Toastmasters of Waikanae, New Zealand

17/03/2026

At our meeting last week, we had 3 prepared speeches, two of which were ice breakers, or stories about some aspect of a persons life. Yu told us all about what she had been up to in the 5 months since we saw her last, while Neil gave us a glimpse of what life was like growing up in Northland (Wellington) in the late 50s early 60s. On the other hand, Ian made us think about AI, something that should be in the back of all our minds I feel.

Katie gave us some great topics in the impromptu speaking part of the evening. We got to talk about our views on various recent legislative changes (or proposed legislative changes) such as anti-smacking, gang members having to wear patches in public, banning social media for those under 16 etc. They were topics that were both meaningful but about things everyone could get some kind of handle on.

Below are pics of our two winners of the night. Yu won the best speech award while Kelvin wion the table topic (impromptu speech) award.

Our next meeting is 26th March and we welcome visitors. Feel free to just rock up, and/or message us if you have any questions.

17/03/2026

This is a bit late but 4 weeks ago we had our second contest evening. We had 3 entrants in the ‘international speech’ contest and 5 entrants in the ‘evaluation’ contest. It is always fun to attend contest evenings and bear witness to those of us brave enough to stick their heads above the parapets (so to speak) 😄

Below we have pics of the winners. In the international speech contest Terence White was the winner and Kelvin de Ginder came second. Unfortunately the third speaker was disqualified for going over time. Speeches must be between 5.00 and 7.30 minutes long and, believe me, it is surprisingly difficult to speak within those constraints. However, its a good lesson to learn as I think we can all remember occasions when people have got carried away on a podium 😄 In this case it was only over by a second or two, but rules are rules.

In the evaluation contest, Terence White came first, Eva Petro second and Kelvin de Ginder third.

That concludes our contest evenings for another year.

08/02/2026

If you have a fear of public speaking then you are in good company because many people share this phobia and Toastmasters is a great way to help overcome it. The Waikanae branch meet on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month from 7.30 to 9.30, and we provide a very safe, friendly and supportive environment in which you can practise and grow your skills. After all, we’ve all been there ourselves.

This Thursday we have a competition evening which is a great opportunity to visit and get an idea of how we operate. There is no pressure to join and no expectation to stand up and speak. Feel free to message me for more details or just rock on up. We meet at the Waikanae Arts and Crafts Rooms at 27 Elizabeth St.

The photo below was taken at our last meeting and shows Nick presenting Kelvin with the weekly award for best table topic (short, impromptu) speech. Kelvin told us all about the first chimp who went into space and about the g-forces he experienced.

13/01/2026

Welcome to 2026 fellow toastmasters. Our first meeting this year is next week on 22 January.

And to everyone else - if one of your new year resolutions was to become a better public speaker then toastmasters is the place for you. Come on down and check us out. Message us for more info.

16/11/2025

We had another great meeting on Thursday night. It was quite a relaxed meeting, perhaps because we had quite a few apologies??

There were 3 prepared speeches and, as it happened, they were all very funny. David’s speech ‘Wellington laid bare’ was about a couple of times he had unexpectedly come across particularly sc****ly clad women while out and about in Wellington. Ian’s speech was his icebreaker. This is the first speech given by a new recruit and is an opportunity to introduce yourself. Ian talked mainly about what constituted fun when growing up in a tiny NZ settlement with few options. Nu took us back to the 1980s when he was an apprentice mechanic. It’s always fun to learn about what people got up to when they were young.

Table topics was led by Chris. This is the impromptu section of the meeting where people are invited up to talk for 1-2 minutes about a random topic with no opportunity to prepare. Thursday’s topics were related to bad things. What would you do if there was an earthquake etc.

I was the timekeeper. To be a good public speaker you need to learn not to outstay your welcome. To help with this we use lights. Every speaker is asked to speak within a range of times. For instance, most prepared speeches are 5-7 minutes. To help speakers know how much time they have left, the green light (shown here) will be turned on at 5 minutes, the orange at 6, and the red at 7. Speakers are required to wrap up within 30 secs of seeing the red light.

If you would like to improve your public speaking then come on down and check us out. We are a friendly supportive group and we love visitors. We meet on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month between 7.30 and 9.30 at the Arts and Crafts centre in Elizabeth St. Feel free to message, or phone me for more info.

03/10/2025

Last week we had our second contest evening. Up for grabs were the Best Table Topic and Best Humerous Speech awards. We are only a small club and don’t usually muster a large number of contestants, so we were delighted to welcome 4 contestants for table topics and 3 for the humerus speech.

Our table topic for the evening was ‘Has social media brought us closer together or pushed us further
apart?’ Each speaker had to respond with no time to prepare an answer and without hearing the responses of previous contestants. In this instance, all contestants were experienced toastmasters and responded very ably. The winner on the night was Kelvin, with Eva second and Terence third (see picture 1).

The 3 humerous speeches were all brilliant. David gave a very clever and funny speech about long words, and impressed us all by being able to rattle off some truly long words including the longest maori place name in NZ. Terence hilariously described a recent visit to get a cut throat shave in Edinburgh which, to his surprise, ended up including the removal of nose and ear hairs using wax - an experience not for the faint hearted. Finally we had Kelvin who gave us a very physical speech, reenacting an amusing incident that occurred many years ago when he was a newly qualified doctor and part of a team called to attend to a man who had collapsed at a raucous, dodgy, local party. I’m glad I wasn’t judging this one because I’d have struggled to choose a winner. In the end, Terence got the top spot with David second and Kelvin third (see photo 2).

