Here is a list of some of our members who have chosen to make their profiles public.

Joint Meeting

This evening was a joint meeting with the wonderful Parkville Toastmasters club, and they old saying is true – two clubs really are better than one. (That’s not exactly the old saying, but it’s close enough!)

Julie was our Toastmaster and she got the meeting up and running on time. The theme was Whatever – Wherever – A Philosophical Approach – and it was a great way to get us thinking about life and the universe. Our two presidents – Cleo and Jo – got up and made us all feel very welcome.

Jez gave us our word of the day – nonchalant. It was excellent, although we don’t do ‘nonchalant’ very well at Toastmasters!

We had three great speakers. Sam spoke about the Bitcoin bubble – if it is a bubble, that is. Will it burst or will it not? That is the question! Charlotte gave a visual presentation about the power of pictures. We’ll probably never look at some images the same way again. Our third speaker was Simon from Parkville who delivered his Icebreaker speech from the new Pathways program. He did an excellent job, and his years of Toastmasters experience shone through.

Haniff was our Table Topics master. He dazzled us with some amazing and thought provoking statements.

We then had our supper break. Rhys provided the supper, and it was enjoyed by all. (Possibly enjoyed too much by some of us!)

After the break, the speakers received some excellent evaluations from Pram, Jo and Darrell. Kern was our Table Topics evaluator, and did a sterling job of giving both praise and improvement.

To round off the evening, Jez reminded us of some interesting phrases we’d used during the night as part of his grammarian’s report, Surbhi reminded us about our ums and ahs, and Anneliese gave her timer’s report. They showed that even the ‘minor’ roles are important in their own way.

Finally, Rhys gave a comprehensive evaluation of the whole night. What a great job he did, and what a pleasure it was to spend time with our friends from Parkville.

The evening finished on time with everyone heading home with the sound of laughter in the air.

Isn’t that was Toastmasters is all about?

A Funky Night!

A few bits of news before we get into our meeting report:

One of our members is on their way into hospital, and another is on their way out (of hospital, that is). Nat is very soon about to have her baby. A huge pre-congratulations to her and Glenn. It will be a whole new exciting time in their lives, and we wish them all the best.

The other news is that our dear friend Andrea took a tumble and ended up damaging her leg. Tap dancing is out for the time being, but she’s on the mend. We look forward to seeing her soon. Get well soon, lovely Andrea!

***

Port Melbourne Toastmasters have something exciting coming up this Friday—and we’re all invited. One of their members runs ghost and crime tours around the city of Melbourne. He’ll be sharing lots of interesting information about places you’ve passed a thousand times, but never known their ghastly and ghostly histories!

It’s on this Friday the 19th of January from 6:15pm to 9:00pm. More details can be found here:

https://www.meetup.com/Toastmasters-Victo…/events/244749212/

***

Speaking of Sustainability Toastmasters is holding a demonstration meeting on the 30^th of January. Carlton Toastmasters would like to get a posse together to attend. The meeting begins at 7.30pm at St Pius X Primary School 431 Waterdale Road, Heidelberg West.

***

Now onto our meeting report…

We got our Carlton Toastmasters year up and running with a bang! Lots of laugher and great speeches ensued during the evening—and isn’t that what Toastmasters is all about?

President Cleo was our Toastmaster for the evening, and her theme was music. She began by asking everyone their favourite song. It turns out we’re a musically diverse bunch of people. Paul then gave us our word of the day—funky—if you haven’t already worked that out! The word ended up being used a lot.

Funky Surbhi started us off with an excellent speech about being driven to aim for goals—and the importance of not being consumed by it. Goals are great to have as long as we’re mindful about how we approach them.

