Ross is the winner … again !!

Well done to our own Ross Turetsky on winning the area evaluation contest. Our prayers and hopes are with you as you progress through the competition.

November 3rd Meeting canceled/rescheduled

Just a quick note to let you know that there will be no meeting this November 3rd.

It’s been generally agreed that you’ll all need your voices to be in tip top shape to yell at the horses in the Melbourne cup so we can’t risk you straining your vocal chords at a Toastmasters meeting (wink).

So we’ll see you all on November 17th bright and enthused and full of race day stories (suitably embellished during the two week gap).
Happy horse racing !

Go Ross !!!

Congratulations to Ross Turetsky who represented Anz Talk at the recent area competitions for Table Topics and won !!!

It was a great night out. Special thanks to all the Anz Talk members who turned up to support Ross.

The fun continues on the 6th of November at

Esanda Toastmasters

85 Spring Street (Bright Sparks Room)

between 1730 – 2000

When Ross will bowl for the trifecta as our representative in both the Evaluation and International speaking competitions. Be there (I will be) to bask in the reflected glory (not to oversell it 😉

Woo !!!

Minutes for meeting no. 458 October 20th 2008

Robert Horvath was our Toastmaster for meeting no. 458.

Word of the day

Ben Maslen filled in for word of the day. ‘Excogitate’ was the word in question.

Round Robin

Topic: Tram Tao guided us along giving us all an opportunity to share with the group a brief introduction to ourselves.

Table Topic

Ajit gave us all a treat then with some thought provoking table topics.

1. Our guest Al was asked what he’d do if he awoke in a world without people his answer ‘ice scream’ 🙂
2. John Scheele was asked to ponder the logic of his tie in the universe. His answer, the shirt picks the tie.
   
3. Will Lo then gave us his picture of the meaning of life style ‘o Will.
4. Our guest Selena sold us a pen with magic properties.
5. Tram Tao pondered the links between 7 fingered salmon people and gmo strawberries.
6. Ross finally took us on a journey of drugs, guns money and misplaced blame.

Speeches

1. Craig Coonan gave his 5th speech ‘Golf a metaphor for life’ (evaluated by Jasmin Zhang).
2. Kumar delivered speech no. 6 ‘3 Steps to Build Discipline’ (evaluated by Ben Maslen)
3. Tram Tao performed a follow up speech ‘impromptu’ (evaluated by Ross Turetsky)
4. Carlos Jones gave us the funny side of global financial crisis with his speech no. 4 ‘Making the Most of the Financial Crisis (evaluated by Jon Scheele)

Supporting roles

1. Guests: Selena, Al, Sam, Tom and Dan.
2. Allan Gowers tested us with his hark mastery.
3. Amelia gave us an honesty check as grunt master.
4. Kevin watched the clock as timekeeper.
5. Ben Maslen reported the rampant abuse of power by Robert Horvath who used his position as Toastmaster to use the word ‘excogitate’ 19 times !!!!

Prize winners

Ben Maslen – best evaluator
Ross– best table topic
Craig Coonan – Best speaker

Minutes from the Meeting – October 6th 2008

Alana Coleman was the Toastmaster for meeting no. 457.

I think you’ll all agree she did a wonderful job 🙂

Word of the day

Carlos provided us with the word of the day ‘laconic’. Thanks to Carlos for keeping it short and sweet.

Round Robin

Topic: Ben jumped into the fray and challenged us to respond to “how does space influence your day to day life”.

Table Topic

Tania then grabbed the reigns and lost no pace with 6 quick fire table topics.

1. Kevin was asked for his highlights of 2008 which included a trip to capetown and a challenge to look to local holiday destinations.
2. Neekho was asked what he would do with a little extra time. His response was split between: Work, friends and swimming.
3. Robert Horvath gave us all a glimpse into academic underpinnings of ‘Money makes the world go round’
4. Ajit was queried for his wishlist superpower and responded with his desire to ‘travel through time’.
5. Nadhira gave us a bit of insight into the world of love in response to the quote “diamonds are a girls best friend”
6. And finally Mimi gave us her take on the water crisis problem/solution and explored the use of desalination plants to solve the problem.

Speeches

1. Jasmine told us her tale of a river cruise in China – Jasmine  Zhang (evaluated by Ben Maslen)
2. Ross gave us his pitch on domain name speculation – Ross Turetsky (evaluated by Ajit Ravindran)
3. Tram Tao performed her icebreaker – Tram Tao  (evaluated by Robert Horvath)
4. Robert Lu gave us an insight into the credit crisis and its historical precedents – Robert Lu (evaluated by Nadhira Razack)
5. Jon Scheele re-broke the ice with his icebreaker – Jon Scheele (evaluated by Amellia Xie)

Supporting roles

1. Guests: Selena, Ben, Amy, Sarah and Helen.
2. Neekho stumped us all as Harkmaster
3. Kevin kept us honest as Gruntmaster
4. Carlos kept the peace as both timer and word of the day.

Prize winners

Ajit – best evaluator
Ajit – best table topic
Jon Scheele – Best speaker

Executive meeting.

Capping policy will be suspended pending further review of the clubs membership and goals.

Congratulations to Anz Talk of the Town.

Our Area Governor Karthik Nair wrote recently to congratulate our club on our progress towards becoming a distinguished club within the distinguished clubs program.

Currently, from the 19 clubs in the area Anz Talk of the Town is number 5 (a great achievement).

To reward and encourage us in our further progress the Karthik has instructed me to splurge some area funds on treats and snacks for the next meeting.

