Hibernate or Huddle

This past January featured a fifth Thursday and in Bolton Banter, that extra Thursday is used for special meetings.  On January 29th, our club's founder, Eric Solowka, led an evaluation workshop.  The importance of constructive evaluations cannot be overestimated.  Not only does effective feedback help speakers enhance their presentations, giving feedback offers evaluators valuable experience to use outside of the Toastmasters club.  If you are a supervisor or hope to become one or if you are in a position to give references for job-seekers, chances are you already know the importance of a good evaluation of a person's skills and abilities.  Attending an evaluation workshop will help sharpen existing skills and help you learn new ones that you can readily apply to a variety of situations.  From time to time evaluation workshops are held not only at Bolton Banter but at other clubs in the district.  Check the website or ask the Vice President of Education for more information.  If you missed this workshop, make a point to attend the next one offered. 

The first meeting of February, held February 5th, had an apt theme "Ground Hog Day".  The word of the meeting, not surprisingly, was "hibernation".  The meeting's chair, Jane Collier, challenged us to use the word of the meeting as often as possible during the course of the evening.  Jane did have some trouble getting her tongue around the name of Atlantic Canada's ground hog, "Shubanecadie Sam". 

Following the introducation of our guests, Beverley and Wayne from Palgrave, Vince Capicotto, in his first role as a new Toastmaster, acted as humourist.  Another first timer, Lesley Webb, ably asssumed the role of Table Topics Master.  Lesley asked us to imagine we had hibernated and woke up to find a very different world.  Some members woke and found themselves in the Caribbean, the North Pole or sleeping in Barack Obama's chambers in the White House.  Nice job Lesley.

As is usual at Bolton Banter, the speeches offered were unique and very different.  Val Koncan, giving his tenth speech, told the inspiring story of the great humanitarian, Dr. Simoni, who works tirelessly to ease world hunger.  Val gave us a new definition of the word "hero", namely; "a hero is a man who is afraid to walk away".  Dr. Simoni was definitely afraid to walk away.

Lorraine Van Wagner, working from an advanced manual, "Facilitating Discussion" led the group in a brainstorming session.  The group looked at strategies to ensure agendas are filled three meetings in advance. Ideas selected from this session will be further explored and discussed at the March 19th meeting.

A scheduled speaker was unavoidably detained and Eric Solowka stepped up at the last minute with a speech entitled "Hibernate or Huddle".  If you love polar bears and penguins, and who doesn't, you had to love this speech.  Eric's message was, don't sleep your life away.  Do things - achieve your goals.  Thanks Eric.  Great message and delightful speech.

Having delivered his tenth speech, Val Koncan has earned the Competent Communicator designation.  Congratulations Val.  Not only was Val awarded his CC this evening, he was also presented with the ribbon for best speaker.  Bondy Nair was named best Table Topics speaker.  Laurie Stapleton was voted best evaluator.

Bolton Banter's International Speech and Evaluation contest will be held during our next meeting, February 19th.  Come out and support your fellow Toastmasters who have entered the contest. Better yet, give a thought to competing yourself or taking on a role.  Competing is a wonderful experience and the environment is truly supportive.  Check out the calendar on the website to see what role you can take on.  We hope to see you all on February19th. 

Cheers - Lorraine Van Wagner, Webmaster