13 Feb

The Speakeasy Toastmasters meeting of the 6’th of February was a different format than the usual meetings. It was a workshop meeting and was opened by President Mr. Pat Sexton who explained the format of the meeting and introduced the Toastmaster for the evening, Kieran Buckley. Kieran then explained his role for the evening and then introduced the Sergeant at Arms, Ann Buckley and Kay Quirke and Timekeeper, John Murphy. Kieran introduced Elizabeth O’Brien ATM (Advanced Toastmaster) who tonight was doing an Educational Module in The Art of Effective Evaluation.
Elizabeth began by telling us that what makes Toastmasters such an enjoyable learning experience was is our system of evaluation. The attendance were each given a workbook to help participate in the seminar and to assist with note taking, feedback and to provide us with a summary of the evening which we could use for future reference. The seminar came under various headings such as, Why Do We Evaluate? Why People Want To Learn To Speak, How We Improve As Speakers etc.
As part of the seminar there were speeches from three Toastmasters, Angela Sheehan (Stage 6) Michael Donegan (Advanced) and Barry Mc’Carthy (Advanced) and Evaluations from Jerry Mulcahy, Margret O’Regan and Michael Cronin. The Evaluations would form part of Elizabeth’s seminar.

The first speech was by Angela Sheehan and was a Stage 6 and the objectives were, “To select precicely the right words required to communicate your ideas clearly and vividly. To avoid lengthy words and sentences and jargon” Time allowed, five to Seven minutes.
The title of Angela’s speech was “Céad Míle Fáilte?” “I am left alone on my own in this world” began Angela quoting from an article in a Sunday Newspaper shortly before Christmas recalling the tragic story of a family of Turkish Kurds who died in a container and were discovered in an industrial estate in Wexford. She asked the question “what kind of a céad míle fáilte” are people from different races getting in Ireland and cited various incidents to prove that they are not.
Jerry Muclahy evaluated Angela’s speech.

The next speech of the evening was from Michael Donegan who was completing an advanced speech from “The Special Occasions Manual”
“I wish to propose a toast to you, yes you, ladies and gentlemen members of Speakeasy Toastmasters Club on the occasion of the Club’s tenth anniversary” said Michael as he recalled the beginning of the club and how in those days we had to rely on members of other clubs to fill our programmes. The progress and achievements of the club in those ten years.
Margaret O’Regan evaluated Michael’s speech.

Our final speaker of the night was Barry Mc’Carthy who was completing an advanced speech from the Speaking To Inform Manual (Demonstration Talk), entitled “Relax And Enjoy” Barry, complete with massage couch, towels and Michael Cronin explained the art of massage and demonstrated how a back massage is done and he described the muscles that he was working on.
A refreshed Michael Cronin evaluated Barry’s speech.

Speakeasy Toastmasters meet again on February 20’th. Toastmaster for this meeting is Michael Walsh and Topicsmaster is Tim Casey.
There will be speeches by John Dillon, Jeremiah Roynane and Margret O’Regan.
This meeting is also the Club’s Evaluation Contest. The winner and runner up will represent the Club in the Area Final.
As always Guests/Non-Members are very welcome.
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