Our two winners will go on to represent the club at the next level of the toastmasters contests and we wish them well in their endeavours.

Our next meeting is Thursday 9th October at 7.30. We love having visitors so come along and check us out if you would like to find out more about toastmasters. ou

12/09/2025

We had our first September meeting last night. It was on the small side (as winter meetings can sometimes be, what with illnesses and holidays) but it was still a goodie. We were very pleased to welcome two guests (Manuel and Ian).

We had 3 prepared speeches. Ronies picked a very topical story and spoke about Tom Phillips who, after hiding in the bush with his 3 children for the last 4 years, was shot and killed two days ago. It’s a knarly and complex story but Ronies provided an insightful summary and also included his viewpoint.

Next Terence, having recently toured a Scottish distillery, talked about the process of making whisky 😋Finally, Eva showed us photos of her recent holiday in Niue, which a few of us have now added to our bucket lists.

In the impromptu part of the meeting, Ronies (our table topics master), set us some interesting questions such as - ‘what would your dream job be if money was no object’, and ‘how would you spend 24 hours if you had no responsibilities’. This last topic went to one of our guests (Manuel), who very cleverly included a trip to Niue in his answer.

Neil was both our table topics evaluator and general evaluator, and awarded the table topic of the day to Manuel and the speech of the day to Ronies (see pics below).

I’d particularly like to thank Ronies, Neil and Terence, who all volunteered for multiple roles tonight. Without you guys, the agenda would have looked much more makeshift.

Our next meeting is in two weeks and is a contest evening, it’s a great meeting to come to if you are interested in seeing what we are about.

24/07/2025

I had to share this. I think it is brilliant.

Demystifying Toastmasters #5: TOO AMERICAN FOR US KIWIS?

Many Kiwis think Toastmasters is all about rah-rah American enthusiasm.

AMERICAN MISCONCEPTIONS DEBUNKED:
• NO, you don't need to salute the flag before speaking 🇺🇸
• NO, we don't high-five after every sentence ✋
• NO, we don't use baseball analogies (we barely understand cricket) ⚾

THE GLORIOUSLY KIWI REALITY:
• Feedback is delivered with classic Kiwi diplomacy: "Yeah, nah, that was good" 👍
• We bond over complaining about the weather and Aucklanders
• We celebrate with a cuppa and a biscuit 🍪
• We downplay achievements with "it was alright, I guess" 🤷

COME ALONG!
When: First and third Thursday of the month
Where: Johnsonville Bowling Club
What to bring: Your natural Kiwi modesty and maybe some biscuits
Enthusiasm level: Appropriately restrained 📊

CHURTON PARK TOASTMASTERS: KEEPING IT SWEET AS SINCE 2015 ✅

24/07/2025

Last nights meeting was quite small, as they often are on cold nights in the middle of winter, but, as a result, it was a little more relaxed and informal, which I always enjoy.

We had 3 prepared speeches. I spoke about retirement villages, which I can only hope was a bit more interesting than the title suggested 😆 Yu gave a thought provoking snd well delivered speech about the dilemma of making the correct decision when presented with conflicting advice. David entertained us with a completely hilarious account of being mentored to become a serial killer.

As table topics master, Glen set us some thorny questions about the housing situation in Kapiti, which I thought people handled well. I was particularly impressed with how Chris segued from housing into fig trees. I was very grateful I didn’t get picked, although I did have a story lined up about the time I worked with the homeless in London, which was at least about housing, or rather the lack of it, if not about Kapiti 😁

The photos below are of Kelvin who was our chair for the night, plus two presentations. Graham (as General Evaluator) awarded Yu with the best speech award, and Neil with the best table topic award.

Our next meeting is in 3 weeks on the 14th August. Guests are very welcome.

11/07/2025

Last night was a smaller meeting than usual, but no less fun. In fact I sometimes enjoy the smaller meetings more because they can be more informal and interactive.

Last night we were entertained by 3 prepared speeches. Ronnies gave us a very poignant speech personalising the horrors happening in Gaza. He created some very evocative word pictures leaving us plenty to think about.

Then Chris exhorted us to recycle by outlining the benefits, some of which are more obvious than others. This went down very well judging from the odd “hear hear” from the audience.

Finally Pauline told us about a day in Halifax. I thought she was talking about England, but she was talking about Halifax, Nova Scotia. She talked about two maritime disasters. The first was that most of the dead recovered from the Titanic are buried there because most of the rescue boats that answered the Titanic’s call for help came from there. But it was the second one that was a surprise. In 1917 two vessels collided in the harbour. One was a French cargo vessel called the Mont Blanc which was carrying tonnes of TNT destined for the Western Front. It exploded killing and injuring thousands including people on land as well as at sea.

Table topics was run by Yu and she asked people to recount tales from their childhood. Everyone enjoyed delving into days gone by, leading to a competant, relaxed and fun session. Great theme Yu.

Finally I would just like to mention evaluations. These are a corner stone of toastmasters. Everyone gets evaluated at every meeting and we all get used to both giving them and receiving them. For me personally, I tend to always look at what I could do better, so when Neil told me last night that he thought I gave the best evaluation he has ever heard me give by far, that really meant something, and I left the meeting on a total high. Yay for evaluations and lovely people like Neil 🩷

Our next meeting is on Thursday 24th July, 7.30 - 9.30, and we love having visitors so do come and join us.