There was a lot done in a little time this week. Four brilliant speeches were heard and evaluated. There was a short but lively topic session and the club annual AGM was dealt with efficiently too in the second part of the meeting . Toastmaster clubs do put emphasis on time management and this skill was certainly to the fore at this meeting to the credit of Toastmaster for the evening, Kieran Butler who joined President Jerry Mulcahy and Topicsmaster Liam Flynn at the top table.
It was a special night for the club as a new member gave her first speech. She was Helsa Giles and she delighted the crowd with a very clever humorous and charming speech about herself. We all look forward to Helsa's participation in the club. Margaret O'Regan evaluated Helsa's speech.
Mary Buckley's speech from the Specialty Speeches Manual, drew many wry smiles from the audience. She delivered some telling information via Shane Ross and Nick Webb's book, "The Wasters",about the waste of public money engaged in by public representatives with access to tax payers money in the time of the boom. Jaws dropped around the room as details of trips to international sporting and cultural events were described, at the flagrancy of it all. Kylie Minogue's song " I should be so lucky" was mentioned and everyone related totally to that sentiment ! Rona Coghlan evaluated Mary's speech.
James Kelleher's inspirational speech was entitled "Never Give Up". It was about a young man who 10 years to the day was involved in a near fatal car crash and spent 5 months in Rehab with little hope of walking again. Miraculously he recovered and is now dedicating himself to being a paramedic and specialising in attending to people in road traffic accidents. James was in fact that young man and in telling his own story so effectively he reminded us of the preciousness of life. Marie Lynes evaluated James' speech.
Anne Buckley's speech was a hoot and about in essence a boot or 2. Frugality and Fashion was the title and Anne very humorously described her dilemna when faced with a very expensive pair of boots which she really really liked. She developed a condition she diagnosed as "shopping paralysis" The moral of the story was that often in shopping expense does not equal success but on the other hand sometimes it does. Anne's evaluator was Brendan Foley, who must have been thinking of all the ladies in the audience when his only recommendation to improve this speech would be if Anne brought that beautiful boot with her.
Liam Flynn provided a very entertaining topics session, with topics ranging from "Sell me Mallow" to "History is bunk".
The timing of all the contributions was closely observed by Timekeeper of the night, Mary Moynihan.
Michael Cronin was General Evaluator of the evening.
At the AGM, a new committee was elected for next season, under the leadership of President Elect, Noel O'Connor.
All were warmly welcomed to the meeting by Guest Greeters, Mary Moynihan and Marie Lynes.
Speak Easy Toastmasters meet on alternate Thursdays at 8pm at the Hibernian Hotel Mallow.
The next meeting is the last meeting of this season and really a bumper meeting to end the season with, as we will have 6 speeches, a real treat. Don't miss it on Thursday 30th May, 8pm at the Hibernian Hotel Mallow.
Non members are most welcome and never asked to speak.
Contact Jerry 0863752895,or Noel 0872427485.
"Follow us on Facebook "Speak Easy Toastmasters", on Twitter "@speakeasytm" and our blog"http://speakeasytm.blogspot.
www.speakeasytoastmasters.com
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Saturday, May 11, 2013
A Tribute to.............
Speakeasy Toastmasters is a thriving cooperative where everyone makes a contribution to producing a vibrant club, but none more so than the founder and updater of the amazing resource that is the club’s website, Sean Corcoran.
At every Toastmaster meeting up to 16 members are involved with roles at the meeting. These include the speakers and their evaluators, the toastmaster, topicsmaster, guest greeters, timekeeper, grammarian and the general evaluator. For every role there is an information sheet, which is a great help in defining the requirements of each role. These sheets were compiled by Sean and are one of the many useful resources available to members on the club website. Nearly every member of a Toastmaster Club also at some stage serves in some and for most people , in every! role on the committee. The roles are, Guest Greeters, Secretary, Membership, Treasurer, PRO, Educational Vice President and President. The website serves all committee members with all sorts of information and resources to help them perform their role.
