Last night saw the club host is Poetry and Monologue night and wow what a success it was! An enjoyable evening which coincided with our 100th meeting!
Toastmaster Rowles acted as Sergeant-at-Arms and welcomed everyone as they arrived and set the room up perfectly with small tables for people to sit at and relax into the evening.
President Turley opened the night, as members and guests sat around with wine and snacks in an informal atmosphere. She handed over to Toastmaster Partridge who officiated the evening.
With no Grammarian, Ah Counter or General Evaluator there was no need for officer introductions and with ten speakers lined up Tabletopics was taken off the agenda too.
Toastmaster Partridge explained how the night would run and kicked off with the first speaker.
- Francesca Stratta gave a reading from Ulysses by James Joyce, which is a 100 years old this year. Prefacing it with an introduction about how this book was part of the reason she moved to Ireland.
- Bryan Tully gave thanks to Toastmasters and repeated an Ice Breaker he gave at Sligo Toastmasters years ago.
- Christian Hession spoke next and gave a reading from Shirley Valentine, even going so far as to do a Liverpuddlian accent!
- Carmel Turley took to the lectern and gave us a reading of a radio broadcast speech made in 1933 by William Lyon Phelps
- Rob Partridge followed with a self-penned poem about “Firsts” that inspired his Club, Area, and Division winning contest speech about unrequited love.
- Marcello Deidda spoke next given us a hilarious reading of when Douglas Adams met Struan Sutherland and discussed ‘venomous things!’
- Gwen Frazer themed her speech, an Ice Breaker, around socks crediting Toastmaster Davis-Reinhold as her inspiration.
- Fiona Mitchell gave us two powerful poems around refugees quoting “you don’t put your children in a boat unless the sea is safer than the land!”
- Elsie Prendergast also gave us two poems, one written by her son Ciaran who very kindly gave her permission to present his inspirational words to us.
- Elaine Cahill turned her research project into a poem and took us around the world with a history of numbers, telling us that fish can count!
With the speeches over we moved into the evaluations and all of them were well within the time limits of a contest evaluation which meant the meeting was coming to an end perfectly on time.
Toastmaster Partridge handed back to President Turley who, after awarding Toastmaster Frazer her pin for her Ice Breaker, closed the meeting and invited every to hang around to finish off the wine and enjoy some good conversation.
A very enjoyable meeting was had by all and the format is one that I’m sure we’ll repeat in the future. Many thanks to President Turley for suggesting it and to the members for making it work.
Rob Partridge DTM
Loughrea Toastmasters
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