Funky Charlotte was our second speaker, and she spoke about electricity prices. It was a, shall we say, a shock to hear about how the prices can vary. If you want cheaper prices—and who doesn’t—then follow these steps:

1. Go to: https://compare.switchon.vic.gov.au
2. Compare offers to find a better deal
3. Call up the retailer and switch to their offer
4. Repeat step 2 & 3 every 12 months

Next up was an Icebreaker from Funky Ryan. He actually seems to be quite a good speaker considering he’s only been a member for a short time. He gave a really engaging speech about everything he’s done in Toastmasters and how it has helped him in his career.

Well done, Funky Ryan!

Finally extremely Funky Darrell gave us a speech from the Storytelling manual. It was a reading of the story, ‘The Stonecutter’. Similar to Funky Surbhi, it contained a warning about being sure about what we want in life because we might end up getting it!

Funky Sam was our Table Topics master, and gave us all the same challenging question—what would we like to see happen in Carlton Toastmasters this year? It was a great topic, and a departure from our usual style.

After the break (thanks Funky Andy, for the supper!), we had some wonderful evaluations from Funky Camilla, Funky John, Funky Michael and Funky Hazel. Funky Anthony was our Table Topics evaluator, and had wonderful advice for all. Amazingly Funky Paul delivered his Grammarians report. Funky Haniff then gave his Ah counters report, Funky Andy his Timer’s report and finally Funky Rebecca gave us a fantastic General Evaluation so wonderful that we were fully funktified!

Don’t forget our upcoming special events. Our next meeting is a joint meeting with Parkville on the 31^st of January.

Don’t forget to indicate your attendance on Funky Speak, er, EasySpeak!

Christmas Time Again!

Christmas comes but once a year—which is a shame considering how much everyone enjoyed our Carlton Christmas party.

It was held upstairs at the Kent hotel again, and it was a pleasure to see so many members in attendance. In addition, we had visitors who are in the process of joining, which was also a pleasure.

Andy was our SAA, and got the meeting up and running on time. He passed over to Jez who was our Toastmaster. Jez was just the right person for the job. Considering he hasn’t been in Toastmasters for a long time, he was a particularly professional MC, setting a fun and frolicking tone for the event.

The food for the evening was fantastic. Everyone had a selection of courses for both their entrée as well as their main meal.

We then had four excellent speeches. The first was by Sam as he got up to speak about the joys of travelling around the world—but then told us how awful it was to hang around in airports and hotel rooms. An excellent lesson for us all—subvert the expectations of the audience when making a presentation.  

The next speaker was Charlotte who spoke about the growing up, and how the existence of Santa Clause was, first, disproved, and then proved. Santa, it seems, doesn’t live at the North Pole. He dwells in a place much closer to home—the human heart.

Next up was John with his inspiring speech, ‘2017’. He related how he left the safety and security of a house, job and life that he knew in Perth to come to Melbourne to face the unknown. Sometimes the unknown has bite, and John has been bitten more than once over the last year. However, he and his family have fought on, and the wounds have healed. And what’s that old saying? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?

Finally, Phil got up to speak. He told us how years of effort to achieve his Masters was almost derailed by the most innocuous of devices—a children’s toy called Bop It. With only a couple of days left to put together his final presentation, he managed to reach the end of the ‘game’, and still achieve his Masters. Mind you, it seems there’s a Bop It Extreme 2 available, and possibly Phil may not be the success that he is if he had owned one.

It was after this speech that Santa made his appearance. Santa, ably supported by Michael, conducted the Table Topics session, and made very clever use of Story Cubes to prompt people for their topics. Great job, Michael! Er, Santa!

The main meal arrived, and it was fantastic. A number of members have dietary considerations, and these were taken into account by the venue. Great work, Kent Hotel!

After the meal came the event everyone had been waiting for—the Timer’s report. Darrell made an entertaining job of it, which is the challenge for anyone doing one of the smaller roles.

Finally, Cleo and Charlotte got up at the end to wish everyone a hearty Christmas and New Year. They also gave out free gifts to everyone. Cleo, Charlotte, and their trusty elf, Sam, had worked together to sew Christmas stockings, make white Christmas, rocky road, and ginger bread for each one. Sam had also come up with jokes and cards for each stocking.