I always find chocolate goes down a treat, but if anyone else has some particular suggestions feel free to shoot me a mail with your hearts desire.

But, fundamentally, a hearty well done to all of you for just being yourselves and keeping true to your toastmasters goals and values. Well done.

Ben.

Area Competition Dates Announced – 23rd of October and 6th November

Those of you who attended our club competitions, got a taste of just how entertaining it can be to see Toastmasters at the top of their game, striving to be the best on the night, to advance to the next level.

Well if you enjoyed Star Wars get ready for the Empire Strikes back 😉

The Area competitions will be held at:

Esanda Toastmasters

85 Spring Street (Bright Sparks Room)

between 1730 – 2000

on

23rd of October – Humerous and Table Topics

6th of November – International and Evaluation

Ken Brandt and Ross Turetsky will be representing our club and doing the darndest to take honors on the day I’m sure.

I’ll make sure I’m there to support them and highly encourage any of you who can spare the time to come on down and join the fun.
If you have any questions about this just shoot me an email, otherwise I hope to see you there.

Ben.

First Round of Competitions – The Night that was

My fellow toastmasters,

What a night of competitions we had; full of excitement, adventure and what I’ve chosen to label ‘champagne toastmastery’.

A relatively sparse crowd gathered to help us cheer on the two competitions of the night: table topics and evaluations.

Our chief judge was Philip Battey from City Center club who was well supported by fellow judges: Allan Gowers, Amellia Xie and Chamila Senadipathy (also from City Center).

Kumar stepped up to the podium as chairperson of the evening and did a magnificent job that will be tough to match at the next meeting.

The table topic for the night was ‘I arrived at the top of the mountain and realized … ‘ which was generally acknowledged to be a tricky one by all involved.

That said, we received varied eloquent and intelligent responses from each of our contestants making it a real challenge for the judges to pick a winner from the quality.

Contestents on the night were (in no particular order):

i) Robert Horvath
ii) Jonathan Scheele
iii) Ross Turetsky, CC
iv) Ken Brandt

Ross took first honors in what, as I said, was a close competition (well done Ross 🙂

Our evaluation competition continued to drench us in a veritable ocean of quality speechafying

Ken Brandt bowed out of the comp. in favour of delivering a fascinating test speech that gave us all an insight into the machinations of the
American electoral process.

Our remaining contestants (Robert, Jonathan and Ross from above) made it a double header.

Ross took first colors once again despite a strong field (which chief judge Phil made a point of indicating reflected well upon our entire club).

Once again, well done Ross.

Ross and well … Ross will now (barring sudden default) go onto represent our club at the area level, I’m sure we all wish him the best of luck.

My only real regret of the night was that more of you weren’t there to enjoy it.

I always have a great time on competition night, a great way to enjoy a night of toastmastery while experiencing another side of what club membership has to offer.

We’ve another set of competitions in a fortnights time, I urge all of you to take advantage of the opportunity and come along to see what club competitions can really
be about.

Happy Trails,

Ben Maslen.

Toastmaster Minutes of Meeting 18 August 2008

Word of the day

Emulate

Round Robin

Kerry packer can order any person that he wants to meet him. If you could order any person at any time who would you hire?

Table Topic

What would you do if you are stuck on the lift -> Thran

What kind of restaurant would you make -> Tania

If you could hear only 1 music what would it be -> Ivan

What do you think of Moon Landing is it real? -> Ross

If you win $50 million who is the first person you tell -> Oliver

Do you wing a toastmaster speech -> Kevin

Speeches

Speech #	Speaker	Title	Reviewer
Speaker #1	Tania	Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi	Kumar
Speaker #2	Nikkho	Influence	Nadhira
Speaker #3	Ken	The baseball odyssey	Ajit
Speaker #4	Allan	How did he do it	Ross

Supporting Roles

Time keeper : Jasmin

Gruntmaster: Robert Horvath

Harkmaster: Robert Horvath

Guests

Ivan, Kin, Ranjon.

Minutes of the Meeting –

Word of the day

Ben filled in as word of the day. The word of the day is ‘Confuse’.

Round Robin

Topic: what is your God’s given gift?

Table Topic

3 topics for and against

1. Coffee chain Starbucks recently announced t close more than 2/3 of its stores in Australia. Someone thinks that Starbucks sell cheap & low quality coffee, which doesn’t cope with Australian’s coffee cultural. So Starbucks lost money in Australia. Do you agree or disagree? And why?

Speakers: Robert vs ??

2. Someone suggests that Australian economy is sinking into recession. Do you agree or disagree? And why?

Speakers: Hugh vs Ross

3. Facebook becomes a popular internet social utility to connect with friends and others around the world. However, some people claim that Facebook addictees bring their fetish to work which impacts on their work productivity. Do you agree or disagree? And why?

Speakers: Ben vs Andrejz

Speeches

Maximise Learning, Minimise Time – Yang Xu (evaluated by Ken Brandt)
LETS – Ajit (evaluated by Hugh Kilpatrick)
The Beijing Olympics 2008 – Robert Lu (evaluated by Jasmine Lu)
Blink – Nadhira Razack (evaluated by Allan Gowers)

Supporting roles

Guest: Shannon & Andrejz

Carlos did both Harkmaster and Gruntmaster

Winners

Allan – best evaluator

Ben – best table topic

Ajit – Best speaker

General business

Policy confusion between previous executive and new executives, to be discussed at a separate meeting.