The Westrand Toastmasters celebrated Valentine’s Day during their 457th meeting, which took place on 7 February.
Ernest Watkins, the Club’s Sergeant-At-Arms, called the meeting to order and Glen Campbell, the Club’s Vice-president for Public Relations welcomed all members and guests.
Esther Dreyer, the Club’s President, ensured that there were roses and chocolates for everyone to celebrate the day of love.
The evening’s theme was ‘Spirit’ and the word of the evening was ‘Protagonist’.
Alwyn van Wyngaarden took on the role of Toastmaster, and ensured that every roleplayer knew that they had to use the word ‘spirit’ when introducing themselves and the roles they were taking on for the evening.
Claude Joshua took on the role of Table Topics Master, while Richard van Leeuwen was the Joke Master for the night and the audience spent the majority of the time rolling around with laughter.
Stephanie Watkins put a humorous spin on her wedding day, and Glen Campbell delivered an entertaining speech which was her final one for a Gold achievement.
Nigel Naylor and Leonie Minnnie from Magaliesburg were among the guests. They are planning to open a new Toastmasters Club in their area, and wanted to see how things are done.
Nigel also used the opportunity to share five universal principles during his speech, namely:
• Try to treat everyone with dignity, courtesy, kindness, forgiveness, compassion and some warmth
• Whatever you do should be done to promote harmonious living
• Always try to help others on their life’s journey, and, if you can’t, at least do no harm
• Try to leave this world a better place than you found it
• Try to do all of the above without expectation or reward, recognition or acknowledgement
The winners for the evening were Heather Coakelin (Best Table Topics) and Alwyn van Wyngaarden (Best Contributor). Thabang Talafala received a fun award for the number of ‘um’s’ counted in his Table Topics speech.
The next meeting will be an open meeting on 21 February at the Discovery Bowling Club, Lucas Avenue, Discovery. It will start at 6.30pm.
For more information about the club, contact Glen Campbell on 073 538 9560 or send an email to glencampbell@telkomsa.net.
Do you perhaps have more information pertaining to this story? Email us at roodepoortrecord@caxton.co.za (remember to include your contact details) or phone us on 011 955 1130.
For free daily local news on the West Rand, also visit our sister newspaper websites
Remember to visit our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages to let your voice be heard!
