A first standing ovation

On a freezing cold winter night, 19 people attended the Nenagh Toastmasters meeting on November 26.

John Spillane stood in for Eileen Kennedy as President and opened the meeting with two quotations, ‘Hope is not a strategy’ and Helen Keller’s ‘The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt in the heart.’

John greeted a very welcome visitor to the meeting. David Healy was the Toastmaster, and John Leinster’s role was that of Topics master.

Toastmaster David Healy outlined the format of the meeting and asked each officer to explain their respective roles. Grammarian for this evening was Margaret Cullinan, whose role was to discourage crutch words (you know, you see, erm, etc), and Margaret challenged speakers to include the word ‘Adversity’ (a difficult or unpleasant situation) in their speaking. Joanne Callinan took on the role of Timer, referring to the green, yellow and red lights that indicate five, six and seven minutes allocated to speak. Joe Ryan’s role was to evaluate the meeting as a whole.

‘ICEBREAKER’

David introduced the first speaker, Aksana Sidarchuk, making her first ‘Icebreaker’ speech to introduce herself to members and explain her reasons for joining this club. Born in Belarus, Aksana stayed with an Irish couple for a month as ‘a Chernobyl child’ aged 9, forging friendships that endured as she returned every summer for ten years. She put herself through college and is a specialist teacher of TEFL, resident in Tipperary. Aksana described her experiences with warmth, humour and superb articulation, a moving speech that brought the audience spontaneously to their feet, a standing ovation from the whole club, a first for all of us.

The next speaker, Eileen Dight, delivered her speech: ‘The Good Life’ - using every experience and challenge as an opportunity to ‘learn stuff’ and thrive. She gave examples from her life and quoted Seren Kierkegaard: ‘Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.’

The third part of the first half of the meeting was an educational module by Brendan O’Brien on how to construct a speech, drawing a pie chart.

After the break for coffee/tea, Margaret McGuire opened her evaluation of Oksana’s moving speech as a powerful acknowledgement of story, content, vocal variety and eye contact. We had never before seen the whole audience rise to their feet with applause. As an Icebreaker, it was exemplary.

John Spillane’s evaluation of Eileen’s speech outlined the content, delivery and the power of Eileen’s narrative and illustrative examples throughout her speech.

IMPORTANT LESSONS

Topics master for this evening, John Leinster, had prepared an interesting list for discussion, allowing two minutes for a specific member called upon to speak, and one minute each for responses from the audience. Topics included ‘The most important lesson you ever learned’, ‘The most interesting scientific discovery’ (eliciting DNA, communications, the increasing speed and ability to travel by rail, road, cars, planes, jumbo jets, and so on), 'What is the best technology you own?' 'What’s the most useless Christmas present you ever received?', ‘Have you ever kept a New Year’s Resolution beyond January?’ Amid laughter, the lively discussion of these rich topics was much enjoyed by all.

Grammarian Margaret Cullinan recorded that timing had been loose, that ‘Adversity’ had been used three times and there had been numerous crutch words used: ‘ahs and ums, well, you know…’

General Evaluator Joe Ryan thought this had been a powerful meeting to which all had contributed. He counselled that much better attention should be paid to timing, as this is part of the development of our speaking skills and vital in competitions, which would disqualify speakers straying beyond the allotted time. Joe said there had been wonderful speeches and helpful evaluations this evening, a meeting he would long remember.

After Christmas, Toastmasters will resume their meetings on January 7 and every other Tuesday at 8pm at the Abbey Court Hotel. All visitors are welcome at any meeting to see if this friendly and stimulating club appeals to them.