easy-Speak - Riccarton Toastmasters       
   
Riccarton Toastmasters
easy-Speak 
Username:

Password:

 Remember me



I forgot my password

Don't have an account yet?
You can register for FREE


easy-Speak Training



Blog  (Riccarton Toastmasters) 
Meeting August 21st 2014 -Theme Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another great night for all members and our two welcome guests - Nic and Ana.

Sgt@Arms Graeme gave an amusing introduction and claimed that he had been distracted all week by ‘My Kitchen Rules’ TV cooking program about “the passion, the conflict and the tears and a little cooking on the side’. He told us for our future emergency use that if you ‘drop a meal on the floor, toss it back on the plate and call it a deconstructed meal. Yeah right to that idea.

Toastmaster Richard news was that his mother is going to Australia this week despite her fear of flying. Mother dear has apparently told all her family what she has left them in her Will as a precaution. As a white-knuckle flyer myself, good on you Richard’s Mum for facing her fears. Richard gave us his Theme for the Meeting “Don’t sweat the small stuff” – keep calm and carry on and don’t let small unimportant things drive you mad.

Grammarian Leigh outlined the meaning of the Word of the Day “Integrity” - the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. Leigh also claimed to be a fan of My Kitchen Rules and ‘frequently sweats the small stuff when things are not cooking right’.

1st Speaker Sarah with “Voting for dummies – an Educational Guide’ explained the NZ electoral system for those like herself who have never voted before. She listed the 8 parties that are in Parliament currently and the iddy biddy parties that hope to get into the House in September this year. The infamous Internet Mana Party got a mention.

“Why should you vote?” Sarah asked. “It honours NZ’s democracy, NZ being the first country in the world to give women the vote in 1893”. And added “If you want to complain about the Government or how the country is rung go and vote or keep your opinions to yourself”.

Sarah acknowledged that ‘” the youth vote is hard to get”. That might explain why the 17-year-old singer Lorde has teamed up with the New Zealand Electoral Commission to release a video calling on young people to cast their vote, even though she is not eligible to vote herself.

In summing up her really interesting and informative speech Sarah told us “there is a party for everyone – get out and vote”.

Well done, Sarah, great speech.

2nd Speaker Jitendra with “My Teacher” explained how his teacher at school in Nepal gave him a way to ‘look at the world’. To our collective horror, Jitendra spoke about his teachers being “too innovative at finding different ways of punishment to maximise pain”. He said that as he was a prize student he seldom got punished and he became “proud of himself for being so special for not being punished”. as the rest of the children in class were. Jitendra said that his “honour would be gone if he was ever caned”. An interesting way of looking at the problem.

He went on to discuss what happened when a boy in his classes “got five canes” in front of the class. Unfortunately, Jitendra smiled during the caning and the teacher noticed and told him to come to his office after class. Jitendra dragged himself along expecting also to be caning for finding the boy’s punishment amusing. Instead, the teacher told him “Learn to feel others’ pain”. Jitendra took these words to be a gift from his teacher and is now his philosophy in life – Don’t judge anybody.

Thank you Jitendra for a speech from the heart. Some of the older Toastmasters will remember being strapped, caned and hit with wooden rulers on the hand for bad behaviour. Now there is no physical punishment in schools at all and gives no opportunities for sadomasochists to torture young children. Yea to that.

Wonderful speech Jitendra filled with stories of pain and suffering as it was, but nevertheless a lesson to us all in dealing with young people.

3rd Speaker Julie used PowerPoint slides to illustrate “Working Capital the Bane of the Small businessman”. Her speech tried to make a dull topic interesting and was directed at those Toastmasters who are already in business or thinking of opening their own business. She claimed a possible connection between the growing level of business failures in the Christchurch Rebuild and the rising number of expensive cars being sold and then being repossessed and sold at auction.

She explained that Working Capital is the difference between Current Assets and Liabilities and that a Positive equation means a business can pay its bills as they fall due and a Negative equation means the business is insolvent – it has no money to pay bills as they fall due.

Julie also reminded the audience that as businesses grow they need more and more Working Capital because of growing expenses and advised them not to buy an expensive new car or Ute until you have more money that is genuine excess profits not needed as capital.

A technical speech but it appeared to be of interest to the audience because it was explained in an easy format that anybody could understand.

Well done Julie.

Tabletopics Master was Shailesh who outlined the purpose of TT’s – to get accustomed to speaking off the cuff at a moments notice and had devised a different way of finding table topics by hand each speaker with a blow up of a cartoon that had appeared in newspapers recently. Mark S, Ladi, Nic and Ana all gave amusing speeches.

Well done guys.

Easyspeak  Richard showed us how to request space for a speech at an upcoming meeting and how to change the number of a speech; for instance if you are down for CC No.5 speech, you can change it to CCL No.7 speech in easy-Speak and the records will be altered automatically.

OTHER MATTER  Everybody is cordially invited to the second stage of the Humorous and Tabletopics Speech Contest. Mark 7.30pm Tuesday 17th September at The YMCA in Hereford Street. Julie and Mark E. are contestants. Come along and give your support.

 

Julie Power

LABELS:  VOTES FOR WOMEN; LORDER; DEMOCRACY; CRUEL TEACHERS; CANING SCHOOLBOYS; VALUES; I,&sid=2a0ff4ffa35606ee9a5b8c403981612d
Posted: Riccarton Toastmasters, 25 Aug 14, 12:56 by Forgotten User    Comments:


Home   Previous   Next
 

Toastmaster Automation v2.20 - Sponsored by Malcolm Warden   © 2005-21 MalW

Terms and Conditions (Revised 2018-04-23)       Privacy Policy (Revised 2018-04-23 16:00)
The names Toastmasters International and all other Toastmasters International trademarks and copyrights are the sole property of Toastmasters International
This website is developed, supported and financed by Toastmaster members for use in their own clubs with the cooperation of Toastmasters International. It is only available to Toastmasters clubs.