4th Dimension Toastmasters

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!

Mapcon Feedback

Andrews said 4th Dimension felt very proud at Mapcon:

• Marius received the Young Toastmaster of the year award
• The Club is a President’s Distinguished Club (again!)
• It counts 3 Area Governor’s among its membership

He highlighted the quality of the speeches and the challenging business meeting and motivated everyone to attend the next Mapcon in Cape Town. It is planned that Helen Ziller, Richard Branson and Raymond Ackerman would speak.

Toast

Sue Munro proposed a toast to opportunity, saying opportunity doesn’t knock, it lies there and we need to recognize it.

Feedback DCP Programme

Andrew summarized the clubs progress with respect to this programme and that we are on track to again be a President’s Distinguished Club.

Induction of New Members

Danie inducted Clinton and Cheryl. He elicited a promise from them of their commitment and from the club for our support of these new members.

Toastmaster

Matthew Hindley opened this assignment by highlighting that on the road to success achieving our goals is not as important as what we become by achieving them.

He introduced the following who summarized their roles for the evening

Grammarian – Sue-Ann Joe, who challenged us to use the word Euphonious, which meant pleasing or sweet sound.

Time Keeper – Danie Roux, with his novel PC Light system

Evaluation Chair – Dave Hardingham

Hark Master – Danie Roux

The Speakers

Cheryl Koorn CC1 – Reflections on my Journey

Cheryl fascinated us with her life’s journey, its twists and changes, from a school girl with a lisp, to IT, marriage, motherhood and finally running her own company in the natural products market.

She concluded with the fact that she joined Toastmasters to overcome her fear of speaking and to gain new skills.

Andrew Timberlake – How to Become Debt Free Without a Budget

Andrew highlighted how historically he couldn’t manage money until he put into practice the three step approach to a debt free life, namely give away 10%, save 10%, for a rainy day, and plan how you spend the balance of 80%.

Andrew recommended splitting the 80% into 2 portions, one for recurring monthly expenses and the balance for non regular expenses. For the latter he recommended an old trick beloved of our grandparents: Putting the money for each expense into an envelope.

To free yourself from current debt, start to pay off one debt at a time. Starting with the smallest, as each debt is paid transfer the money you would pay on that debt to the next smallest debt until they are all cleared.

Then follow the three simple principles of money management, give away 10%, save 10%, allocate the 80% balance and you too can be debt free without a budget.

Erich Viedge – Little Red Riding Hood

Erich updated this classic tale to the 21st Century and had everyone spellbound listening to the story of today’s teenage, Red, being forced, by her mother, to visit grandmother for lunch. We lived the fear of walking through the wood, the strange smell coming from the large eyed, strange voiced grandmother lying under her duvet. However Red escaped the large teeth following her ear piercing shriek and ability to outrun the wolf and reach to the woodcutter, who chopped up the wolf with an axe, releasing grandmother who then enjoyed an excellent lunch with her granddaughter!

Bev Kluckow – Down at Heel

Bev asked us to imagine she was 30 years older, than she was. She had just stepped off a plane, after a 13 hour flight, when the heel came off her boot and grounded her to the tarmac, blocking the passage of the people who quickly piled up behind her.

All efforts at emergency first aid, e.g. hammering the heel back on, attaching it with sticky plaster, proved fruitless.

She then looked into the face of an outraged passenger. This passenger resembled an angry vicious Saint Bernard after her travel bag landed on his foot! This changed her travel plans for ever. She decided that her traveling days were over, friends and family would have to travel to see her in the future.

Table Topics – run by Mathew Hindley

Dave Black explained how he, as Father Christmas, would motivate his workers to achieve their Christmas goals.

Coralie Rutherford outlined how a lesbian escort agency for executive women would result in a 360 degree turnaround in corporate profits.

Danie Roux as President of Fifa explained that making soccer goal posts wider and reducing their height would significantly increase interest, excitement and enjoyment of the 2010 soccer world cup.

Andrew Timberlake as Pieter de Villiers explained his intensions regarding the future of the Springbok rugby team and that he would clear his name by introducing soccer coaching methods into rugby coaching!

Richard Riche a guru motivational speaker outlined why it was vital to buy his latest book, if only to prevent him bursting into tears.