It was the perfect ending to a perfect party. Some even commented that it was the best party that we’ve ever had.

This meeting ran smoothly and with a high degree of professionalism. It’s proof that when something looks effortless, it’s because others have put in huge amounts of effort to make it look that way. It was our President, VPE and VPM, and others, who worked together to make the meeting a success, as well as all the other meetings over the last year.

Our next meeting is on the 17^th of January next year. Have a safe Christmas and New Year, and we’ll see you in 2018!

The beginning of an era...

Today was the start of a whole new era in Toastmasters. The new Pathways program arrived today in District 73, and immediately made its impact at Carlton Toastmasters.

But more on that later…

The theme of this meeting was ‘The Final Stretch’. Our Toastmaster was Charlotte. Despite it being her first time, she did a magnificent job. Darrell was Grammarian, and gave us the word of ‘extend’. It didn’t get used a lot, but there were many interesting phrases to make up for it.

The four speeches were all of an amazing quality. Aida spoke about body language, Jez inspired us with his 10^th speech from the CC manual by speaking about the mechanics of an inspirational speech. Ryan spoke about ‘the shadow’, a concept from Jung, and Michael delivered his icebreaker – but this was a very special icebreaker.

Michael was the first person to give a presentation from the new Pathways education system. Our very first Pathways icebreaker, and he very deservedly received a standing ovation.

The Table Topics master was Surbhi. Great job, Surbhi! She had questions that were challenging, but not so challenging that we couldn’t answer them.

After the break came our evaluations. Of course, these were excellent as well. Darrell, Andy, Rebecca and Camila all followed the Toastmasters way of evaluating – Praise, Improvement, Praise. They all had suggestions for the speakers that would take them to the next level.

Cleo was our Table Topics evaluator. She very capably helped each of the speakers with her advice. Darrell followed up with his Grammarian’s report, Cristiano was our Ah Counter, Hazel was our Timer, and Ryan was our General Evaluator (welcome back, Ryan!).

Cleo finished off the meeting, reminding us of our Carlton Christmas party. Our next meeting is at the Kent Hotel next week (it’s our Christmas Party). Otherwise, we’ll see you next year on the 17^th of January, 2018.

Have a great Carlton Christmas and New Year!

Learning about Pathways

This was a historic meeting in many ways. We had three clubs come together—Carlton, Parkville and Fitzroy—to hear a presentation about the new Pathways program.

It was a difficult meeting to organise, and full points to everyone involved. We had a change of venue as the football club was using its regular room. The room was unfamiliar to us, as well as the room being quite hot (a 35 degree day), but everyone pulled together to make it a great night.

The meeting started on time, and Darrell quickly took to the stage as Toastmaster. Steph was our Grammarian and gave us the word, ‘Peruse’. It turned out to be a good word, but not one that was used much in the heat of the night.

Darrell ran a rapid round robin of the room where the question was, ‘What do you want to achieve next year?’ A special warning device had been brought along for the night – a grunting pig that made a noise if anyone spoke for more than fifteen seconds. (The pig brought about so much hilarity that people were actually hoping someone would speak longer than the allotted time).

The star of the night then took to the stage. Tracy Green spoke for almost an hour about the new Pathways program. It’s the biggest change to the Toastmasters education program in decades. New Toastmasters will automatically start with the new program; current members can continue to use the old education system for another two years.

The break was so well attended and the food so good (huge thanks to Surbhi!!!) that it was hard to get people back.

Simon from Parkville then conducted a Table Topics session which was ably evaluated by three speakers representing all three clubs. Steph finished with her Grammarian’s report, Dianne gave us an excellent Timer’s report, and we finally had Belinda close out the evening as our General Evaluator.

What a great mixture of attendees it was—members from three excellent clubs coming together to herald in a huge change for Toastmasters.

The next Carlton meeting is on the 6^th of December.

See you then!

