Another successful meeting for the West Rand Toastmasters
Only two prepared speeches were given from the evening, timed by Lesego who took on the role of Time Keeper.
The West Rand Toastmasters used their last meeting of Women’s Month to cover the theme ‘Change’.
The 487th West Rand Toastmasters meeting was held on Thursday, 20 August and the regular members were joined by three guests, and visiting Sector 2 Director, Lesego Nhlapo.
Falling victim to load-shedding, the club’s president, Thato Majela, could not attend the virtual meeting, but his predecessor, Lynette Harris took his place for the evening. Lynette, who is the Treasurer for the club this year, took on the role of Um Counter and proposed the night’s Toast to Toastmasters International.
Only two prepared speeches were given from the evening, timed by Lesego who took on the role of Time Keeper.
Tiffany Lee was up first; the Vice President Education titled her speech Keep It Simple and spoke about why she joined Toastmasters. Tiffany wants to earn an Education Degree and believes that Toastmasters will help to improve her communication skills to teach effectively.
Mampe Lekholane gave the second prepared speech, which she titled PAUSE, Rethink. She spoke about the financial destruction caused by the coronavirus pandemic and how it has changed the lives and working situations of so many people. In Mampe’s opinion, the best way to recover from the devastation is to pause and re-plan; changing our plans rather than our goals.
Next on the agenda for the evening was the Table Topics portion, chaired by Stephanie Watkins who came up with the topic ‘Gender Neutral’ for each unprepared speech.
The five unprepared speeches related to making bicycles more gender neutral. Glen Campbell was asked whether she thought this was necessary, to which she replied that the colour of a bicycle doesn’t really matter.
Michael Glencross was asked what he thought the most gender neutral bicycle colour was and he replied that dark green is a strong colour that can be appreciated by both genders.
Kgaugelo Sedibeng, one of the guests of the evening, was asked how she would advertise a bicycle and she said that she believed using cartoons to brand the bicycle would appeal to children.
Tiffany Lee then gave another speech, responding to the question, “If your child wanted a bicycle, would you buy one?” She replied confidently that she would indeed purchase one due to the physical health benefits and how they improve balance.
Mampe Lekholane also gave a second speech and was asked what music she would use in a bicycle advertisement, and she believed that the music often played in gyms would be the best choice.
As we are now in Level 2 of the coronavirus lockdown, the West Rand Toastmasters are hoping to return to their in-person meetings as of 3 September at the Discovery Bowling Club.