Evaluation – Smoothly chaired by Dave Hardingham

Danie evaluated Cheryl, Dave Andrew Timberlake, Kirsten Erich Viedge and Richard Bev Kluckow.

The Grammarian Sue Ann, congratulated speakers on using the word Euphonious 5 times and that there had been only 13 “ahs”.

On a Point

Kirsten asked members to think seriously about setting now and / or achieving their Toastmaster goals for this year.

Mathew received his CC pin.

The next meeting, on 1st December, would be a special Christmas meeting and the first meeting in 2009 is scheduled for the 3rd Wednesday i.e. 21 January.

Guest feedback indicated a fun entertaining, but scary meeting, because of the high standard of the speeches

George – a plan was drawn up to rescue George, the traveling gavel, from Vereeniging.

Theme: Nursery Rhymes

NB – This Low Down is condensed because we want all of you to really, really experience first hand the camaraderie of our meetings and the amazing quality and creativity of our speeches. Hoping to see you this coming Wednesday 22 October.

Call to Order by Kirsten Long at 18.20.

Welcome by the president, Andrew Timberlake who welcomed everyone, especially our guests and asked everyone to introduce themselves by quoting and then explaining their favourite nursery rhyme.

The Toast – To Nursery Rhymes

Graham explained the history behind a number of the better known nursery rhymes before proposing a toast to nursery rhymes.

Induction

Danie in an exciting new assignment inducted our newest member, Monica, and requested that she make certain promises, e.g. to attend meetings, prepare for them, actively participate in and constructively evaluate at meetings. In return members were asked to pledge their support to Monica.

Toastmaster

It was lovely to have Agnes Lutukai back participating in a meeting as our highly effective Toastmaster. She requested participants, Clinton, the timekeeper, Richard the evaluation chair, Sue the grammarian and Danie the Hark Master to explain their roles.

Speeches

Monica Ooosthuizen having just been inducted took the bull by the horns and under the title of “Me, Myself and I” creatively, in her CC1, introduced all of us to her, a fascinating person.

Jaco Strydom, in his dynamic CC3 speech entitled Inclusion, Integration and Acceptance brought a lump in the throat to many members as he described the brave successful journey of one mentally and physically challenged boy, backed by his father, to achieve those three words that were the title of Jaco’s speech.

Once again Christa Roux exposed us to her creative sense of humour in a speech entitled “A consumer’s view” in which she challenged the influence advertising and branding has on all our lives and how marriage can challenge a person’s comfort zone by forcing them to change brands!

Danie Roux, at the second, vastly improved, presentation of his speech “Virtues of a knowledge economy worker”, creatively compared and outlined the skills required by people working in the 21st century knowledge economy, which were certainly not the skills eschewed by our grandparents!

Coralie Rutherford presented a business briefing aimed at potential healthcare representatives. She explained how the training course on which they wished to enroll would help them find employment in the challenging healthcare market.

Table Topics

Kirsten Long stimulated our creativity by requesting everyone speak on a specific nursery rhyme, although the writer believes most of these were songs, fairy stories or poems and not actual nursery rhymes, but they did generate fascinating speeches under the following titles:

Sue Munro – the House that Jack Built

Zibu – What are little boys made of

Guy – Grand dads old Jalopie

Lindor  - Pop goes the weasel

Agnes – Oh dear what can the matter be

Clinton – If you’re happy and you know it

Danie – Over the hills and far away

Jaco – Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

Evaluation

Richard chaired a rewarding and constructive evaluation session where:

Tiaan evaluated Monica’s speech

Andrew evaluated Jaco and Christa’s speeches

Richard evaluated Danie’s speech

Graham evaluated Coralie’s speech

Grammarian

Sue commended the meeting on the paucity of “Ums” and “Ahs” and Christa’s alliteration. She suggested Jaco work on his “T’s” and Danie on his rolling “R’s”.

Hark Master

Either everyone listened too well or Kirsten’s questions were too easy because sadly minimal cash was generated from this session for the club coffers!

On A Point

Mini-Con 34 / 25 October in KZN

West Rand - Reigning Brains 29 October

Lindor thanked everyone for the opportunity to attend the meeting

Graham asked members to think of creative ways to retain our members

Andrew asked guests for their feedback on the meeting, being tactful this feedback was very positive!

Andrew closed the meeting and wished everyone a safe trip home. He looked forward to seeing them at the next meeting

CORALIE