25 Sept

Speakeasy Toastmasters Mallow



Speakeasy club president Pat Duggan welcomed the large number of members and guests to the second Toastmasters meeting of the year. Our Toastmaster for the evening was Gerry O’ Callaghan who took us all through the evening’s programme which was packed with speeches, table topics and a table topics competition.
The first speaker was Ray Ryan who strongly disagreed with John Yeats – Autumn is NOT the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. It is the time for ‘Autumnal Slaughter’ as his speech title indicated. He urged everyone to join him in killing every wasp on sight as they had tormented and terrorised him since boyhood. Things took a completely different turn as we were treated to a wonderful demonstration on how to create ‘Sweetie Street’. Margaret O’ Regan described, with all the necessary ingredients, how to ice and decorate a kid’s birthday cake. The finished article was complete with front gardens and name plates and Margaret gave a colourful description of the important people who lived here in the ‘Shrewsbury road’ of birthday cakes…including the International Sports Event Organiser Vivienne Buckley and the politically connected ‘O Callaghans. You could possibly learn about the art of cake decoration during one of the evening classes suggested by Noel O’ Conner in his speech entitled ‘Activities’. Noel outlined all of the social and personal benefits of taking up either a physical or mental activity for the Winter months. Finally we heard a very moving story from Marie Fitzpatrick who shared with us a chance encounter which lead to a friendship with a family of fellow tourists in the Blasket Islands. Marie described the despair, horror and finally hope felt by that family after the discovery that their son was found to be suffering from a very serious illness.
As always each of the speeches was evaluated by club members. On this occasion we heard four excellent evaluations from John Dillon, Fiona Herbert, Michael Donegan and Pat Sexton. The role of evaluation is very important in providing the speakers with very valuable feedback and helps them to improve their public speaking techniques.
Every speech is timed and as such the role of Timekeeper is very important. On this evening both William Healy and Anne Buckley did an excellent job as Timekeepers for the regular speeches and during the Topics contest.
Another important part of the meeting – the Table Topics session was conducted by Vivienne Buckley. Topics directed at fellow toastmasters included what would you most like to do before you die, what drives David Blaine, the dangers of the internet and the quality of airline service. As usual there was a spirited and interesting response to these topics.
Don’t forget ….next Saturday, 27th September, Speakeasy Toastmasters Mallow will have an information stand at Tesco’s Mallow, from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm. It will be attended by members of Speakeasy Toastmasters and who will be delighted to chat with any member of the public about the club, it’s activities and our own personal experiences and achievements.

As usual, guests are very welcome to attend club meetings. If you would like to know more about Speakeasy Toastmasters you can ring Angela at 022 51071 or Sean at 022 22755 for information. Or you can log onto our website; www.clix.to/speakeasy. The club’s e-mail address is speakeasymallow@eircom.net