This is the Scribes Report for the meeting on 2023-08-14.

This report was written by Rob Partridge on 2023-08-15.

Officers

The officers for the night were as follows

President: Sarah Smith
Toastmaster: Beth Davis-Reinhold
General Evaluator: Rob Partridge
Topicsmaster: Gwen Frazer
Sergeant at Arms: Gwen Frazer
Zoom Master: Rob Partridge
Grammarian: Mary Kennedy
Ah Counter: Mary Kennedy
Timekeeper: Rob Partridge
Creative Corner: James Linnane

The theme for the meeting was: Birthdays

The word of the night, chosen by Mary Kennedy, our Grammarian, was Extol

Tabletopics

Our Topicsmaster for the night was Gwen Frazer

My thoughts on the topics session
Gwen did a great job and stuck to theme. Almost every topic had an add-on and people appeared to enjoy answering the questions.

Prepared Speeches

Speaker One

The first speaker was Martin Foran
Martin gave a great speech on setting up an online club for teachers.

Speaker Two

The second speaker was Sarah Smith.
Sarah had to engage the audience with humour with her speech and she certainly did that.

Speaker Three

The third speaker was Colin Byford.
Colin’s speech was an entry for a Tall Tales contest in his own area and it certainly was a tall tale!

Evaluations

Evaluator One

The evaluator was Gwen Frazer

This was Gwen’s first evaluation and she did a great job, giving Martin some good feedback and adding some personal insights.

Evaluator Two

The evaluator was James Linnane

James used his vast experience to to praise Sarah and discussed her great use of gestures, adding some humour to his evaluation.

Evaluator Three

The evaluator was Chris Collins
Without having a proper evaluation sheet to go by Chris did an excellent job evaluating Colin and gave him some valuable feedback on how he could improve his tall tale.

Grammarian & Ah Counter

Mary gave an excellent report, mentioning the various ahs and ums and use of the word of the night.

Creative Corner

James, stepping in at the last minute, entertained us perfectly while the general evaluator gathered his thoughts.

General Thoughts/Comments

Did the meeting start on time? No, but it was an acceptable delay.
Was a printed agenda available? Yes
Were any changes announced? Yes
Did the Sergeant at Arms greet people warmly? Yes
Were guests invited to speak? No Guests, No
Were essential announcements made by the Toastmaster Yes

My thoughts on Beth Davis–Reinhold who was the Toastmaster for the night.
Beth did a brilliant job and got every one to introduce themselves which worked well given that she was online and couldn’t see us all. She ran the meeting perfectly, a true professional.

My thoughts on the meeting:

A very enjoyable meeting. Fun and educational.

Awards

Best Speaker: Sarah Smith

Best Topics Answer: Chris Collins

Best Evaluator: Chris Collins

Recommendations

Work out a better system for doing the voting for best speaker etc/