Relive the Moments – Grosvenor Toastmaster Meeting August 8, 2012

Relive the Moments of Grosvenor Toastmaster Meeting – August 8, 2012
Grosvenor Toastmaster’s annual outdoor High Park meeting was held on August 8, 2012. It was a rip-roaring success with lots of guests and members in attendance, enjoying pizza and listening to speeches in the warm summer evening. Great times!

Wayne O’Brien who was our enthusiastic Chairperson/Toastmaster for the evening started the meeting out on the right note with the theme, Travel, an appropriate topic for the summer holidays.

Table Topics Master, Stephen Schroeder, used the 2012 London Olympics as the background and asked us pretend we were presenting to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to advocate why the IOC should combine two Olympic sports into one. Some memorable combined sports were rope climbing & pistol shooting, badminton & tennis, and pigeon shooting & swimming. Many of the guests participated in table topics for the first time, so way to go!

We had two members give their first Icebreaker speeches – a great accomplishment and first step.
The first icebreaker was given by Colin Nekolaichuk. Colin told us how he came to Toronto for work, even though as an Edmonton-born Montrealer he never thought he would ever call Toronto home. He’s finding out that Toronto is a great city full of friendly people. One of these days, Colin will become a true Torontonian but promises he will never support the Leafs. Colin’s speech was evaluated by Naomi Hamersley.

Kaytlyn Young also gave her Icebreaker. Kaytlyn shared what it was like growing up with three sisters and one brother. It was a very personal and moving story of how each brother and sister touched her life and shaped who she is today. Stephen Schroeder evaluated Kaytlyn’s speech.

Our third speaker was Biswajit Das. He gave a speech from an advanced manual, titled "The Three Envelopes", a story of a new business executive taking over a troubled company. His predecessor had left him three envelopes to be opened when ever things weren’t going well at the company. Each contained words of advice. The new executive followed the advice of blaming others until one day he opened the very last one and there was no one else to blame. Bis’s speech was evaluated by Prasad.

Finally, Noelle Hamersley (me!)gave a speech about why she joined Toastmasters and how Toastmasters changed her life for the better. She/I encouraged guests at the meeting to take the plunge and become a member of Grosvenor Toastmasters.

Prasad did double duty and was General Evaluator for the evening. Thanks Prasad for stepping in at the last minute! Guest Bea volunteer to be the Grammarian. Kendrick Doll was a first time Quizmaster and gave us a very thorough report. Smruti Das was Timer for the evening.

Voting Results

Guest Brittany was voted best table topics speaker.. Congratulations Brittany on coming first on her first try!

We did not track votes for the speakers or evaluators.

Thanks to everyone who helped make the outdoor meeting happen, including those who helped with ordering and getting the pizza, setting up the decorations, and getting the meeting organized. We definitely had a blast…until next year 　