Languages and Scallions

This week at Speakeasy, an informative and thought provoking meeting was presided over by Toastmaster for the night, Angela Sheehan, with her usual warmth. The evening began with a lively topics session. Mary Moynihan was Topicsmaster and kept members on their toes with a variety of topics, from Halloween to anti social behaviour. Non members need never worry at topics session. They will never be asked to speak but are very welcome to if they should wish to do so. There were four speeches. Club President Jerry Mulcahy gave an absorbing speech about food. He took us back in time to the “Emergency”, or World War Two, when food was rationed and many people survived through tending to plots of ground and growing their own vegetables. It was fascinating social history to hear how the “eye” of the potato was carefully planted in spring. There was no waste, the rest of the potato was eaten. The eyes or “scillains”, were watched over carefully and protected from blight and frost till time for the first harvest in July. It was a thing of pride and honour for people to produce their own food and maybe a way of life many are returning to now. Jerry O’Callaghan evaluated Jerry’s speech. Kieran Butler, in a speech called, “Languages and the urgency of Now”, gave a very interesting, and humorous speech on the need for Irish people to develop language skills to help our economy and bring us more in line with our European neighbours. He really made his point when he went “interactive” and thought us all a few words of Chinese!, Nihao Kieran! Pat Sexton evaluated Kieran’s speech. Cait Murray made a case for listening to Classical music, its benefits, and ideas on help to be got for the Classical convert. Marie Fitzpatrick evaluated Cait’s speech. Margaret O’Regan gave a very amusing speech entitled, “I knew things had changed when …”. Margaret, used very funny personal anecdotes, to show how the world moves on. Pat Duggan evaluated Margaret’s speech. Ray Ryan ably evaluated the meeting as a whole. Bridie O’Connell looked after the job of timing the speeches and the contributors to the topics session. Claire O’ Connell gave a humorous account of how she felt we all did with regard to our grammar. All were warmly welcomed to the meeting by Marie Lynes, Ronan Condon and Mary Moynihan as Sergeant at Arms. A special congratulations was made at the meeting to Pat Sexton who having won the Division A final in the topics competition, will now represent the Division at the District Final where clubs from Great Britain and Ireland compete, to be held in Garryvoe Hotel on Sat 10th November next. Coming soon on the 22nd of November will be a highlight of the club year, the annual schools contest, for the Mallow Credit Union Perpetual Trophy, -not to be missed. Speakeasy toastmasters meets at 8pm Hibernian Hotel Mallow every other Thursday, next meeting is on Nov 15th. Contact Jerry 0863752895,or Noel 0872427485. "Follow us on Facebook "Speak Easy Toastmasters", on Twitter "@speakeasytm" and on our blog "http://speakeasytm.blogspot. www.speakeasytoastmasters.com