Whanganui Toastmasters

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Whanganui Toastmasters

Whanganui Toastmasters is a friendly, professional club in our historic river town. Meetings begin at 6:30pm. Feel free to message us for further information.

We meet on the 1st, 3rd & 5th Wednesday of each month in Salvation Army meeting place located on 4 Indus street .

13/11/2025

Yet another exhilarating meeting this week, unbelievable really, surely there must be a shonky one sometime. Marion set up an agenda with two speakers, once again staff shortage, four apologies. However we had six guests, that makes a huge difference. Grammarian Jake:s word of the day was parse, to analyze something, a very useful sort of word, another one we will use. He seems to quite enjoy the role, he proved to us all he was really listening. Two speeches Ronis and Lin. Lin:s First speech about adversity was beautifully evaluated by Paul. We all learnt a lot about what to do and what not to do. Ronis"s, usual well thought out, speech was ably evaluated by Hemi. He is a thoughtful evaluator, he uses wit and humor and entertains his audience. Table Topics Master, Paul, excellent topics, makes it easy when they are simple. Our guests enjoyed the challenge. One of our guests was a Toastmaster years ago, brought back great memories. Jade"s GE role was handled with aplomb, she took to it like ducks to water. She enjoyed not being evaluated or timed, gave us an effective temperature of the meeting with examples for improvement. The theme , CRAZY FIREWORKS, was prevalent during evening, all seemed to work well. Well done everyone who gave their all we all enjoyed it. Will get back to everyone about next meeting. Our last meeting, meeting after next, is the Christmas Special, and our last for the year. Have a nice week

01/11/2025

You may thought I had forgotten to report back on, the promised, different sort of meeting on Wednesday. I hadn"t forgotten, it took 3 days to recover. Fiona put together a practice Evaluation Contest. She explained how it was to be run so our guests could understand what was happening. Karuna gave the test speech , about procrastination, nice personal story, easy to evaluate. Everyone judged it, using Toastmasters judging sheet, then gave verbal evaluations. So interesting how professional some of the results were. Competitions are the only time we compete, some people really shine in those situations and it is a very good experience. Everyone, except me , really enjoyed the exercise, a great different, well run meeting. I am just not comfortable competing, even though we wern"t, some just arn"t. That is why I am just coming right. Jake ran his first Table Topics session, explained the need for impromptu speaking, and based the topics around the theme, very very well done I thought .Of course our hero, Paul, won the Evaluation Contest, well done. What a good meeting, I did promise a different meeting and oh! I meant to make mention of our last meeting word of the day, Detritus, nobody liked it, waste or rubbish, it means. A very strong useful word, sometimes better than the alternative, anyway, isn"t it neat to be able, and smart enough to use the Grmmarian"s word of the day. Lovely photos of our members and guests. Jake"s Table Topics, Fiona presenting Participation Certificates. Next meeting is next Wednesday. I am Chair, theme is Crazy Fireworkes. Will update

18/10/2025

What an interesting, busy week Whanganui Toastmasters have had. On Wednesday evening Harkeran Chaired his very successful The Power of One Step themed meeting.He demonstrated how good organizing and communication makes meetings work. We were a bit short staffed with members on holiday and work but we had two lovely guests, that made up for it. We ended up with three neat speeches, one being Jake"s Icebreaker. Very well done, I thought, about his sport, Badminton. Extremely interesting facts and history of the sport. Next speech Josh gave a wonderful rendition on self improvement. He demonstrated how research ,time and dedication can make a speech great. Useful quotes, a bit of humor and a good story, nice. Not unlike good old Paul explaining how Paths work and how to navigate through them. Hemi"s Table Topics were based on the meeting theme, easy to speak to impromptu speaking is a skill, he said. Yay, Marion, Guy and Fiona will be back for our 3rd meeting of October. An evaluation practice competition meeting. Fiona will be Chair and Karuna will be giving test speech the rest of us will be evaluating, that is the 30th, keep that in mind. would be a good meeting for guests, very entertaining.
we also , on Thursday judged St Anne"s School speech competition, a great experience and privilege. A very beneficial and rewarding exercise, we should all take the opportunity to assist.
this is a picture of a very handsome group of individuals, there will be even more next meeting, keep watching and comment.