Oink! Oink!

Fighting For a Cause

The theme of this meeting was Fighting a Cause. It was a theme that had deep meaning for our Toastmaster, Camila. Our fabulous grammarian Julie gave us the word of the day gemütlich or gemütlichKeit. Gemütlich is a verb and mean relaxed or comfy. GemütlichKeit, a noun, according to Wikipedia is a word used to convey the idea of a state or feeling of warmth, friendliness, and good cheer. Other qualities encompassed by the term include a sense of belonging, and well-being springing from social acceptance. We must experience gemütlichKeit at Toastmasters so we keep coming back. These two words were a challenge to all of us, except Julie of course.

Camila was her usual bubbly self, and kept us entertained as the Toastmaster. We had three guests, but only one of them had never been to a Toastmaster's meeting before.

Our first speaker was Kern who gave us a humorous speech, and he warmed up the audience. Camila was multi processing as the Toastmaster, and a speaker as well. As our second speaker, she presented some lovely images of her art work that she has completed since coming to Melbourne. Michael Clancy followed up with some very bad news about our lack of power this summer, as his task was to deliver bad news! Our final speaker was Rebecca, who brought history to life with a story about a runt of a dinosaur. Rebecca also needs to be congratulated, as she completed her ACB award this evening.

The evaluations were their usual high standard. Christine, Jez, Sam and Anthony all gave wonderful evaluations with a focus on praise, improvement, praise.

Our wonderful supper master was Charlotte, who had baked some delicious cakes, and in an attempt to keep us healthy, had brought along some lovely fresh vegie sticks and dips.

Hazel was our table topics master and followed the theme very closely. The questions were excellent. Darrell, Aida and Julie responded well, and it was great to see that two of our guests took up the impromptu challenge, and they both did an excellent job. John handled these table topics evaluations in his usual expertly manner. Julie gave the grammarian’s report, although we probably disappointed her a little when it came to our pronunciation of the word of the day. Surbhi did an excellent job with the ah counter’s report, and Cleo was only a little overtime with the timer's report.

Finally, Charlotte was the general evaluator, and did an exceptional job of pointing out how we can improve for next time.

Our next meeting is a joint meeting with Carlton, Parkville and Fitzroy.

Toastmasters International is rolling out the totally new, and exciting, education system in December this year. At our meeting on the 29th of November we will be having a one hour Pathway's educational from our Pathway's guide, Tracy Green. This is a fabulous opportunity to learn about the new system, and be ready to go as soon as soon as you are ready.

See you there!

Farewells and Welcomes

On Wednesday we bade (temporary) farewell and bon voyage to three members and welcomed two new ones.  Michael Clancy, Sam Hyland and Charlotte Marshall are all taking a short leave of absence from our club to travel and see the world.  They will be missed, however, we have the great fortune to welcome two new members to the club, Surbhi Tyago and Aida Shakouri who we are all looking forward to their icebreakers, as both have shown promise as articulate and interesting guests over the past few meetings.

The meeting itself was ably led by Michael Clancy and we squeezed in five speeches. Kerry Chaplin discussed the disturbing experiences of traveling on the night bus and reminded us all that we cannot look the other way to violence to others.  Sam Hyland asked us to look at information differently and escape our hall of mirrors formed by confirmation bias.  Jez Collier, fast approaching his 10^th speech, asked us if practice makes perfect and entertained us all with his tale of a very nervous TEDex talk.  Darrell Pitt gave us a fantastic reading from ‘The Club’ a play by David Williamson based in a football club.  Finally, Rebecca gave us all a summary of her experience conducting her High Performance Leadership project, co-ordinating the DTM breakfast at this year’s convention.

