Innisfail Toastmasters

Poetry and port

Christer — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 22:59:18 +0000

This week the club sidestepped the ordinary format and instead conducted a poetry and port night. The theme was ”history and heroes” since Anzac Day fell during the week. Everyone, including a few newcomers brought a favourite poem and read them out. Some poems related closely to Anzac but there are other heroes in Australia’s history. We went from humorous to serious, from The man from Snowy River to a medieval prophet from the Middle East all while we tasted some excellent cheeses and drank port. Once in a while it is refreshing to do something different and everyone felt it would be a good idea to do it more often.

Two new awards

Christer — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:18:12 +0000

Monday’s meeting in Innisfail saw two members receive their CC and CL.

CC – Competent Communicator is the award you are given when you have completed the first ten public speaking assignments. By this stage you are quite an accomplished speaker and it is a major achievement. The recipient this time was Sheridan.

The CL is the Competent Leader which you receive when you have completed ten assignments. They are things like being a chairman in a meeting, evaluating others, mentoring etc. Christer received this award.

Area conference

Christer — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:43:45 +0000

It is the food that makes or breaks a conference – and the coffee. They both made this one – area 32 conference held at the Conservatorium in Innisfail. And the dots over the i’s were the peach blossoms. That is not to say that the speeches were bad – on the contrary – a lot of work had gone into them and all contestants did well. We had contestants from Innisfail, Cairns, Mareeba and Malanda clubs and two visitors from Papua New Guinea. The latter are part of our area but are hoping to start their own next year. Now four lucky winners are looking forward to competing in Mackay in March.

First contests done

Christer — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 02:49:47 +0000

The club held it’s first two speech contests last Monday. Firstly the “International” which is a more serious speech that should have a clear message to act upon. Topics this time were on the history of our monetary system, establishing good habits and about speaking out on religion, politics and sex.

The second contest was “Table topics”. Eight contestants had an opportunity to make a 1-2 minutes impromptu speech on the topic “A change is as good as a holiday” and even if it turned out to be a difficult topic we were still able to hear eight quite different approaches with varying success.

The winners turned out to be Christer Lindée and Charles Gonzalves and they will go on to compete in the area contest in October.

Club contests

Christer — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 08:29:40 +0000

Each year Toastmasters conduct speaking competitions. They start at club level and winners move up. The final stage is in the USA. The Innisfail club has its “International” and “Table topics” contests on the 12th of September and the “Humorous” and “Evaluation” contest on the 26th of September. All club members take part either as competitors or judges. Contest nights are exciting and fun events with plenty of opportunity to learn. Visitors may come and listen.

Three great speakers

Christer — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:37:39 +0000

The Innisfail club keeps growing. At tonight’s meeting another three people joined which is great to see as we lost some members at the end of last year. We also had two visitors from Victoria, one from Tasmania and one from Sweden.

Speeches were on varied topics with Ellen having made a motorbike trip to Victoria explaining some of the highlights and trials along the way. Lee-Anne spoke about how to pass on family history to future generations through scrap-booking and Jack taught us how to count calories. Two of the speeches were done with Power Point wich added some additional skills needed.

Several of our new members had jobs to do, easing them into the art of public speaking.

Three New Members

Christer — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:46:08 +0000

The club lost a few member at the end of last year as people move away or feel they have gained enough confidence from their Toastmasters’ journey, but others come. At the meeting on March 14th three new members joined the club. It is interesting to see how they average age of members is dropping fast. One of the new members has already done his ice breaker speech and the others will follow.

Start to the year

Christer — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 06:04:45 +0000

February 14 saw the start of 2011 to the Innisfail Toastmasters club. It was Valentine’s Day and we had intended a program with that theme but then Cyclone Yasi struck and even though Innisfail was largely spared, our president who works for the council had to work night and day. After some discussions we decided to just meet and have dinner together at Rosco’s Restaurant, which everyone though was a brilliant idea.

Assuming no more disasters strike the Cassowary Coast, our next meeting, on the 28th should happen according to more traditional lines with prepared and impromptu speeches done by experienced speakers as well as novices.

Guests Welcomed

Anne — Sat, 15 May 2010 01:47:08 +0000

Innisfail loves having guests come to meetings and last week we were treated to the presence of Connie’s grandson Jack and Sharon Skewes. Sharon dared to enter the Great Debate over stem cell research and gave a speech providing some very interesting material about some of the issues she has been researching. Lorraine Van B gave a speech on Capturing an Era which regaled many colloquial Aussie phrases that she and others grew up with that add a quirky and endearing dimension to our language.

Nicky gave an educational session on further things Innisfail can do to make its website an even more effective tool for attracting new members. She reported that Innisfail was judged in the top 3 websites for District 69 .. good work for a Club that has only gained the website in the last year.

Anne gave a brief round up of highlights from the District Convention including that Nicky has been confirmed as the Area 32 Governor for next year. Nicky has scored Gary Schmidt the Toastmasters International President as her mentor for the role. Kaj performed exceptionally well in the evaluation contest and did us proud even tho’ he did not place.

Peter Cochrane one of our newest recruits did an excellent job of Toastmaster of the Evening keeping us entertained by weaving anecdotes about budgets into his transitions between segments which of course was very topical at the time.

A few members were absent due to it being that time of year when University demands start to peak. We wish them well in their studies.

Elections For Executive Next Meet

Anne — Sat, 15 May 2010 01:20:41 +0000

Each Toastmasters Club is run by an executive committee of 7 members who all take on a different role to ensure the Club runs efficiently and effectively. It is also another way that Toastmasters provides personal development through experiential learning because the undertaking of each position requires certain communication and leadership skills that its encumbant officer must develop. Training is provided by District at least twice a year to assist executive members take on their roles. Innisfail will be electing their new officers at their next meeting and these new officers will take up their positions at the end of June.

If you would like to know more about these roles please go to our Articles section on this website and look at the document.