02/10/2025

At last night's meeting, a bit low on staff, but we had two grand speeches, two amazing evaluations and six table topics. What could be better than that? Paul enlightened us with a huge range of topics we could use as speeches. He smartly and wisely included it in a lovely informative speech.
Ronis let us into the wonderful world of quakers and her involvement there.
Josh’s word of the day was ‘encourage’. He told us it was used eighteen times.
Renei was our chair who certainly led an encouraging evening. Paul presented her with an award for completing her path.
We welcomed three very interesting guests who hopefully enjoyed their experience. One of our guests, Steve, said we need more members. How about that!
Next meeting will be on October 15th, when our chair will be Hakaran.

23/08/2025

Wednesday night, Gillian was our Chair. She had three lovely guests and her theme was ‘Visions of Spring’ - visions of spring it certainly was! We didn’t have an Educational but President Karuna has since told us all how to evaluate in Third Person. You mention the name and refer to the speaker as he or she, not you. Great information.
There were two wonderful speakers. Jade delivered her second speech which was about Emotional Intelligence - such a useful talk about her emotional anticipations, how brain chemicals affect our lives and she explained that anxiety is not our enemy. The second speech from Josh told us about the power of positive thinking. Both were powerful speeches, interesting and memorable. Paul’s wonderful Table Topics session included eight speakers. He gave a thoroughly encouraging preamble about the importance of impromptu speaking. How about these for topics: The Growth of New Plants, New Life in Spring, The End of the Winter Blues, What Triggers Your Senses in Spring, My Favourite Spring Flower is, What Colour Do You Associate With Spring, Where Would You Most Like to Visit in Spring and Why? A great session because everyone can associate with those topics. Renei and Ronnis gave us very useful evaluations of the speeches. We will talk more about evaluations next time. Our Chair on the 3rd September is Karuna. We will look forward to that. Karuna gave three awards, one to Ronnis for her innovative planning path and two to Paul for Presentation Mastery and Engaging Humour paths. Well Deserved!

19/08/2025

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 20th, heralds our second meeting of August. The theme is ‘Visions of Spring’ and our Chair is Gillian. There are three speeches planned, so come along and enjoy them and a wonderful Table Topics (impromptu speaking) session for all. Effective communication is the best tool we can ever put in our toolbox. 6.30pm at the Salvation Army Hall, Indus Street, Whanganui. Toastmasters - where communication is developed and leaders are made. See you there!

09/08/2025

As I am learning about this facebook business, the strengths and power of this platform, it makes me realise we need to get more people involved in subscribing to and reading these posts. At our Wednesday night meeting even though all our members weren’t there, we were still able to have a really effective and interesting meeting.
Everything in Toastmasters is timed and evaluated so as a result it benefits everybody. Paul was awarded two level completion certificates - one for Level 3 Engaging Humour, and Presentation Mastery, Level 4. He has worked hard to achieve this and it is a result of many interesting and memorable speeches and some useful evaluations. Ronis had a very interesting project. She had to convince the club to agree with her forming a wellness course. The way she put it over was extremely convincing and indeed everyone thought it was real. Very well done Ronis!
Josh’s first evaluation was nothing short of impressive. It was obvious to everyone that he had put a lot of thought into his presentation. A good summary of the speech, excellent recommendations. We will be very pleased to hear more of his thoughtful evaluations. Hemi was the General Evaluator. It was his second time in this role. We are impressed with his considered suggestions and commendations. He also manages to include humour in his role. The first photo is of President Karuna presenting Paul with his level completion badges. The second photo is Josh in full flight with his evaluation. The third photo shows Hemi presenting his General Evaluation. The General Evaluator doesn’t get evaluated - isn’t that good - because someone would tell him not to clasp his hands in front of him! All this and more added to a great Toastmaster evening. Well done everyone.

