We are grateful for the letters of support our club has received from:
We are comforted by the warm and prompt response from our community leaders and business people. Thank you.
Our club is applying for a funding grant to purchase a video camera, data projector and PA System. These letters will assist us greatly in winning this grant.
Andrew Matthews had the audience at the ‘I Love Cairns’ competition entranced today as he highlighted his happiness message by drawing his comical cartoon illustrations. He completely won our minds and hearts when he sketched one of his characters at the crossroads of life seriously pondering on which direction to take.
One arrow pointed north to happiness and the other to …….. Yep! You guessed it ……. T.o.w.n.s.v.i.l.l.e!!! The audience appreciatively erupted in laughter!
Many thanks to Andrew Matthews, international celebrity and Cairns-ite for his generous donation of time as well as his gems of wisdom.
Mt Sheridan members swept the winning pool today at the inaugural ‘I Love Cairns’ Speech competition. Celia Berrell demonstrated her wordsmithing prowess with her highly polished and eloquently crafted speech expounding the virtues of how Cairns provides the best of both worlds – a safe haven as well as a hotbed for thrill seekers. Following close on her heels was Rod Sheather’s wonderfully entertaining speech embellishing on how he loved Cairns, not for its long legged women but for its gelato – more specifically the gelato one can savour on the Esplanade amongst the swarms of people taking simple pleasure in simple activities. Congratulations to both of these winners and many thanks also to Nicky Jurd for a splendid job chairing the competition, Kaj Haffenden and John Lizzio for a great job on audio and recording the event.
The ‘I Love Cairns’ speech competition this year was made possible by the financial support given by the Regional Council and Splash and the energy and effort put in by David Burston Northern Division Governor and an inter-area committee comprised of Pauline Douglas, Bronwen Forster, Nicky Jurd, Kaj Haffenden, John Lizzio, Anne McKinnon and Jill Morris. Next year we have no doubt the competition will be even bigger and better.
At least two of Mt Sheridan Toastmasters will be spreading their wings to other Clubs over the next few weeks. Club competitions throughout both area 9 and 32 has created a demand for test speakers. A test speaker is required to provide a speech to contestants who are competing in an evaluation contest. The competitors listen to the speech and then each prepare a 2-3 minute evaluation which they later deliver in front of the audience (including judges).
Being a test speaker is an excellent growth opportunity for members because they are delivering to a new, usually unknown audience and then get the added value of multiple evaluations of their speech. Evaluations are all designed to provide constructive feedback in an appreciative, sensitive and motivational manner.
Rod Sheather is going to be providing the test speech for Mareeba Club this Tuesday night and Mark Turner will be doing the same for Marlin Coast on 24 Sept. I have no doubt these Clubs will be as excited and impressed as we are with our new upcoming speakers.
Local Toastmasters Clubs with the backing of the Cairns Regional Council, Shangri La and Splash are holding the inaugural “I love Cairns” Speech competition next Saturday 29 August. The competition will be held in the Shangri La ballroom from 10am. Prize money of $250 is available for the junior winner and there is a $500 prize for the open winner. This competition is being staged at this time to co-incide with Festival Cairns. What better time or way to celebrate the wonderland we live in. Please come along to support our Clubs and speakers. Well known author Andrew Matthews, author of Happiness in a Nutshell, Being a Happy Teen will also be in attendance and will be giving a guest speech as well as being available to sign books.
Intrepid Toastmaster, John Lizzio, treated our meeting last Thursday to a highly entertaining and imaginative series of topics designed around “sniglets” – words that could not be found anywhere else but in a mind as fertile as John’s. Members were invited to weave words such as ‘bugpeddle’, blithwacking’, ‘zipcuffed’ into an impromptu story after John gave them a meaning for the word. ‘Blithwacking’ for example refers to the practice of using something other than a hammer to drive a nail into the wall. Audience participants and guests enthusiastically rose to the occasion with impressive, witty tales. Tremendous session!! Congratulations to all!
Area 32 and Area 9 will be holding their combined Area Conference on Sunday 25 October. This platform provides for the next level of competition after Club level and will involve the following Clubs – Mareeba, Innisfail, Mt Sheridan, Leaders by Design, Pt Douglas, Marlin Coast, Cairns, Darwin and Alice Springs. Participants will be vying for the opportunity to compete at division level in Table Topics, Evaluations, Humorous speeches as well as the International speech. All Toastmasters are encouraged to attend this event not only to support our Club contenders but to gain experience in judging and other roles involved in competition. Guests are most welcome to attend.
A Queensland school principal has become the Toastmasters world champion.
Mark Hunter from the Undurba State School, near Redcliffe, north of Brisbane, is the first Australian since 1982 to win the tournament.
Mr Hunter says the audience seemed happy with the judge’s choice in today’s final in the United States.
“Third was announced, then second was announced and I thought, I could pull this off, and once it was announced, the place erupted,” he said.
“The audience was about 1,200 to 1,500 people, and it seemed to be the choice of the judges was the choice of the populace.
“I was gobsmacked.”
If you or people you know could benefit from this training, please read more on our home page by pushing the blue button …. “read more about our public speaking course”.
It may well be the best ‘value for money’ you will ever spend on your personal development.
Well! It looks like the next 5th Thursday in the month falls on Thursday 30 July, so Mt Sheridan invite all Toastmasters’ Clubs in the region and guests to come and join us for a fun filled night of being put “ON THE SPOT“.
Yes! We plan to go completely impromptu for the evening. We imagine the way this will transpire is that the Toastmaster of the evening will be chosen on the night and this person will then progressively call upon Toastmaster members to perform the various roles of grammarian, timer, table topics master, evaluator etc. and to provide speeches … so you will not know what role you are doing until you are called to perform it!
Of course, for those of us who are ‘preparation fanatics’ this means we will need to be ’super’ prepared. For those ‘impromptu freaks’ out there, you no doubt will have a decided advantage. For all of us, it means we will really need to be ‘on our toes’ and treat the evening, as tho’ we could be called upon to do each and every role. Example …. we will all have to evaluate speeches as tho’ we may be called etc.
Of course if you just want to come to observe the ‘mayhem’, please feel free to do so and just let us know at the beginning of the meet.
Look forward to seeing you there!
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