18 Dec

Speakeasy Toastmasters Mallow

A cracker of a meeting.

Everyone was treated to a very festive and fun night out last week during the Speakeasy Toastmaster’s Christmas meeting. The venue was wonderfully decked out with Christmas lights, candles, crackers and tinsel, and the great man himself was also in attendance (Ho Ho Ho!). We were fortunate that his better half, Mrs Clause (aka Mary Buckley), also took time out of her busy schedule to organise the topics session for the night.
Having warmed up with a glass of mulled wine, members and guests were welcomed by President Pat Duggan and the meeting was underway. Toastmaster for the night was Michael Dineen who took us all through a lively and entertaining programme of speeches and topics. And indeed a great night was made even more special by the inclusion of an ‘Icebreaker’ speech – which is in fact a member’s very first speech. This was delivered by Margaret Buckley who shared with us a wonderful speech entitled ‘25 year holiday’ which described the highlights and events of the 25 years she has lived in Mallow while continually being mistaken for a visitor – a cockney accent is hard to shake off! There is no doubt that Margaret has plenty of material available to her for the many speeches we are looking forward to hearing in the future.
Jeremiah Ronayne evaluated Margaret’s speech, which was followed by a speech from Elizabeth O’ Brien entitled ‘A time for giving’. Elizabeth shared with us some Christmas and New Year’s memories, culminating with that New Year’s Day when she received the proposal – but no ring! That was soon sorted out on the very next day when, following an education in diamonds, they eventually picked one from the wide and diverse selection. Eugene O’ Connell evaluated Elizabeth’s speech.
Vivien Buckley entertained us with a hugely funny story about a Christmas dinner that went very wrong – involving a tug-of-war over the turkey between Vivien and the next door neighbour’s St Bernard. The moral of the story was in the title ‘It always pays to tell the truth’ and suffice to say that the speech evaluator, Fiona Herbert, spoke for us all when she said she would probably decline any invitation to dine at Vivien’s! At least until she gets the fence fixed.
Kieran Buckley had us all spellbound with the narration of a short play he had written himself for this evening entitled ‘The Present’. It was a beautiful and simple but emotionally complex Christmas tale which evoked in all of us the different feelings of sadness, worry, loneliness and eventually, happiness. Kieran’s speech was evaluated by Pat Sexton.
Mrs Clause (Mary Buckley) made sure that as many people as possible were on their feet to speak during the Topics session. This was done with the aid of a series of wrapped ‘seasonal’ surprises, including a Santa figure, a snowman, a piece of Christmas tree, Christmas cards, a bottle of sherry, a plum pudding, all of which she gave out as subjects for topics. Things took a non-seasonal turn when the contents of pulled crackers formed the basis of the topics – these included a motorbike and a scorpion – what would you find to say about a plastic scorpion? The whole session was great fun with occasional input from the man himself, Mr Clause (aka John Murphy) Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Our next meeting is after Christmas, on Thursday, 8th January and, as usual, guests are very welcome to attend. The meetings start at 8:00 pm and we ask everyone to be at The Hibernian Hotel (Chapel Lane) at 7:50 pm.