise another Toastmaster member of the club (Marloes) and the audience learnt a few extra character traits of Marloes.

The impromptu session (speaking with no preparation) was run by Rathan who prepared some rather difficult questions but all had fun.