Thursday, January 29, 2004

29 Jan

Speakeasy Toastmasters Mallow

International President visits Speakeasy

A very large gathering of toastmasters and guests from Mallow and all over the Cork and Limerick region were present last Thursday night to welcome Ted Corcoran, International president of Toastmasters. We were also very pleased to welcome the Area 17 Governor Margaret Moore, Division A Governor Michael O’ Sullivan and District Governor Jeremiah Ronayne to the Speakeasy Toastmasters club meeting.
Everyone enjoyed the programme of five very fine speeches followed by a most enjoyable topics session. The meeting began with a speech delivered by Ray Ryan, entitled ‘The Dual’ which described the events surrounding the dual successfully fought by Daniel O’ Connell around the time of the Catholic Emancipation movement. Ray gave us a wonderful insight into the politics and happenings of an event which happened at a very interesting period in times past. Irish history was never this exciting in school! Rita Foley evaluated Ray’s speech. The second speech entitled ’40 shades of green’ also had a strong Irish flavour, but was more geographical than historical in content. Mary Stack took us on a tour of Ireland and described the beautiful scenery available to us in this country. As Mary explained in her ever optimistic way, this scenery would be not be possible without all that rain, which continues to surprise us (but not the tourists) and catch us out without a coat or wellies for protection. Michael O’ Sullivan was the evaluator of this speech. The third speaker was Brian McLoughlin who is also a member of the Mullingar club and he gave a speech with the intriguing title ‘Inspire with caress’. Brian compared the leadership styles of two vastly different leaders, namely Jesus and Hitler, in order to demonstrate the benefits of allowing people to choose their own path, recognising their skills and abilities to do things right. Dermot Meaney evaluated this speech.
At the close of the meeting Ted Corcoran shared some insights with us on his step-by-step progression to the top role in Toastmasters. He also described the affinity that he feels towards Speakeasy Toastmasters and in particular the contribution of the club founder Pat Sexton towards Ted’s rise within Toastmasters International. In view of this contribution Ted presented Pat with a very special award which is given only by the International president of Toastmasters International. In conclusion the International President urged everyone to follow his example and ‘Take the next step’ upwards - in life, at home and in Toastmasters. There is no ceiling on what we can achieve except the ceiling we impose on ourselves.

Please join us at our next meeting on Thursday, 5th February. The meeting will start at 8:00 pm and we ask everyone to be at The Hibernian Hotel (Chapel Lane) at 7:50 pm.

Thursday, January 22, 2004

22 Jan

Speakeasy Toastmasters Mallow

Notes for 22nd January, 2004

Following five very entertaining speeches on the evening of Thursday 8th January, Kay Quirke, as Topicsmaster, provided us with a series of very interesting topics which received some very interesting responses! The topics included - snoring, new year’s resolutions, how to revive a drooping spirit, murder mystery weekends, sex changes, the sales, first class travel, parenthood, baking – which somehow led back to bachelorhood. As always the Topics session got a lot of people on their feet, talking ‘off the cuff’, providing a very enjoyable second half to the meeting.

At our next meeting (Thursday, 22nd Jan) we are particularly pleased to be welcoming a very important Toastmaster to Mallow. Mr Ted Corcoran is the current International President of Toastmasters, which means he is the head of the worldwide organisation. Mr Corcoran lives in Dublin where he works for Irish Railways as the manager of Safety and is a member of the Fingal Toastmasters club. He has been a very active and successful member of Toastmasters as well as having contributed much of his energy towards other organisations such as Rotary and the Institute of Transport & Logistics and Irish Marketing Institute. We are very much looking forward to meeting him.

Please join us at our next meeting on Thursday, 22nd January. We would be delighted if as many of you as possible came along to welcome our very special guest, Mr Ted Corcoran. The meeting will start at 8:00 pm and we ask everyone to be at The Hibernian Hotel (Chapel Lane) at 7:50 pm.

Thursday, January 15, 2004

15 Jan

Speakeasy Toastmasters Mallow

A terrific start to 2004

The first meeting of 2004 began with a hugely entertaining speech from Dierdre Linehan entitled ‘A morning from hell’, which described how things can go badly wrong when you are trying to take care of two very small babies and a couple of mad toddlers. We heard about the enforced trip to the supermarket where the toddlers took off in separate directions (of course), the return home in time to save the pet rabbit from the claws of next door’s cat, whilst trying to feed bottles to the roaring, hiccupping, sweat faced, red faced babies. John Dillon evaluated Dierdre’s speech which was followed by a speech from John Murphy, entitled, intriguingly, ‘One mud pie too many saved the day’. When John was ten, he and his brothers were sent off with their father and uncle to cut up and move a massive, 80 ft tree that was blocking a local farmer’s gate. The huge crater that had been left behind by the roots, which themselves spanned 30 ft, was the obvious spot for the boys to play and create the mudpies which were then launched at the dad and uncle. This continued until poor uncle Mikey got one full in the face and the boys were left at home in disgrace at lunchtime – no more mudpies. But it might have been no more boys as it turned out because once the top 10 ft of tree had been cut away after lunch, the rest of the tree suddenly righted itself back into it’s original position within the boy’s ‘mudpie’ crater! Micheal Dineen evaluated this factual tall tale. Michael Cronin was required to respond to the (fictitious) award he had been presented with by Sean Corcoran i.e. the ‘Speakeasy Bachelor of the year’ award. He described his best efforts to avoid being eligible for the award again this year, but thanked the ladies who made it possible. The speech was evaluated by Fiona Herbert. In his speech this evening, Jeremiah Ronayne made a toast to the New Year and our resolutions. His advice was to set modest tasks and work towards goals one small step at a time. Noel O’ Connor evaluated Jeremiah’s speech. The final speech of the evening came from Pat Sexton who set the scene in 1986 and established himself as the banker trying to sell us, the bank’s customer’s, some very interesting and lucrative investment opportunities which included offshore accounts and non-resident accounts. We would of course clean up by avoiding DIRT payments! This speech was evaluated by Kieran Buckley.


Our next meeting is on Thursday, 22nd January and we will be delighted to welcome a very special guest to the club on that night…...Mr. Ted Corcoran who is the current International President of Toastmasters International will be visiting us and we would be delighted to see as many members and guests as possible on this occasion.

The meeting will start at 8:00 pm, as usual and we ask everyone to be at The Hibernian Hotel (Chapel Lane) at 7:50 pm.