12 Dec

The Speakeasy Toastmasters Club held another very successful and entertaining meeting in The Hibernian Hotel, Mallow, (Chapel Lane) on Thursday 28’th of November.
After John Dillon’s speech it was the turn of Rita Foley with a speech entitled “Bread”. Rita was making a stage 5 speech from the Communications and Leadership Programme the purpose of which was “To explore the use of voice volume, pitch, rate and quality as assets to your speaking”, “To achieve a pleasing natural voice quality when speaking”.
“I am the living bread that has come down from Heaven, anyone who eats this bread will live forever” began Rita who drew attention to the vast range of breads that adorn our supermarket shelves and are available in restaurants. Rita is one of a group of people who have Coeliac Disease for whom there is no cure or treatment. A gluten free diet is the treatment for life.
Rita’s speech was evaluated by Jerry Mulcahy.

Then it was the turn of Michael Cronin who was speaking from one of the Advanced Manuals, Speciality Speeches. The title of his speech was “The Boss” in which he read an extract from the book “The Boss”. The extract that Michael choose to read was about the first day of the sitting of the Dáil that resulted from the Feb. 82 election.
Michael’s speech was evaluated by Dermot Meaney.

The last speech of the night was by Elizabeth O’Brien and entitled “Points System” This was very informative speech dealing with the new penalty points system for motoring offences. There are 65 offences under this system. 58 carry on the spot fines and the other 7 “deadly sins” carry a mandatory court appearance. 6 of these carry 5 penalty points. The 58 offences that carry on the spot fines can be challenged in court but if one is convicted the points will increase by 2 and the others will increase by 3.
Barry Mc’Carthy evaluated Elizabeth’s speech.

After the speeches President, Pat Sexton formally welcomed new member John Murphy and presented him with his Communications and Leadership Programme Manual.

After the break the meeting was handed over to Topics Master William Healy who conducted a very entertaining Topics Session. This is the part of the meeting where members are asked to speak for 2 minutes on a subject that the Topics Master chooses. Among the topics that William choose was “don’t give a dog for Christmas”, “Organic horse meat to eat”.

The meeting was then handed over to Noel O’Connor who was General Evaluator for the meeting. Noel conducted the Evaluation Session where the different speeches were evaluated by the different evaluators and feedback given to the speakers. Noel also commented on how the various participants performed and presented ribbons for
Best Speech, John Holmes, Best Evaluation, Dermot Meaney and Best Topic went to Grant who was a Guest.

The next meeting of the Speakeasy Toastmasters Club will be tonight 12’th December and the participants on the programme will be Toastmaster, Noel O’Connor, Topicsmaster, Sr, Bernadette Knopec (Fáilte Toastmasters), Timekeeper, Mary Stack.
Sgt. At Arms, Elaine O’Donovan and Kay O’Keeffe. Speeches will be by Mary Buckley, Barrry McCarthy, Sean Corcoran, Marie Fitzpatrick, Joan Lenihan and Pat Sexton. Evaluators are Tim Ahern, Dermot Meaney, Kieran Buckley and Michael McMahon.
For further information on the Club contact Sean on 086 6054784 or Pat 087 2364240 or visit the Club’s Website at www.clix.to/speakeasy. Email, speakeasymallow@eircom.net