4th Dimension Toastmasters

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

Call to order

Dave Black called the meeting to order at 18.20.

Kirsten Long, our Vice President Education really showed members what Toastmasters Training helps us achieve. She took charge of the meeting: Not only did she compile the programme, she was the Chairman, in the absence of our President, Andrew Timberlake, and The Toastmaster, but also an evaluator!

Kirsten, in her role as Chairman, welcomed everyone and set the scene for the evening, which was based around limericks (poems of just 5 lines), by reading a Limerick, written by Flicka. She then asked everyone to introduce themselves, by where possible, reading the limerick they had written.

The Toast – Water or Wine

Sue Munro proposed a Toast to critical thinking, and encouraged us all to question and think critically, not just accept all we hear on the media. She also noted, interestingly that the toast should only be drunk with one of the two “W”s “Water or Wine”

Toastmaster

Then Kirsten, The Chairman, handed over to Kirsten the Toastmaster! It was a great pity Flicka was absent in body, but with us in spirit because she had given Kirsten a wonderful selection of limericks which facilitated Kirsten’s role as Toastmaster and co-ordinated the whole evening.

Clinton a guest, after a briefing from Zibu, was an efficient Timekeeper.

Sue Anne was our grammarian and Um counter, Coralie headed up evaluation and David Black was the Hark Master.

The Speakers

Paul Smith, the first speaker for the evening used personal examples to give us valuable insight into how not to set up our own businesses in a speech entitled The 3 F’s. He highlighted the 3 requirements for setting up a successful business: Knowledge of the market, ensuring the market is big enough to support your venture and passion for the venture.

Danie Roux, in his very humorous speech entitled “The Virtues of a Knowledge Economy Worker”, highlighted the difference between workers in the industrial age, where patience, hard work and a humble attitude were the requirements. These are totally different to the requirements in our information age economy. Danie maintained that the essential needs here are laziness, impatience and hubris. Laziness and impatience ensure the worker looks at a better, simpler way to undertake his work.

Graham Nicholls gained the admiration of the audience when he opened his speech entitled “Marriage and Age”, by telling us that he had been married for 36 years – to the same woman!

He outlined key factors, e.g. willingness to sort out problems by understanding the other person and having compassion, which would help reduce the South African divorce rate.

He also humorously described the changes to their live’s that the audience could expect as they approached Graham’s current age and even beyond that.

Table Topics

After recess Paul Smith ran a fun topic session based on bumper stickers asking the speakers to explain where, why and from whom they bought the bumper sticker, which was the title of their speech.

The speakers and their bumper stickers were:

Monica -  Some village in Texas is missing an idiot.

Anilin  - Honk if you love peace and quiet.

David Black - Some people are only alive because it is illegal to shoot them.

Graham - I ‘m speeding because I need to Pee.

Richard - Rehab is for quitters.

Evaluation

Coralie chaired the evaluation and evaluated Paul’s speech.

Zibu evaluated Danie’s speech, Erich Richard’s speech and Kirsten Graham’s speech.

Sue-Anne the grammarian counted 23 “ums” and “ahs” and noted that no one had used the word of the day!

David Black as Hark Master battled to extract fines from an audience who had listened well!

Sue Munro presented and elicited discussion on the proposed budget.