4th Dimension Toastmasters

Call to Order & Welcome

Dave Black called the meeting to order at 18.15 and Andrew Timberlake welcomed everyone, especially our guests.

New Member Induction

Amid great excitement Danie inducted FOUR new members: A second Danie, Liz, Ray and Theresa.

Should they and all the current 4th Dimension members keep the promise to undertake all the activities in the Toastmaster’s Promise, the Club would never be short of a board or anyone to undertake any assignment!

After the Loyal Toast, proposed by Dave Hardingham, Andrew introduced the Toastmaster, Coralie.

The theme for the evenings: Easter Customs

During the meeting Coralie outlined the origin of Easter and a number of the customs associated with Easter. The Queen of England’s Maundy Money, Easter Bonnets, the eating of Lamb at Easter were all mentioned. Most important of them all, is the customs around eggs at Easter. These range from the painting of eggs, searching for eggs in the garden, egg fights and egg rolling races to last, but definitely not the least: The Russian Faberge eggs.

Speakers for the night

Danie Fourie: Driving my SUV

Danie very cleverly tied the stages of his life to the cars he drove, from the aging sports car that announced the end of his time at University, to his laid back lifestyle with a convertible Combi. So the cars changed as he started a business and studied for his MBA.

Ray Smit: Stuttgart

Ray gave us just a little peek at his life when he described his trip to snow buried Stuttgart in Germany, to attend a corporate conference. He spoke of his hesitancy in standing up to give workshop feedback, how he eventually gained the confidence to talk to people and had a wonderful networking night. We got an insight into his life as a devoted husband and father who missed his family so much that he rushed straight home from the conference.

Theresa Muller – Who am I?

Theresa gave us tiny fascinating insights into her life prefixing each segment with the words “Who am I”.

Is she the director of a strategic marketing and advertising company, a magazine publisher, an illegal US immigrant, a mother? Theresa we all want to hear much more detail of who you are!

David Black – The Widest World Wide Web

David fascinated us by his summary of the development of the World Wide Web from the day the first e-mail was sent until what we know and use today. A meteoric progression which none of us would have believed if we hadn’t seen it unfold before us in those few years.

Barbara Poultney – Memories of World War II

This was not the title of Barbara’s oratorial speech but it sums up the tone of the three speeches she read from those years, speeches which ensured the British did not give up until they had won World War II.

The speeches were “The Glory Years 1939 to 1945”, “the Hour of our Greatest Effort is Approaching” and “D Day June 6 1944.

Table Topics Session

Tayengwa Masawi presented a challenging table topic session. Tayengwa asked each speaker to explain why they had the essential qualities for the following jobs:

David Black – Priest in his local church
Coralie Rutherford – The Spokesperson for the ANC
Danie Roux – A Taxi Driver
Clinton – A School Teacher
Barbara Poultney – A Hangman
Maureen - A Commercial Pilot

Evaluation Session

Andrew Timberlake chaired the wvaluation session where Sharad Mistry evaluated Danie Fourie’s speech, Monica Oosthuizen the speech by Ray Smit, Dave Hardingham Theresa Muller’s speech, Kirsten Long David Black’s speech and last but not least Andrew himself evaluated Barbara Poultney’s reading.

Closing assignments

Sue Munro gave the timekeepers report, Danie Roux, the Grammarian’s report, Liz Pearson was Hark Master and Sue Munro ran the raffle.

On a Point

Kirsten encouraged members to complete assignments for the CL manual and outlined the activities involved.

Members were encouraged to support the Area Contest, Maxicon in Cape Town on 15 and 16 May, the Club’s AGM on 20 May and especially our next meeting.

Because of the elections the next club meeting will be held at Accenture Club on Tuesday 21 April.

Danie asked members to request a DVD of their assignment, the cost was R5.00.

The meeting closed at 20:50.

Dave Black called the meeting to order at 18.35. The President Andrew Timberlake welcomed everyone and presented the Toastmaster Agnes Lutukai, who proposed the Loyal Toast.

Speeches

There were seven excellent speeches which retained our concentration for the night as they ranged from a fascinating Ice breaker, through two very different readings, to entertaining and motivational but educational speeches.

