Our penultimate meeting for the year was all about incremental improvement. This was a theme that many touched upon and for those members who had been there all year, the growth in our members has been amazing. A late change led David Fisher to be our Chairman for the evening. Caitlin opened the meeting with her usual punctiliousness (look it up, it’s a great word). Mario Salas read the Club Mission and filled in as ums and ahs counter. Victor Siyu Hou saluted the theme, with Robin Huang as timer and Aaron Ross as Grammarian, wit his word of the day, ‘expedite’. Robin Huang
Carlos Garcia delivered the toast and Phillip Agripanidis provided a fantastic educational session on evaluations. Table Topics was led by Caitlin Manoharan with Sammy Rehim stepping in as a Table Topics evaluator, alongside Damien Lake who also did the big ears/listening post role. The first half was rounded out with Heidi Heron delivering a general evaluation
Caitlin Manoharan started the second half with a bang, with Heidi getting straight into Club Business. There was lots to go through with our high achieving team. Rati Jain received her Pathways level 1 and Carlos Garcia received his Pathways level 3 award. Aaron Ross was presented with a Presidents Distinguished Award ribbon as President for the 2018-19 Toastmasters year. Caitlin Manoharan was awarded the Area 24 Humorous Speech contest trophy by the Area 24 Director, Phillip Agripanidis. Phillip Agripanidis also awarded Margrit Fisher with her Triple Crown award for achieving three educational awards in one year. Well done Sydney Speakers.
MJ Velasco was our Toastmaster and she made the session interesting by introducing the speakers with aplomb and making them the centre of attention. Donald Zhang presented a speech on the ‘phone is where the heart is’ whilst Aaron Ross presented a longer speech on the skills required for cold calling, with Heidi Heron assisting in this as a role play duo. Rati Jain and Sammy Rehim delivered fantastic speech evaluations, having obviously paid attention to Phillip Agripanidis‘ educational session
The meeting finished on a high note with a general evaluation from Margrit Fisher. There was a reminder to all members the holiday meeting is our next meeting on 11th December. There will be pizza and merriment for the very low subsidised member price of $15. Guests are welcome, but will have to pay the full $30 price. Be sure to pay and register before the RSVP to secure your spot. See the brochure for full details. I look forward to seeing you there.