The theme was a Christmas Carnival when the Florida Toastmasters held their meeting at the Huguenot Restaurant earlier this month. Toastmaster for the evening, Dawn Hemming, spoke about love and loving leadership.
“Loving leadership. Love is not a word commonly connected with leadership, it’s not a term used to describe a job, unless you’re talking about Mother Theresa.
I’m a fan of the word ‘love’ and a bigger fan of living it, especially in the context of leading” she said.
Lawrence Makeleni was first with his prepared speech titled “Postman, Postman, Postman,” and had his fellow toastmasters in awe with his use of visual aids and materials to bring his speech to life.
“When we were young, our parents would ask us what we wanted to be when we grew up. While other children wanted to be doctors and lawyers, I wanted to be a postman. When I finished matric, I needed a temporary job and that is when the chance to fulfill my dream arrived. The local post office was looking for someone and after interviews and being shortlisted, I got the job.
First day on the job, I was given a very heavy bag with things to deliver. I didn’t mind, this was my dream job. As I cycled and delivered every day, I got very tired so I decided to have a drink at the nearest shebeen. I had one bottle too many and was a little drunk and realised I wouldn’t finish my deliveries in time. I shoved all the packages in a hole, lightening my load and went back to the office, not even able to cycle in a straight line. I lost my job and saw that I’d made the wrong career choice,” he said.
President Tim Knights was up next, with a monodrama. The objectives of his speech were to understand the concept and nature of the monodrama, and for him to assume the identity of the character, and portray the physical and emotional aspect of this character to the audience. The experienced Knights managed to do just this in his speech titled “Frankenstein, Frankenstein, Frankenstein” and had his audience on the edge of their seats.
Martin Faurè was next up and had the members in stitches as he read his poem. In his speech entitled “A politically correct Christmas poem,” he said,
“It was the night before Christmas and Santa’s a wreck,
How do you navigate a world that’s politically correct?
His workers would no longer answer to ‘elves’,
‘Vertically challenged’ they were calling themselves.
Labour conditions at the North Pole
were alleged by the union to stifle the soul.
Four reindeer had vanished without much propriety,
released to the wilds by the Wildlife Society.”
Guest speaker for the evening, David Cairnes, also had members holding their stomachs in laughter as he spoke about the bell that controlled their existence at Rob High Boarding school
“This is where I was sent to improve my dumbness. The boarding school was a cold place, so cold that when you spat it froze in mid-air and bounced like a marble on the pavement. I wrote to my mother, asking for a hot-water-bottle and it arrived through the post with a knitted water-bottle jacket in school colours. It must have been the first ever knitted water-bottle jacket in the history of the school and I was called names, such as ‘Water-bottle Cairns’ or just ‘First Water’ for short,” he said.
The Florida Toastmasters will resume their meetings in January next year. For information about the club meetings contact Paul Muller on 082 929 7981 or via e-mail to paulthomasmuller@gmail.com. Alternatively, contact Tim Knights (President) via e-mail to timknights@telkomsa.net or call 082 894 7542. For more details about the club’s activities, you are invited to visit its website at https://florida.tmclub.co.za.
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