Laughing Ned and the Telescope

Last Thursday night, Sept 4th saw the Speak Easy Toastmasters Club get their 2008/09 season off to a fantastic start with a packed meeting in the Hibernian Hotel, Mallow.
Quite a number of welcome guests joined with Speak Easy members to see Club President, Ray Ryan open the meeting by welcoming everyone and setting the tone both for the meeting and for the
and for future meetings under his presidency.

Noel O’Connor was our Toastmaster for the evening and guided us with his usual efficiency, through the meeting, He also explained, that as well as speakers practicing their craft at toastmaster meetings, other officers and participants were also practicing how to organize and participate in meetings.

First speaker of the evening was Liam Flynn with a speech entitled, “The Telescope” which as the name suggests was a most informative speech on the history and development of the telescope and its uses, from ancient to modern times. Liam also brought, for display, a selection of telescopes, binoculars and even a periscope from a Russian tank.

Following Liam, came Tim Ahern with his speech, “This is it”. Tim reminded us of the coming dark evenings and as Toastmasters only occupied one evening and there were plenty of night courses to partake in. He demonstrated to us his hobby of furniture restoration that he learned by attending evening classes.

Third speaker of the evening was Pat Sexton with an Interpretive Reading project entitled, “Laughing Ned and Zen Buddhism” in which he challenged us to compare the lyrics of Leonard Cohen to poetry. Pat backed up his argument by reciting the lyrics of three of Cohen’s songs and we were in no doubt that indeed they were sheer poetry.

The final speaker of the evening was Assistant Division Governor, Pat Duggan who explained to the importance of members completing the new Competent Leader program and that it promoted teamwork, listening, relationship skills not only in Toastmasters but in our family, social and work situations.

Topicsmaster of the evening was Margaret O’Regan with a well thought out bag of topics which kept the members on their feet and practicing their “speaking off the cuff” skills. Margaret’s topics ranged from the weather, through crimeline, shouting at matches, coming into money and many more.

Micheal Walsh was general evaluator and gave feedback on how the meeting was run, how the participants performed and made appropriate suggestions for improvement.

Other participants were evaluators, Jerry Mulcahy, Anne Buckley, Mary Buckley and Lorretto Barry. Timekeeper was Mary McCarthy and Ah Counter was Joe Hassett. Sgt at Arms were Cáit Murray, Liam Flynn and Jean Sayers.

Speak Easy Toastmasters next meeting is on September 18th in the Hibernian Hotel at 7.50 for and 8.00pm start. Further information from our website www.speakeasytoastmasters.com or from Club PRO Sean at 086 6054784.