fruitful night

Another fruitful and fun-filled night was witnessed at the weekly meeting of the Maharlika Toastmasters Club . Seventeen members and four guests were treated to a night of colorful speeches and helpful evaluations. The Toastmaster for the Evening was no less than the Vice President for Membership, ACB Edwin Villanueva and he chose the "Fruitful Night" theme in honor of the many fruits of Maharlika's labor over the past years. EdVil was in his usual self, arriving early to decorate the Jade Vine Restaurant with fruits of different varieties as well as a huge backdrop of, what else, fruits.

The table topics portion was foregone in favor of the Prepared Speech Contest for the club's representative to the Area Contest. There were four prepared speakers, beginning with TM Ai. She has been long absent from the club's meetings because of work-related issues,but there was no sign of a long hiatus in her though, since she delivered her Basic Speech Proj. No. 4 with great passion and with colorful words. TM Kai then followed this speech with one of her own, recounting the ordeal she had to endure during her stay in the United States. Kai's beau, Peter, soon followed with a research-your-topic speech and Peter fanned the Olympic flame into the hearts of the Maharlikans.

Congratulations are in order for Atty. Jing upon his completion of the 10 Basic Speech Projects. He was very patriotic in his graduation speech and inspired his co-members to be the same. Jing has also been steadily improving in the "Ah-counts" category and in his final basic speech, he uttered a paltry 3 "ahs".

The prepared speech contest was chaired by TM Peter. He proved to be a worthy chairman for the said event and he clearly showed the skills needed for the job. The contestants were all speaking from the Entertaining Speech manual and each had a funny story to tell. Owen started the contest with his misadventures as a naughty, high school prankster. He was quickly followed by Vivian, who looked back on her first travel abroad with her ex-pat boss. This was the first of three roles for Vivian that night, as she was also the evaluator of Ai's speech as well as the Ah-counter.

TME EdVil also had multiple roles by being a contestant at the speech contest as well. He proudly displayed his dancing prowess on the stage and his funny antics gained him a ticket to the Area Contest. President Mely also was in a funny mode when she relived the many facets in her long and colorful lovelife.

Yours truly was selected as the General Evaluator and it has been a while since I took on this role for the club. As for the recruitment campaign contest, looks like Bong and his Babes are taking the lead with 35 points. Three guests from Rotaract District 3780 were there to support Bong and his Babes for the campaign.