This meeting was a celebration of Sabine, a member of the boaters club who has recently been awarded the distinguished Toastmasters award (DTM).

The DTM is something that very few people ever achieve. It took Sabine 7 years to achieve it (which is an impressively short amount of time).

It has involved her completing over 70 speeches, being a club president, successfully coaching a struggling club and many more feats.

Louise was the MC for the day and did a superb job of keeping the morning running smoothly while also keeping us laughing. We had many great tributes to Sabine and her efforts. Notably, we had two well-known toastmasters and Sabine’s friends David Templeman and Rob Woolly give speeches.

Following the lovely tributes, we had some delicious food and some breakfast bubbles.

Conversation flowed well and we moved into some impromptu speaking just to keep everyone on their toes. Guests and toastmasters were welcomed to the stage to either speak for a minute about a random topic or speak for a minute about Sabine. These were fun and fast-paced, leading to some interesting tales.

From there Sabine gave a motivating and inspiring speech explaining what it was like on her journey to DTM and how it felt being at the destination with her award.

Congratulations Sabine!

It was great meeting this crew again! Every person brings their own style and personality to the meeting so the more the merrier.

Morgane had a speech talking through her role at the Richmond community garden which has undergone massive development since she started, with a cafe going in by the end of the year. Gary made a speech talking about the New Zealand strategy to be predator free by 2050 and why there should be more focus on getting rid of invasive plants.

Max took out the Toasty award for his impromptu speech explaining why “Engineers are cool”.

A highlight of the morning was the amazing spread provided by the Sunrise club.