We have some administrative matters to bring to the attention of members.  The first, with Charlotte and Sam on leave, John Haynes will be acting VPE and Darrell Pitt will be acting VPM, please direct any queries you have to them.  Next meeting will be a joint meeting with Parkville, so please log in to easy speak and reserve your favourite role.  Finally, on the 20^th of September, the Club will be running its second set of contests – the Table Topics and International Speech contests.  We will need helpers, competitors and judges, please reserve your role in easy Speak now…

Humorous & Evaluation Competition

Carlton was treated to an exemplary exhibition of how to run a club competition tonight, with the Humorous and Evaluation competitions being run masterfully by our contest chairs, Hazel Tang and Julie W(h)acker.

The first competition was the Evaluation competition and recommendations were hard to find when the test speaker, Mary Hitchcock gave a masterful performance, relating her experiences in making a productive vegetable patch from her ‘Little Yellow Sandlot’.

All 4 competitors, Kern Kapoor, Andrea O’Donoghue, Jez Collins and John Haynes gave admirable evaluations, giving valuable feedback to Mary.  However, there had to be a winner and Kern will be representing Carlton at the Area final for evaluation.

Julie hosted the Humorous competition, ably leading the competitors through the process.

We started with Kern Kapoor, who talked about the fact that Toastmasters has made him judgemental and he can’t listen to a public speaker without evaluating them.  John Haynes was next and entertained the audience with tales of personality tests.  However, the clear winner of the night was club President Cleo Pitt with her tale of the dramas of buying a new bra.  Her win was made even sweeter as this was the first trophy she had ever won!

Many thanks to all the helpers, Chief Judge, timers, ushers and judges without whom the night could not go ahead.

Best of luck to Kern and Cleo at the area final.

Speeches Galore

Welcome to the report of the second Carlton Toastmasters meeting of the year.  Last week, we had a speech filled meeting with no less than 5 exciting speeches

This week, our Sargent at Arms, Andy Pavan, opened not only with all the information we needed to keep the meeting safe and enjoyable, but then started off with a joke.  This was followed by an enthusiastic (as always) welcome by our president, Cleo Pitt who warmly welcomed our regular members and our four guests, before presenting Camila Vargas with her club badge.

The meeting was enthusiastically chaired by Kern Kapoor, and ran the theme Winning! with excitement and energy.

The focus of the meeting was on the speeches this week – with 5 speakers, we had a lot to get through. 

Before the break, we had a stand in speaker, Jez Collier, who delivered an inspiring speech on what is in your B.H.A.G. Even if you ignore that this was a replacement speech, given at only a few minutes notice, Jez amazed the audience with his preparedness and smoothness of this speech.  This was followed up with Andy Pavan, giving his second speech to the club and treating us to a trip to Angkor Wat – “A Magical Place”.  Andy again gave a speech that belied the fact this is only his second speech and showed the promise of an entertaining, original and inspiring speaker.  Our third speaker, Charlotte Marshall, showed us all how it is done, moving us with the tale of her Mother and the amazing woman she is.  Charlotte again impressed the audience with her maturity and natural presence and again showed us her potential of being a great speaker.

We were then treated to a Table Topics session, lead by our District Director, Christine Dimitros, who challenged us all to answer questions around the theme of Winning!

After a delightful support provided by Christine and Charlotte, we were back for more speeches.

Of course after such a fantastic set of speeches, someone had to drop the ball! John Haynes gave a strange and confusing interpretation of CC#6 – Vocal Variety by spending his speech giving frog calls!  But the audience seem to take it in spirit intended and even laughed obligingly at the appropriate spots.  Much to everyone’s relief, our fifth speaker, Anthony Browne gave a much more normal, but still entertaining technical presentation on ‘Are You Normal?’ correlating fear, stress and Toastmasters in an entertaining and educational manner.

One of the things that stands out a Carlton, is the quality of the evaluations, and this meeting’s were no exception, Christine Dimitrios, Michael Clancy, Jez Collier, Darrell Pitt and Cleo Pitt all gave exemplary evaluations of the five speeches and Paul Filipone and Julie Wacker rounded up the night with evaluations of all the other roles.