Clinton Jacobs – “The One Thing You Need To Know”

Clinton fascinated us by describing the one universal thing you need to know to succeed at leadership, management and to have sustained individual success.

In the case of great leaders they know what their people need at any one time and present this as a constant motivational message.

Great Managers have the ability to turn talent into performance by gathering around them people with a range of different unique strengths and concentrating on the value of these strengths, not on their weaknesses.

And for us as individuals to achieve sustained success is simple, discover what you don’t like doing and stop doing it!

Monica Oosthuizen “The Benefits Of Being A Taxi Driver”

Monica advocated that if you were finding the current traffic a nightmare, aggravated by all the road works and the recent torrential rains which precipitated a lack of pointsmen, a realistic solution was to become a taxi driver.

Taxi drivers were above (and had solutions) for all these problems. Taxi drivers do not have to obey the rules of the road, they can drive at whatever speed they choose, through red robots, on the pavement etc. etc. They foster a relaxed driving attitude at all times, one hand on the wheel, the other with their elbow on the window.

She concluded by urging us all to think seriously about the fact that we can’t beat them so why don’t we join them.

Coralie Rutherford “Handsome Man”

Coralie read the chapter, from the No 1 Woman’s Detective, Agency entitled Handsome Man, where Mma Ramotswe proves her client’s husband is a womaniser by setting the husband up to be photographed while he is giving Mma Ramotswe an enthusiastic kiss!

Erich Viedge “She will not admit it”

Erich told the story of his maid who woke him at 3.00 am one morning saying she was in too much pain to come to work, a major trauma in the Viedge household, as who would fetch their son from school?

The only result of a long drive and a full day of waiting at hospital – one packet of paracetamol.

The maid struggled on in pain for a few days but eventually Erich was forced to spend a day outwitting hospital staff, which, to his wife’s total disbelief, resulted in the maid actually being admitted into the Johannesburg General, with a drip attached to her body! The admission was followed by an operation for gall stones and the return of the Viedge household to normal.

Emma Dougherty “Pleased to Meet You”

Emma creatively used the letters of her name to introduce her to us all.

The E for Emma stood for education, which Emma had pursued with creativity around the world. Finishing her schooling in Potchefstroom, studying communication at Bond University, then, in Australia, a Master of Business.

Then M for love of marketing which lead Emma to open, with a partner, her own sales training and image consulting company.

The second M stood for music a great love of her life.

Finally A was for her admiration of Coco Chanel a woman who not only built a fashion empire but was way ahead of her time with respect to women’s rights.

Kirsten Long “Great Expectations”

Kirsten poked fun at the pros and cons of great expectations when looked at from different viewpoints. Starting with her totally unexpected third pregnancy.

She illustrated how, if we expect too much, we are often disappointed or let down as happened with some of tonight’s speakers or a movie over which everyone raves. With respect to food perhaps we should not expect too much when travelling especially that a food of one country will match our expectations when cooked in another.

She closed with illustrating how two people can have totally different expectations as in the case of Woody Allan and his then current wife, where for Woody sex 3- 4 times a week was hardly at all and for his wife too often!

Barbara Poultney A Reading From “The Mission Song” John Le Carre

A fascinating scenario, Barbara read from a chair with a second empty chair set to her side. She was specifically required not to look at the audience during this monologue.

The reading described the meal eaten and the restaurant companions of a young man from the Congo, of mixed parentage. While eating he tried to read from “Much Ado About Nothing” but was prevented from this by the dominance of a woman in a group of 6 diners who voiced her opinion very loudly on every matter under the sun.

That is until a diner from the only other occupied table stood up and addressed the table stating that he had come to enjoy a meal and read his Telegraph and not be deluged by dialogue after which he paid for his meal and left.

This left our hero reflecting on his less than satisfactory behaviour when his wife informed him that business would prevent her enjoying the 5th wedding anniversary dinner he planned to cook. He consigned the food to the dirt bin before taking himself and his book to the restaurant.

Time Keeper

Throughout the evening, despite a lack of lights, Karen Geyser, ably assisted by Sue-Anne Joe was an effective and efficient timekeeper.