Besides this wonderful and stress reducing font of information, there is also plenty of entertaining aspects to the website. It gives a history of the club, the roll of honour, -namely all who have served as Club Presidents. It has a photo album and newspaper cuttings where all the occasions down the years can be scrutinized. There are links to other types of publicity the club has had, such as utube recordings of members giving prize winning speeches, radio interviews and television programmes that have been produced on the club. Weekly articles are sent to local papers and these are uploaded by Sean to the club website blogspot and twitter. This blog has articles dating back to 2002. If you have a job that requires computer skills or indeed computer parts you don’t have, you can be assured Sean will find them for you.
Besides devising and updating the website, Sean Corcoran has served in every role in Speakeasy including that of President. He puts the same thoughtfulness into everything he does and some good humour too. In the Topics session where a member is expected to speak for 2 minutes on a given topic Sean can totally convince with his great delivery when in reality he is unbelievably yes,- bluffing. At meetings Sean goes out of his way to include the welcome guests and to encourage new members. He is a proponent of life long education and taking on new challenges. That is why he epitomises the best spirit of Speakeasy Toastmasters. On the 20th Anniversary, its time to pay a tribute to the webmaster. Sean Corcoran, take a bow.
At every Toastmaster meeting up to 16 members are involved with roles at the meeting. These include the speakers and their evaluators, the toastmaster, topicsmaster, guest greeters, timekeeper, grammarian and the general evaluator. For every role there is an information sheet, which is a great help in defining the requirements of each role. These sheets were compiled by Sean and are one of the many useful resources available to members on the club website. Nearly every member of a Toastmaster Club also at some stage serves in some and for most people , in every! role on the committee. The roles are, Guest Greeters, Secretary, Membership, Treasurer, PRO, Educational Vice President and President. The website serves all committee members with all sorts of information and resources to help them perform their role.
Besides this wonderful and stress reducing font of information, there is also plenty of entertaining aspects to the website. It gives a history of the club, the roll of honour, -namely all who have served as Club Presidents. It has a photo album and newspaper cuttings where all the occasions down the years can be scrutinized. There are links to other types of publicity the club has had, such as utube recordings of members giving prize winning speeches, radio interviews and television programmes that have been produced on the club. Weekly articles are sent to local papers and these are uploaded by Sean to the club website blogspot and twitter. This blog has articles dating back to 2002. If you have a job that requires computer skills or indeed computer parts you don’t have, you can be assured Sean will find them for you.
Besides devising and updating the website, Sean Corcoran has served in every role in Speakeasy including that of President. He puts the same thoughtfulness into everything he does and some good humour too. In the Topics session where a member is expected to speak for 2 minutes on a given topic Sean can totally convince with his great delivery when in reality he is unbelievably yes,- bluffing. At meetings Sean goes out of his way to include the welcome guests and to encourage new members. He is a proponent of life long education and taking on new challenges. That is why he epitomises the best spirit of Speakeasy Toastmasters. On the 20th Anniversary, its time to pay a tribute to the webmaster. Sean Corcoran, take a bow.
Monday, May 06, 2013
"We'll never get caught like this again"
It was an eclectic meeting this week at Speakeasy Toastmasters. Speech topics that ranged far and wide, between Emmeline Pankhurst to Nordic TV programs. The meeting was in the capable hands of Toastmaster Claire O' Connell who joined President Jerry Mulcahy and Topicsmaster Marie Fitzpatrick at the top table.
Bridie O'Connell was working from the Interpretative Readings Manual when she chose to read the moving words of Emmeline Pankhurst who spoke on the subject of womens rights and the manner in which women had to fight for them, in the early 20th century. It was as that great woman put it, "what Civil War is like when Civil War is waged by women" It was a powerful speech and wonderfully interpreted by Bridie, who was evaluated by Tom O'Connor.
Brendan Foley gave a most accomplished and amusing speech with a historic twist on the subject of economic bubbles, tracing the first economic bubble to the 1630's in Holland when demand for tulips took off until eventually the bubble burst and the inflated price of tulips crashed. At least it was felt, - we'll never get caught like this again.....and that line certainly got a laugh. Ray Ryan evaluated Brendan's speech.
