Awards Night

It was awards night at Speakeasy with Pat Sexton as our jovial host. The Toastmasters Gold Award is awarded to speakers who have among other achievements, delivered forty speeches. Angela Sheehan and Liam Flynn, President of Speakeasy, each delivered their fortieth speech. These two speakers qualified for their gold awards with two very different speeches.

Angela Sheehan delivered a speech written by the director of the Body Shop in 1999 entitled, “Trading With Principles.” “People have suggested that morality is a luxury that business cannot afford, but try living in a world without morality. If we spend money where our heart lies, we could mould the world into a kinder more lovely shape.” This speech was very thought provoking and was a good reason to shop locally in Mallow.

Liam Flynn “roasted” our host Pat Sexton with a four minute “advice” session. This tongue in-check speech had the audiences’ eyes lighting up with amusement, as Liam “advised” Pat, an avid Geldof fan, to give up Bob Geldof. This would represent a fate worse than death to Pat. Liam’s other piece of “advice”, to give up philosophy, was equally unlikely to succeed, as Pat took the advice… philosophically!

Rona Coghlan earned her Bronze Award, on the completion of her twentieth speech. This comedy piece was entitled “Social Media Has Ruined Weddings.”  With photos linked, synced and shared, attending a wedding is like attending a media frenzy. How far would you go to avoid the cameras? Are a fake tan malfunction and a red face enough to throw off those pesky automatic “tagging” functions or are we all doomed to eternal “tag-nation”?

 Sean Corcoran, Liam Flynn, Anne O'Donovan, Jerry O'Callaghan

A Competent Communicator Award is earned on the completion of ten speeches. These ten speeches cover a range of speaking skills and act as speaking qualification. Two speakers completed this award, Helsa Giles and Brendan Foley.

Helsa Giles inspired half the audience to greatness with her speech entitled, “The Perfect Man.” Most girls dream of being a princess growing up, of having a fella who holds you when you’re upset and makes you laugh until you cry. This fella needs to be kind, thoughtful, well able, have a good sense of humour, be a good listener, be direct, have good manners, be self-confident, have integrity, be spontaneous and have family values.

Brendan Foley delivered a pitch worthy of “Dragon’s Den.” He described his new business. His unique service will be of benefit to any business which hires his consultancy services. The inspiration of an entrepreneur following his dream is a great example to all. He encouraged us all to take stock of what we are doing in our own work lives, because life is the main act, not a rehearsal. It was universally agreed that Brendan was hired!

For more information about Speakeasy Toastmasters go to www.speakeasytoastmasters.com