Report by Ursula Beatty.
Aloha was the greeting for the day. There were flowers
everywhere! On the program, on everyone’s clothing, with Hawaiian style dresses
and shirts. Also garlands of flower (leis), draped around necks or worn as head bands. There were grass skirts too, and
lots of colour, adorning attendees and scattered around the venue.
Fortunately, we didn’t have to go too far south for this year’s
Hawaiian themed, D69 Southern Division conference (plus round 3 of the speech
contests). As, It was held at the Robina community centre Auditorium, in Robina
on Saturday 10th March, 2018.
A good turn out from HDB club members at the SD Conference:
Ursula Beatty (President), Daisy Morris, Jude Morris, Elaina Massey, Julie Anne Cantwell (Contestant in the International Contest), Sarafina Zubovic (Area 24 director), Tom O'Sullivan (VPE & SAA), Hannah Castellijn (VPM). Missing from photo: Chris Lennon - Catering co-coordinator.
This year’s tropical Hawaiian theme gave SD director, Garry Jardine DTM, a
fantastic opportunity to showcase some of his own collection of Hawaiian shirts.
He managed to wear 4 different shirts throughout the conference. I love the
look. Well done Garry!
A Yates Sandwich!
SD Director, Garry Jardine (AKA Mr Hawaii), and TMI Immediate past president, Mike Storkey congratulate Anne Yates on her 20 year membership and service to TM. Well done Anne.
Conference Highlights:
Apart from the speech contests, and Garry’s shirts, other highlights for me, included
an informative educational speech by Mark
Hunter, DTM (also 2009 world champion of public speaking and speech coach). On the Anatomy of a keynote speech. Marks keynote speech tips
included:
·
Establish your credibility as a speaker on that
topic.
·
Work your speech around the values of the
organisation or group that you are speaking to.
·
Ensure the structure of the speech enables the audience
to clearly understand and follow its logic and flow of ideas.
·
Use different mediums to cater for the different
learning styles (Visual, Kinaesthetic, Auditory).
·
Use Tweetable moments: small repeatable phrases or quotes.
·
Very important to use relevant
stories and metaphors to connect with the audience and link to what your
message is about.
·
Appropriate transitions between ideas.
·
Use a new idea or an old idea wrapped in a new
way.
Also, special Guest presenter, Neil McLean gave us useful and interesting tips on public speaking and speaking on camera. Neil is well
qualified ‘to get the best out of people on camera, with a 35 year career in
media, more than 5,000 television news
stories to air, and 20,000 interviews under his belt.”
Neil best tips for
being a great speaker:
·
Be yourself. Be authentic, as there are no
mistakes when you speak from the heart. Let others get to know you, like you and
trust you as a speaker.
·
To become a great speaker, you first need great
thoughts and emotions behind it.
·
Make effective use of pauses, as there is often more in what you don’t say, than in what you
do say. “the Power of the pause”.
I particularly enjoyed Neil’s presentation, which was all
the more admirable, considering he came to Robina straight from the airport, after a long flight from India to speak
with us. Thanks Neil.
Guest presenter, Neil McLean with Conference MC, Stephen McDowall.
Tom O'Sullivan, Hannah Castellijn, Jude Morris, Elaina Massey, Daisy Morris, Sarafina Zubovic and Julie Anne Cantwell.
Humorous contest Place getters:
1st place- Rod Smith, 2nd place- Shirley Lord, 3rd place- Jane McLennan
International contest Toastmaster, Hannah Castellijn with participants:
Melisa Fernandez, Julie Anne Cantwell, Alison Cleaver, Jane Buckley and Tim Whittle.
International contest Place getters:
2nd place- Melissa Fernandez, 1st place- Jane Butler and 3rd place -Alison Cleaver
Table Topic contestants:
Carolyn Shaw, Linda Hardstaff, Alisha Fernandez, Alison Cleaver and Keith Howden.
Table Topic contest place getters:
3rd Place- Keith Howden, 1st Place - Alison Cleaver, 2nd Place- Carolyn Shaw.
Well done to all of the contestants of this years contests, and Mahalo (Thank you), to everyone who contributed to making the conference such a huge success, including the organisers, catering and of course the judges.
Best wishes to the winners of all 4 contests who go on to compete in round 4 of the contests to be held on the 28th and 29th April at the 47th Annual District 69 conference at Ipswich.
I look forward to seeing you there. A hui hou.