The gavel banged loudly on the lectern to announce the 900th annual meeting of the Florida Toastmasters Club last week.
Held at the Huguenot Restaurant in Flora Centre as per custom this was a land mark meeting for the club, which is one of the oldest and most distinguished in Southern Africa, said club spokesperson Paul Nicolai in a press statement. The Florida Toastmasters Club was chartered on 25 September 1974.
Acting president Tim Knights welcomed all that attended with the toast to Toastmasters International, another custom. He said the average life span of such a club is two years; having spent 40 years together in 900 meetings was in contrast a remarkable achievement.
Toastmaster of the evening Neville Solomon kept members entertained with various quotations and anecdotes to highlight the theme, “Florida is success”.
In true leadership and education Barry Nelson presented a lesson on speech contests, explaining various methods of delivering a successful speech. The subject was topical given the upcoming Humorous and Impromptu Speech contest to be held on Tuesday 18 August.
Members and guests were further enticed by four excellently prepared speeches by Lawrence Makeleni, Michael Glencross, Robert de Kramer and Margaret Roodt.
Nicolai played the part of the table topic master and selected Neville Solomon, Maggie Temana and Robert de Kramer to answer the question, “Who is the most important person in your life and why?”
De Kramer won the Hennie Lemmer trophy for delivering the best prepared speech at the end of the night. Maggie Temana received the Archie Halliday trophy for delivering the best impromptu speech while Elize Ellis was awarded the Buzz Bolton trophy for being the best evaluator.
Area director Robert de Kramer was proud to present Tim Knights, a distinguished Toastmaster since 1995 who has been the longest serving member of the club (since 1984) with a certificate of achievement in recognition of the club’s 40th anniversary, on behalf of Toastmasters International.
“During Knights’ tenure as district governor and district director the district achieved the greatest educational results, the greatest number of clubs acquired in a year and the greatest number of clubs in total (160),” Nicolai said.
“Tim is still working hard to help grow the club and its members.”
The remarkable evening ended with a fun quiz spanning the 40 years of the club’s existence.
Florida Toastmasters will next meet on Tuesday 18 August at the Huguenot Restaurant, Flora Centre, Ontdekkers Road at 7.15pm. The dress code is smart casual. For more information contact Paul Nicolai on 082 775 6623 or via email at nicolaisp@mweb.co.za or Ondela Zibi on 073 169 3223 or via email at ondelaz@yahoo.com
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