Evaluations

Barbara Poultney ably chaired the evaluation session in which Paul evaluated Clinton’s speech, Andrew Monica’s speech, Barbara Coralie’s Speech, Danie Erich’s speech, Monica Emma’s speech, Erich Kirsten’s speech and Kirsten Barbara’s speech.

All the evaluations kept within the required time constraints.

Raffle

Cheryl bought the last ticket and won the raffle despite much shaking up of tickets!

On a Point and Closure

Andrew thanked everyone for contributing to this “whirlwind meeting” where despite our props being locked away and many changes to the programme, the objective to have an excellent Speakathon which provided effective evaluations had been achieved. He encouraged all the guests to visit us again at the next meeting on 6 April.

Members were reminded to diarise the Area Contest on 6 April, the Division Contest on 7 May and Maxicon in Cape Town on 16 and 17 May.

The Club AGM was scheduled for 20 May.

Forgiveness Please

The writer begs forgiveness in advance for any errors especially with the speeches, she was so fascinated listening that occasionally her fingers made a typing error which she could not decipher!

This was a really unique meeting as we had two meeting themes – “A Day in the Life Of” and “Speeches that Changed the World”

Opening Ceremonies

Danie Roux called the meeting to order at 18.20 and handed over to Kirsten Long, standing in for President Andrew Timberlake. Kirsten welcomed everyone after which she handed back to Danie Roux, the Toastmaster for the evening.

Coralie proposed the toast to positive reinforcement.

Danie introduced the Timekeeper, Cheryl Koorn, and the Grammarian Kirsten Long, who gave us Fervour as the word for the evening.

Danie challenged and stimulated us with his selection of speeches that had really changed our world.

Speeches

Clint Jacobs - An introduction to critical thinking

Clint summarised the move from the industrial era to the knowledge economy, with the latter’s need for effective critical thinking. He then presented the three steps to effective critical thinking. The steps are firstly to analyse the situation, secondly to evaluate the argument and finally to make the best decision based on the pros and cons of each option. He closed by saying that he thought critical thinking was as important as reading.

Monica Oosthuizen - The Life of Books

Monica fascinated us with her love of books, highlighting the ability of books to inspire our souls, scare us to death, help us develop the facets of our life e.g. DIY, financial management, leadership skills.

She highlighted the challenge, to motivate our youth to become voracious readers.

Table Topic Session

Tiaan Otto ran a very creative topic session based on the theme “A Day in the Life Of”

Paul Smith spoke on the Day in the Life of a Clown, when he ran out of steam on this topic he skilfully moved the subject to Jacob Zuma.

Kisten highlighted the vast differences between A Day in the Life of a Wise Man on Top of a Mountain and her day. She envied the peace of the wise man’s day compared to the stress and frantic speed of her day.

Danie, in his speech on a Day in the Life of Activist Against the Mistreatment of Small Fluffy Creatures, showed us a new side of Danie his addictive love for anything fluffy, from slippers to fluffy walls!

Sibu when speaking on a day in the life of the ruler of the smallest country in world, which she named Zamunda, showed us that she is an out and out hedonist. As the ruler her biggest challenges would be what shoes and outfits to wear that day and then how she could most enjoy herself, the choice between a flight to a Paris fashion show or which young stud to select once the show was finished!

Guest Liz, met the challenge, and bought us back to earth, when she described The Day in a Life of a Public Hygiene Engineer, all the gory details, from clothes including mask and rubber gloves to the smell and the gung. Your reward a clean environment!

Cheryl Koorn speaking on A day in the life of a Retired Super Hero highlighted her relief at being able at last to do all the normal things we take for granted and especially that she would no longer have to wear underpants!

Evaluations

Paul chaired the session. Zibu evaluated Clint’s speech and Paul Monica’s speech

Cheryl presented the full timekeepers report, Kirsten the Grammarians report and as Hark Master Coralie swelled the club’s coffers.

On a Point

The last meeting for 2008 was a party on 1st December when Kirsten promised something different and encouraged everyone to be there as they would have to wait until Wednesday 21 January for the next meeting, the first in 2009!