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TM Riccarton Meeting 17th July 2014 - Theme "Names"

A fine gathering of Toastmasters on a freezing Christchurch Winter’s night. Brrrr.


Graeme Wilson as Sgt @ Arms set the tone for the night by requesting each speaker say their name and the meaning of that name. Graeme‘s surname was a contraction of ‘Wills Son’, similar to most surnames ending in ‘son’.

Toastmaster for the night Saurabh Saxena assured us the meaning of his first name was the ‘Smell of Flowers’.

1st Speaker Sarah Blows gave her Icebreaker speech ‘Not all Superheroes wear capes,’ an intriguing title that turned out to be a plea on her part for the rest of us and our friends– wait for it – to provide the Vampire’s favourite beverage blood – to NZ Blood Banks around the country. “Each donation of 500mils of blood can save 3 lives”, she told us. However, only about 4% of Nzers donate.All speakers for the night had original speech titles that gave no clues as to what they were about to entertain us with. Surely that very originality is a sign that a speaker is really into Toastmasters and is headed for great things.

  “All it takes is 10 minutes 4 times a year and there is no pain to speak of”. Unlike a vampire’s fangs in your throat, the Bloodbank nurses are very gentle and the needles sharp.

   Sarah gave a number of pathetic reasons people use as excuses for not donating, despite the fact that the more rare blood types are so desperately needed and they themselves might need such a transfusion one day. “Be proactive,” said Sarah, “what are you waiting for?”

   Great speech, Sarah, it might have been your Icebreaker but you would not have known it from your good voice control, volume and relaxed approach to public speaking. Well done.

 

2nd Speaker Elena Tibbotts with the curious title “Supply and Remand” took us on an eye opening tour of Christchurch prisons in her role as a Department of Corrections Officer tasked with reducing and deterring drugs in prisons. Her ‘clients’ have “no respect for authority, do not know right from wrong and most crime is fuelled by drugs and alcohol” she told us which is probably why they are behind bars.

   The tenor of Elena’s speech was the danger to Corrections Officers of being “groomed” by prisoners to bring contraband (mainly drugs, tobacco and cellphones) into prison, running the risk of being found out and becoming a prisoner themselves in due course. The term used in prisons isthat ofthe staff being ‘got’ (at).

   Elena took us into an alien world where prisoners secrete drugs and even cellphones inside their bodies and who, when drugged up become angry, violent and depressed as a result, making them dangerous to manage. As Elena put it “Everyday she walks out the prison gates she is glad her head is still on her shoulders”. How horrific for us to hear the dangers that Elena and her fellow Officers endure day after day on behalf of society - the rest of us.

   A very very thoughtful speech Elena, and you gave us time to absorb all this new information that you were telling us before moving on to the next phase of your horror story. After that, I doubt your fellow Toastmasters will be queuing up to get your job. Terrific speech Elena. Great effort.

 

3rd Speaker was Graeme Wilson with “Fact, fiction or just Good Movie material”. Not one of  us would have guessed that Graeme was about to bring us into the twilight world of Multiple Personality Disorder (now known as Dissociative identity disorder (DID), – a subject featured in several earlier movies as having a split personality. The Three Faces of Eve was a true story where Eve felt as if she were three different little girls: good, bad, and indifferent. People who knew her just thought she was deceptive and eccentric.

   MPD appears to manifest itself when a person has “suffered severe early childhood trauma”, usually extreme, repetitive physical, sexual, or emotional abuse that was so painful, physically and mentally that the poor child disassociates itself from his own personality and becomes another person in his/her head.

   Graeme gave as an example of disassociation by asking who in his audience have been driving somewhere, have arrived but have no memory of how they got there. Who would have believed it? We who admitted such behaviour are all out of our heads so to speak? Thank you for that Graeme.

   Nevertheless, we can only have sympathy for a child who has “gone through extreme abuse and moves to another personality in order to survive”. How very sad and how informative. Thank you Graeme. a thought provoking speech. Well done.

 

Table Topics themed as “Names” was shortened to only two speeches because of time constraints.

- Lasautha Perera, whom we haven’t seen for quite some time – welcome back Lasautha, gave a short speech about the meaning of his first name –i.e. Beautiful! Great speech Lasautha.

- Mark Son of Edmond gave a short little speech about 3 Beatles songs about names – Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Julia John Lennon’s mother and Yoko Ono his wife.

Mark can always be depended upon to make us laugh.

 

Richard Schwass VPEducation and Leigh Street reminded us that contest time is coming up on 7th August with both Table Topics Speeches and Humorous Speeches on the agenda. Any TM who wants to enter the contest please contact Richard.

 

A really interesting evening on Thursday. We all came away with new knowledge about blood, criminals and psychological trauma. Phew.

 

Next Meeting – Remember to WEAR A FUNNY HAT!

 

TOASTMASTERS RICCARTON MEETING 17/7/14 Blog written by Julie Power


LABELS:  MEETING REPORT,&sid=714fcde68ce56b2a48ed09347750e6b4
Posted: Riccarton Toastmasters, 19 Jul 14, 07:39 by Forgotten User    Comments:


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