Hanna Lyford opened the meeting, introducing the Toastmaster Lucie Harrison and building excitement for the theme Boaters Gameshow, based on the card game Articulate. Those present were allocated to compete in teams with either a dragon or wizard identifier.

Dan Vann as Grammarian had chosen the word “Dynamic”.

Shaun Jacob introduced our first speaker, Rachel McConnachie with her Persuasive Influence speech on understanding her leadership style – “Leading From Reflections”. Rachel used an analogy of Ancient Pacific Wavefinders using the stars, sun, moon and waves to move through stillness to clarity. She recounted how a declined proposal had forced her to reflect so that she could gain agency over what to do next. Rachel encouraged us to learn to lead from stillness and challenged us to include reflection in our Leadership Toolkit.

Richard Smart introduced Louise Landess, “the Toastmasters Legend, for her 6^th Icebreaker Speech”, titled “AI, AI, Oh. Louise wove a speech about the ethics of Artificial Intelligence with her childhood experience with Morse Code and Shorthand and her computer coding knowledge. Her use of two cans liked with string was an interesting example of early communication.

Natalie Perzylo introduced the third speaker Tsarina Dellow with her speech titled “Sir Mason Durie”. In her introduction, Natalie explained the origin of the words Tsar and Tsarina which linked to the Latin word Caesar. We were extremely fortunate to have Tsarina present her speech in Te Reo Maori with subtitles for the Presentation Mastery Pathway – Writing a speech with a purpose. We are grateful that Lovey Ratima-Rapson had agreed to evaluate the speech. I was interested to hear that Lovey recommended the use of “Ta” rather than “Sir” when naming Ta Mason Durie.

Boaters Bulletin and notices included:

• Boaters International Speech Contest on 28^th November
• The Area Contest on 29^th November
• The need for us to hold a Speechcraft Course – otherwise “we will be meeting in the park”
• Sabine will be organising a social session on the 18 November.
• There is no meeting next week because it is a public holiday
• Use the official forms for evaluations. These can be downloaded from Easyspeak, or the speaker should provide a copy.

Table Topics from Tom Palmer included:

• Name one fictional character that you would like to bring back to life. (Tsarina)
• If you could change a rule in a Boardgame, what would it be? (Helen)
• What 2 Boardgames would you like to combine into one? (Sabine)
• What is your favourite Board Game (Tim, a guest)
• Name one Board character you would like to bring to life (Lovey)

Evaluators included Hayley Ching E1, Aaron Webb E2, Lovey Ratima-Rapson E3, Ian Thornton TTE, Dean McLeod GE. Erika Andrews kept us to time and Dan Vann kept the technology working as Zoom Master. Aaron Webb presented the Toastee Award to Natalie Perzylo for her excellent introduction.

The Dragon Team were undisputed winners for the most correct answers in the Articulate Game.

Member Blog by Helen McLeod