Member blog by Deb McAlpine.

Another awesome Boaters meeting ably led by Toastmaster Gerald Hartley.

Sergeant at Arms Brett had us singing in the aisles in the wake of his first musical improv session.

Gerald made the meeting fun by sharing his darkest secrets of things he has learned in his new job (could have been called “Confessions of a new Employee”)

• Don’t forget names
• Carry a towel (or at least a big hankie) to mop one’s brow
• XYZ – eXamine Your Zipper (obviously somebody got caught out

We welcomed Anna and Maria as guests this morning and both were brave enough to take part in Table Topics

Our Grammarian Aaron gave us the word “Experience” and alluded to some other fun ways the role could be carried out

Our first Speaker, Dee, was analysing her personal leadership style and fighting against the label of “Coach” that research indicated her style to be.  Dee sees her style more as providing honesty, integrity and vision

Our second Speaker Esmail shared his very first sales experience with us as he faced customers to educate on the company’s new software for waste water lift stations. A very interesting topic and relevant to any of us who create waste water (ie. everybody)  Hope the presentation has productive results

Our Table Topics Master Louise Green offered the participants some great topics around experience and learning

Anna – talked about responsible upbringing and not emulating the way her friends bring up their children

Maria owned up to wanting to switch lives with Donald Trump for a day

Craig had some very sensible advice for his 15 year old self

• Don’t light the match in the old house

Louise Landess segued beautifully from her topic about the cost of experience being high (especially when your son goes to STAC) but it’s not just an education you are paying for – you are paying for global networking

Deb – discussed the pitfalls of a marriage experience

Our speech evaluators Cam, Rachel and Sabine provided useful and encouraging feedback for all speakers

A pithy and concise evaluation from our General Evaluator Steve with “comprehensive” being the theme.

Great debut performance from Henry as Timer and rounded off with one of our guests, Maria taking out the Toastie Award

(Sidenote…Ed… this was a hybrid meeting with one of our members joining us from managed isolation via Zoom)