Three superb speeches for Nenagh Toastmasters
Nenagh Toastmasters met on October 17 at the Abbey Court Hotel and on the night we had a great attendance, including two guests.
At the meeting, we had three prepared speeches. Our first speaker, Brendan O'Brien gave his first speech from his Pathway Progamme entitled ‘The Icebreaker’ speech. Brendan is one of our most experienced speakers and gave an interesting life story and was a very motivational speech for all present.
Donnchadh Shanahan provided us with great entertainment in his speech entitled ‘An enjoyable pastime’. It was a very informative speech on learning the various steps in ballroom dancing. At the end of the speech, he gave a wonderful demonstration on the waltz to music.
Our third speaker for the night, Helen Spillane gave a speech entitled ‘Procrastination’. Her speech was an interesting lesson on procrastination and ways to avoid it. One of her many lessons was to step back and do not give up hope. John Spillane, Danny Doyle and Tony Spain gave very encouraging and positive feedback to the speakers.
After the tea and coffee break we were welcomed back by our topicsmaster for the night, Jim McGuire. Here we practice unprepared speaking on topics with no prior knowledge of the topic. This section of the meeting is always great fun and entertainment.
At the end of the meeting we had reports from our timer, general evaluator and grammarian. David Bisschoff, our timer, gave times on the prepared speeches. Eileen Kennedy, our general evaluator, gave us feedback on how the meeting was run for the night. Rowena Bisschoff was listening to our word usage for the meeting and provided a report on our crutch words for the night. Words like ‘Ah’, ‘Em’, ‘So’, ‘You know’. Words we may not realise we are speaking. The structure of our meetings affords everyone the opportunity to speak or deliver a report.
Our next meeting is on October 31 at 8.15pm and will be our contest night. It is the annual humorous speech and table topics competition. It is always a very entertaining night. Come and see what we do. You are under no obligation to join and will receive a very warm and friendly welcome.