Next meeting on the 2^nd of August is the first round of club competitions, starting with Humorous and Evaluations.  This promises to be an exciting night, kicking off the year’s competition series, so I hope to see you all there!

First Meeting of the TM year

Hello Carlton Toastmasters and welcome to a new Toastmaster’s year!  It promises to be an exciting year, with a fresh new committee – so new, 5 of the 7 committee members have been members for less than a year.  Under the steady hand of Cleo Pitt, This should bring some fresh ideas and ways of doing things to take us all out of our comfort zones and into a place where we are learning new skills.

This week’s meeting was a fantastic one, opened by our new Sargent at Arms, Andy Pavan, followed by an enthusiastic (as always) welcome by our new president, Cleo Pitt who warmly welcomed our regular members and our four guests. Closely followed by our new VPE Charlotte Marshall, hinting at some changes to come.

Katrina then very ably ran the meeting, getting some varied and thought provoking responses to her question “What gift have you received that keeps on giving?”.

Andy the challenged us to use the word of the day – bequeath – which was used throughout the meeting by many speakers.

We were then treated to three very different and challenging speeches – Jez Collier gave a fascinating speech, beautifully titled “Thai’ing it all together” where he presented facts and challenges facing him in his quest to start teaching in Thailand.  This was followed By Kern Kapoor’s recitation of “Toastmasters has made me Judgemental” an experience that any Toastmaster can relate to in his first Advanced Speech.  Rebecca Arnold gave us a demonstration talk on “Identifying Arguments”, not the shouting at each other kind, but the kind where people present reasoned cases to each other.  Finally Julie Wacker gave us a master class in how to present the advanced speech, the Monodrama, with her almost flawless rendition of “What Shall we Tell Caroline”.

Table Topics provided some thought for everyone on the nature of gifts, both in the giving and receiving of them.

We were then treated to a magnificent supper thanks to Charlotte Marshall, before returning to hear 5 insightful and useful evaluations by John Haynes, Cleo Pitt, Michael Clancy Phil Harkin and Darrell Pitt.

This exciting meeting was followed up on Thursday night, when all 7 of the committee attended Club Officer Training, where we were all informed, inspired and empowered to help make this club the best in District 73 for another year.

Carlton Changeover Dinner

This last meeting was our official Carlton Changeover Dinner.

It’s amazing to think that another Toastmasters year has finished with a new one about to begin.

Of course, this meeting was quite different to our regular meetings. We held it at the Kent Hotel (our usual watering hole), and it was pleasing to see so many of our members in attendance. We even had a few visitors, including Catherine and Bibi, which was lovely to see.

The meeting began with a round robin, followed by the handing out of prestigious gold cups to all the members. It would be nice to say that they were made of gold, but they were only painted that colour which was better than nothing. To qualify for a cup, each member had to get up and speak about their highlight for the year. It was a pleasure to hear what everyone has learnt, and enjoyed over the last twelve months.

We also had official recognition of Rebecca who has been our VPE for the last two years. What an amazing person she is. If there is anyone who has held the club together, and made the greatest contribution, it is Rebecca. She received a standing ovation which was well deserved.

Thank you, Rebecca, for all your hard work. You have been the heart of this club, and we’re lucky to have had you.

Following were our official speeches for the evening.

The first was Paul who delivered an amazing speech about Abraham Lincoln. It turns out Lincoln was a vampire hunter as well as being the 16th US President. Who knew? Not only was he a master of the English language, but also using an axe to hunt the evil undead.

It was a speech you could really sink your teeth into... (groan)

The second speaker was our incoming President, Cleo. She gave a wonderful summary of the club, as well as talking about the future. She was certainly spot on in saying that it was important to stay vigilant (no, not against vampires), but in our meeting procedures and standards.

Jez was our Table Topics master and did a wonderful job. The evening ended with everyone looking forward to the coming year.

More than one member of the club was heard saying that Patrick Shing, our charter President, would have been proud.

See you at our next meeting!

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