Marie Lynes had a captivated audience with a stirring speech where she brought the union leader James Larkin to life and took us all back to a time of terrible hardship for working people. A man who didn't deal in compromise but the "Workers Champion" without a doubt.
Down the dark corridors of Nordic Drama we were taken next by Pat Sexton who lauded the nineties for the great TV shows it produced like the Sopranos and the West Wing. Now apparently its the turn of the Danes whose fairytales are definitely grimmer but have the edge. Pat did PRO for BBC4 where we can find this fare. Tongue firmly in cheek one presumes, Pat suggested this was his recipe for increasing refinement. Tony O'Regan evaluated Pat's speech.
Finally Pat Duggan, working from the "Educational Speech Manual" gave a most useful speech accompanied by handout. The topic was "Concluding your Speech" and it was a wonderfully clear succinct speech.
Marie Fitzpatrick set the audience thinking with a wide selection of topics.
The General Evaluator for the meeting was Anne Buckley who ably evaluated the evaluators and the meeting as a whole
Angela Sheehan did timekeeping duties.
All were warmly welcomed to the meeting by Sergeant at arms, Mary Moynihan, Marie Lynes and Ronan Condon.
Speak Easy Toastmasters meet on alternate Thursdays at 8pm at the Hibernian Hotel Mallow. Next meeting Thurs May 16th.
Non members are most welcome and never asked to speak.
Contact Jerry 0863752895,or Noel 0872427485.
"Follow us on Facebook "Speak Easy Toastmasters", on Twitter "@speakeasytm" and our blog"http://speakeasytm.blogspot.
www.speakeasytoastmasters.com
Bridie O'Connell was working from the Interpretative Readings Manual when she chose to read the moving words of Emmeline Pankhurst who spoke on the subject of womens rights and the manner in which women had to fight for them, in the early 20th century. It was as that great woman put it, "what Civil War is like when Civil War is waged by women" It was a powerful speech and wonderfully interpreted by Bridie, who was evaluated by Tom O'Connor.
Brendan Foley gave a most accomplished and amusing speech with a historic twist on the subject of economic bubbles, tracing the first economic bubble to the 1630's in Holland when demand for tulips took off until eventually the bubble burst and the inflated price of tulips crashed. At least it was felt, - we'll never get caught like this again.....and that line certainly got a laugh. Ray Ryan evaluated Brendan's speech.
Marie Lynes had a captivated audience with a stirring speech where she brought the union leader James Larkin to life and took us all back to a time of terrible hardship for working people. A man who didn't deal in compromise but the "Workers Champion" without a doubt.
Down the dark corridors of Nordic Drama we were taken next by Pat Sexton who lauded the nineties for the great TV shows it produced like the Sopranos and the West Wing. Now apparently its the turn of the Danes whose fairytales are definitely grimmer but have the edge. Pat did PRO for BBC4 where we can find this fare. Tongue firmly in cheek one presumes, Pat suggested this was his recipe for increasing refinement. Tony O'Regan evaluated Pat's speech.
Finally Pat Duggan, working from the "Educational Speech Manual" gave a most useful speech accompanied by handout. The topic was "Concluding your Speech" and it was a wonderfully clear succinct speech.
Marie Fitzpatrick set the audience thinking with a wide selection of topics.
The General Evaluator for the meeting was Anne Buckley who ably evaluated the evaluators and the meeting as a whole
Angela Sheehan did timekeeping duties.
All were warmly welcomed to the meeting by Sergeant at arms, Mary Moynihan, Marie Lynes and Ronan Condon.
Speak Easy Toastmasters meet on alternate Thursdays at 8pm at the Hibernian Hotel Mallow. Next meeting Thurs May 16th.
Non members are most welcome and never asked to speak.
Contact Jerry 0863752895,or Noel 0872427485.
"Follow us on Facebook "Speak Easy Toastmasters", on Twitter "@speakeasytm" and our blog"http://speakeasytm.blogspot.
www.speakeasytoastmasters.com
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