07/08/2025

It never ceases to amaze me how after every meeting I think wow what a wonderful experience that was. Wednesday evening was one of those. Marion was Chair, she was so organized, everyone knew exactly what and who and Well Being was a super theme. Three guests who thoroughly enjoyed their experience. two really useful informative speeches by Ronis and Paul. Great Table Topics session by Renei, an educational by Karuna reflecting on Paul"s speech about navagating Pathways. The theme, Well Being was prevelant throughout the meeting with Welfare being the Grammarian"s word of the day. Tomorrow I will post some lovely photos skiting about the quality of the meeting. Keep an eye out. Of course next meeting 4 Indus St 6.15 on the the 20 August Wednesday

03/08/2025

Our next meeting at Salvation Army 4 Indus Street 6.15pm is on the 6th Aug. Please come along and experience effective communication at work. The meeting will be chaired by Marion and her theme will be “Well-being - What does that mean to you?”
As promised, here is the update and photos from our last meeting. We were proud to see Jade and Josh delivering their first Table Topic and Evaluation. Ronis chaired the meeting with her theme “Favourite Winter Foods’. Everyone enjoyed her inclusion of the theme throughout the meeting. Renae evaluated Gillian’s speech. Every week we have a short Educational to encourage members on the small points of Toastmaster’s etiquette , which gives us confidence to perform correctly in any situation. See you all on the 6th!

01/08/2025

What a neat meeting we had tonight. Ronis Chaired the very full and exciting meeting. 3 wonderful guests and Isobel, our Area Director kindly joined us for a visit by Zoom .Guy presented an Educational about the interaction between evaluator and speaker before the meeting. Guy used a very useful tool - humour - to assist the delivery of such an important subject. There is no place like a Toastmasters Club meeting to hear heartfelt and informational speeches. Two firsts this evening: Jade hosted her first Table Topics, impromptu speech, session and Josh conducted his first evaluation. Both were exceptional. Topics were about Winter Foods mainly. If this post works keep looking tomorrow night for further info and photos, keep well.

18/07/2025

Whanganui Toastmasters has given me the great opportunity to encourage effective communication in our club and to whoever else is interested in honing their speaking skills. Last week we welcomed in our new committee who are: Karuna Atluri - our wonderful President, Fiona Perry is dealing with membership matters, Marion Taylor and Paul Jarvis have taken on the dual role of VP Education, Hakaren Nijar is our able Treasurer, Ronis Chapman will continue on as Secretary, Hemi Rainford will carry on being our Sergeant at Arms, and thanks to the encouragement of Toastmasters I am taking on a task that I have never experienced before - VP Public Relations. I am in charge of this important page. So bear with me as I navigate strange waters! I hope you enjoy the posts and get something useful from them. Good luck to our new committee and thanks to the outgoing crew. At our first meeting our new President Karuna chaired a fancy dress themed meeting - quite a neat experience. Everybody participated - it was so strange to give a speech dressed up as a woman - if you’re not! We hear such wonderful speeches, it always humbles me to hear such personal stories from our members. Last week Paul Jarvis chaired the meeting with the theme of Native Birds. We learnt all about the Moa, the Dodo, the Laughing Owl and many other extinct feathered critters. It seems we are all to blame for this - makes you feel quite terrible really. 3 neat speeches and our guests had the opportunity to practise the skills of impromptu speaking. If you want to have an enjoyable evening and learn all these wonderful skills, come along to the Salvation Army Hall, 4 Indus Street 6.30pm on the first, third and fifth Wednesday of the month.

Address

4 Indus Street
Whanganui

Opening Hours

6:30pm - 8:30pm

Telephone

+642102714131

Website

https://www.toastmasters.org/Find-a-Club/00002417-whanganui-toastmasters-club

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