Toastmasters – Daytime Harbord Diggers

We are glad to be back in our new beautiful surroundings after absence of 18 months. The transition into our new room has been smooth with the help of very supportive Harbord Diggers staff.

We have maintained our membership of keen Toastmasters and welcomed new members including younger ones. This includes participants at different speech levels and participation of contests leading to all area contests. We have 26 members at present ranging in age from 26 up into the 80’s. Enrico Massi has recently moved to Melbourne and is much missed by our club. Also sadly we lost one of our longstanding members. Her funeral was attended by most of our members, the Toastmasters District Director and eulogy was given by our club president Enrico Massi.

We have our meetings every 1st, 3rd and 5th Thursday monthly. Our club is one of fun, support, encouragement and many chats at our morning tea time, supplied by Harbord Diggers. We meet after the meeting for a get together for lunch and a glass of wine. In the last year our group has started a bi-monthly newsletter by our member Barbara Westaway who is a local writer. We try to mix our processes from time to time which included a debate week. Our new committee have introduced a few new ideas with the introduction of a poetry section and a themed meeting, eg Hats and Cravats, at the first meeting of every month. On D Day, 6th June, a beautiful poem was written and read by one of our members.

We have had several workshops in conjunction with improving our skills, including attending the Butros Speech Workshop. Awards given included; Most prestigious award, Toastmaster of the Year, as voted by membership, to Enrico Massi. Leaders are Made medallion was presented to Cheryl Brown and Enrico Massi by the Immediate Past District 90 director Phil Reed. Most recent competition for Humorous Speech was won by Gunter Schaule and Table Topics was won by Barbara Westaway. Moving back to our Freshwater surroundings has been a welcome homecoming and we thank the Mounties/ Diggers Club for the support to us as a Sub Club.

LINDE OOSTERHOFF

Secretary