Report by: KEVIN WALSH
On Tuesday, April 11th, Fermoy Toastmasters gathered in a festive pre-Easter mood at the riverside Youth Centre for a memorably enjoyable and entertaining meeting, everyone joyfully looking forward to an evening of good cheer, to the warming of hearts and the tending the gardens of the mind with the gladness of friends happy to be once more in each other’s company. Wearing the chain of office bearing the names of her illustrious predecessors and richly symbolising the proud traditions of this club, President Eilish Ui Bhriain extended a joyful welcome and expressed her pleasure at seeing such a large attendance on a bright and clear spring evening. She also paid generous compliments to Kevin Walsh for his attaining Third Place in the Divisional Speech Contest in Limerick the preceding Saturday and also to Helsa Giles of Mallow Club on her receiving the Toastmaster Of The Year Award at the same occasion for her outstanding contribution to the advancement of our organisation.
Proceedings were then guided along so skilfully and adroitly by Michael Sheehan as Toastmaster or chairman of the evening, a role to which he always brings his unique and very special kind of charm and wit. Every meeting is a time of invigorating new beginnings and this was celebrated in a very special way as husband and wife Conor and Marie MacAree took on the functions of Topicsmaster and Timekeeper respectively in which they both turned in very fine and outstanding performances.
With warmth and clear enjoyment, Conor set before us an excellent and well-chosen selection of themes that evoked a keen and bracing response in both topics sessions, the first held immediately prior to the set speeches and the second commencing just after the tea break, evoking very warm and lively responses as everyone became actively involved and fully participating, with issues ranging from imagining a different national leader for the country after Enda Kenny’s much anticipated retirement, on ways you would like to see the country improved, whether Ireland was still living up to its tradition as an island of the welcomes, on the opposing qualities of fresh and processed foods. Then too the question of a hard Border in the coming post-Brexit era was raised, which was most astutely answered by John Quirke that whatever either the British Government in London or the EU mandarins in Brussels may desire, the geography, shrewdness and ingenuity of the people who live along that vast region will see to it that any Border controls put in place will offer little hindrance to everyday living. All the while Marie performed her vital role with admirable precision and accuracy.
The first of our three stage speeches saw Michelle O’Brien take on the challenge of using appropriate and fluid gestures to emphasise the speaker’s message. Bringing all of her very fine intellect to bear on the theme of leadership in our times, she pointed up the widespread disillusionment with political leadership almost everywhere today, emphasising the need for leaders to use emotional intelligence; that a leader must not be a boss so much as articulating a vision of hope and optimism and radiating a passionate belief in what they stand for. She identified Hilary Clinton’s electoral failure in her disconnectedness from too many ordinary Americans; or the dogmatic approach of Phil Hogan to the introduction of water charges here that sparked such enormous controversy defeating what he was trying to achieve. Michelle held out the example of the successful team work and shared vision bringing out the best in everyone which is the hallmark of the highly successful company for whom she works. Motivation is the key to success and as her evaluator John Sherlock pointed out later it helps a lot in that regard by making a good first impression with a warm friendly smile as Michelle did so well at the very outset.
Indeed the nature of friendship was to form the basis of a very pleasing light, whimsical and fantasy-filled After Dinner-type speech by our most welcome visitor from Mallow Club, Patricia O’Connell, on the lives of two imaginary but very colourful friends, the first a care home assistant who delights in making Happy Cookies that stirred the elderly residents form apathetic listlessness into such convulsive waves of laughter and exuberance that one was left wondering if this might not be a most efficacious treatment in real life. The second friend conjured from the world of make-believe was The Banker who used a heavy bag of coins to make short shrift of an attempted robbery. As was so well said later by her evaluator Denis O’Brien, Patricia’s speech was delivered in an engagingly relaxed style and was highly entertaining, serving to remind us yet again of how membership of Toastmasters allows us all to explore our creativity in in original and fun-loving ways with mutual support and goodwill that makes us truly better and happier people.
And we were all truly happier people after our third and final talk of the evening from Jerry Hennessy, telling of the long history of trifle as a very popular dessert in the country houses of the old gentry, often served to distinguished guests such as the local parson, the sherry added most copiously to the dish on top of all the port already consumed, a fact which supplied Jerry’s speech title: The Tipsy Parson. But Jerry’s interest in making trifle derives from his friendship with our cherished Aunt Mercy in Fermoy who for many years with such exquisite skill and using a traditional recipe of our late Grandmother, Pauline Sargent of Cappoquin, in which jelly is omitted completely and a remarkably delicious cocktail of jam Swiss roll, tinned fruit, syrup, custard, soft whipped cream and sherry is brought together to make a light, delicate, absolutely gorgeous and beautiful post-prandial pleasure. Following Gay Byrne’s famous catchphrase that there’s one for everyone in the audience, a large box was thrown open to reveal a whole raft of elegant dishes filled with glorious trifle for everyone’s enjoyment, making the following tea break an especially mouth-watering affair. No better person than Jerry’s evaluator Helsa Giles – herself such an accomplished gastronome – who congratulated him on this magnificent presentation made with such an immense loving effort and given to us all in such a wonderfully generous spirit, the same spirit with which dear Mercy has ever shared her mastery of this most delicious dessert creation.
Our General Evaluator Mary Whelan summed up very succinctly and cheerily what had been a most delightful and truly festive meeting celebrating all that is best in life. Only a few more meetings remain before the summer recess begins. But we can all look forward most warmly to the pleasure of our next gathering in the Fermoy Youth Centre on this coming Tuesday, April 25th, at 8.15 pm. For further information, please contact Eilish Ui Bhriain at 087 1235203 or Kevin Walsh at 058 60100 or log on to our mobile-friendly website toastmastersfermoy.comor find us on Twitter @ FermoyT.