Our Halloween Club meeting at McGrattans on Wednesday last week was one of the scariest club meetings I have ever been to….. and that was even before Dan G as Topicsmaster, resplendent in his Sergeant’s uniform, announced that he would be inspecting the Ve-hi-cles of the club members in the alleyway out the back. Lucky I don’t drive. Much. Maria, our lovely President who had stepped straight out of the set of ‘Bewitched’ for the night, gave her opening address, warmly welcoming our guest, Annemarie who joined us from her Toastmasters club in Sweden. Stephen gave a spine chilling opening to the meeting as our Toastmaster for the night in the voice of Count Dracula – all the way from Transylvania or was that Romania?
There were lots of scary witches with a variety of hats, veils, spiders and capes at the meeting… but no brooms! How did they expect to get home without their brooms? Or maybe said witches were planning on staying up all night partying – your guess is as good as mine!
Garda Dan set us some great topics for the evening, which challenged, uplifted as well as panicked some of us LOL Deirdre wowed us with her witty response to Garda Dan’s tricky question ‘How would you cope if there was a wine shortage?’ She replied ‘there are so much better things out there to drink – like whiskey!’ Gerry gave a very well-reasoned argument in favour of regulating bonfires at Halloween to cut down on the illegal activity currently occurring. Merrilyn gave an amazingly creative response to the question ‘What great character from history would you like to see at your door on Halloween night and what would you ask them?’ She responded ‘I would like to see Jesus and I would ask him if he did exist and if it was true that it was going to be his birthday in couple of months!’
Stephen (Count Dracula) and Rosie (Where’s Wally) had us in stitches with their hilarious role play. Rosie did an excellent job of fending off Count Dracula’s attempts to win her over and they both gave us a great laugh in the process! Connor S. flew the Kerry Flag high with his response to the question as to who is the most powerful person in the world – his answer ‘Jackie Healy Rae’- left us in no doubt that Kerry is the centre of Connor’s universe.
Frank and Martin debated the issue of how to improve overall health and end obesity with Frank pointing to the lessons that we can take from the success of the smoking ban and Martin suggesting that the best approach, if money was no object, would be to buy up all the sweet manufacturers and close them down. Go Martin! Donal admitted that he would buy the new Ryan air Cabin Crew Calendar ‘if it was for charity’ and Frank returned with the highly ‘popular’ suggestion that we should produce a Vox Populi members calendar! Any volunteers? I know I won’t be putting my hand up!
Our Poetmaster for the night, Aoife, gave a moving rendition of Max Ehrmann’s thought provoking poem ‘The Desiderata’, beautifully read. Martin gave us an amazing Icebreaker which had so many positive messages, but I think the strongest message for me was the line he quoted from his meditation teacher: ‘You’re Superman but you think you’re Clark Kent’ illustrating that the only barrier to us achieving our goals are our own limiting beliefs.
Dan O’Neill read beautifully and with great meaning, from Maeve Brennan’s story ‘The Bride.’ Tomas gave us a powerful scene from the Daniel Day Lewis movie ‘Lincoln’ complete in top hat and beard and Elaine Stavely had us absolutely mesmerised with her mind blowing speech which she will be delivering at the UK & Ireland Toastmasters Finals shortly. We definitely have a winner on our hands here Folks!
Frank, Eddie, Maria and Jeremy gave some very constructive and supportive advice as evaluators at the meeting, with Jeremy winning the prize for the Best Evaluation of the night. Tony scooped the prize for the Best Topic of the night, just one of a long line of accolades he is accumulating for doing topics at Vox Populi! Hats off to Doreen for taking on the role of Timer for the night and to Jacinta who was also doing Ah-Counter for the first time at the meeting. Ladies, you did a marvellous job! Stuart gave a great and very comprehensive Grammarian’s report and Cora gave a very warm and thorough General Evaluation of the meeting.
Yes Folks, it was a very scary meeting, so scary I am still not sure if I have fully recovered my sensibilities. Hopefully I’ll be back to myself in time for next year’s Halloween meeting….. Mwah,ha,ha,ha,ha!
Gemma Shannon
VP Public Relations, Vox Populi Toastmasters