Fermoy Toastmasters cordially and joyfully invites all of our members and friends to come together to enjoy and share in all the pleasure of our very first meeting of our new season beginning on Tuesday next, September 13th, at the riverside Fermoy Youth Centre at 8.15 pm.
We trust that everyone has enjoyed the summer and had a most pleasant and refreshing time. Now summer shades gently and placidly towards autumn and the evening light fades earlier. The grain fields that have resounded to the hum and whine of combine harvesters gathering in the bounty of the soil surrounded by brilliant clouds of swirling dust are now quiet, some studded yet with huge rolled bales awaiting collection lending a certain monumental air to the scene while others are bare of all except a carpet of stubble and a lingering sense of satisfied tranquillity. In a vision of loveliness and grace the Rose of Tralee has been selected from Chicago and the swallows are stretching their wings for their long return flight to Africa. Branches droop under the weight of apples glistening in autumn sunshine and the sharp briars offer the gift of sweet blackberries. It is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and the moon rises like a great bronzed orange.
It is the time for coming inside and gather together in the harvest of renewal and personal growth. September heralds the new beginning of the journey of Toastmasters, to delight in the company and good cheer of dear friends full of the stories of summertime, to greet new people who have come to share in the richness and pleasure that participation in our club has to offer, to engage with each other and to share our resources of enthusiasm, creative energy and the stimulus of new ideas in the broad warm smile of achievement, success and simply having fun together. We do not subscribe to the current emphasis on corporate culture with its obsession for targets and deadlines that adds further stress to people’s lives, but rather our focus is on people, on each other, on making life better for all of us through enjoyment and good fellowship and finding that in our shared journey we reach so much higher and travel so much further at a rate of progress that is as relaxed as it is rewarding.
There is nothing else in the world quite like it, where success is gained only by everyone being truly and simply themselves and finding such a great richness in that great act of discovery of ourselves and others. It is an invitation to all of us to share our unique insights and experiences with a ready generosity of spirit, to acquire proficiency through friendship and mutual encouragement in those sweet arts of adroit expression and clarity of thought that utilise the creative energies of the individual to the good of us all. It is an open invitation to learn from our fellow club members, to expand our personal horizons, each making their own unique contribution and in turn learning and receiving so much wisdom, insight and bracing enjoyment from each other that makes every meeting such a joyful and wonderful interlude. The most beautiful sounds that define every Toastmasters meeting are the buzz of chatter before and after the proceedings and during the halfway point tea break, of words spoken with the natural elegance of sincerity and drawn from the stuff of real life and given with openness and eager goodwill, the rounds of appreciative applause that greet every contribution and the peals of warm laughter of friends having fun and happy together.
Meetings last no more than two hours and everyone gets their chance to take part and have their say in one way or another. Indeed that is the whole essence of what Toastmasters is all about: the thrill of participation and the joy of taking part. Pope Francis spoke in Poland at the World Youth Congress in July of our contemporary couch potato culture that makes for passivity and apathy. In Toastmasters you could not find a more salutary tonic for such a life-sapping indifference. For by joining in and making yourself heard; by listening to what other people have to say you are drawn along into this bright and sparkling stream of originality surprising yourself by the richness and variety of ideas and imagination that suddenly form and crystallise so quickly in your mind so that in next to no time you feel so engagingly stimulated and involved in a keen and zestful spirit that is most uplifting and makes you feel most fully and exuberantly alive.
We do not depend on the works of others but rather use our own words and gestures to bring forth the fruits of our own minds and hearts. We celebrate the beauty of language and find out each for ourselves just how much you can say and give and share to others in brevity, with eagerness and the pleasure of doing something that is uniquely and especially yours in the company of some of the nicest people you will meet anywhere.
For we all come together to build each other up, to advance in personal growth and to make our lives more fulfilling and rewarding by everyone making their own contribution that widens vision and quickens the imagination that brings such a special and precious sense of fulfilment. The door of our cheerful and brightly lit meeting room stands open. Next Tuesday our new President Eilish Ui Bhriain is about to sound the gavel opening not just that first meeting but raising the curtain on a bright and promising season stretching before us like a river of joy. We do not embark on our journey in any superficial sense for who in this world has not known the pathos of life, its difficulties and its times of sadness. All the more reason then that it is such a pure delight to gather again in the warm glow of mutual goodwill and camaraderie and to celebrate life and to affirm most joyfully that all that is best and most beautiful about being human.
Every meeting is something entirely new, different, revitalising and original, something unique and special, a never-to-be repeated moment at which everyone plays their part and which always gives to everyone something to take away and to reflect upon or maybe just to make them smile genially to themselves long afterwards in the quiet moment of another day. We open our hearts in warm and most cordial welcome to all guests who would like to join with the assurance that they will not be asked to speak but may do so at the appropriate moment if they would like to do so, certain that their presence brings a most special enhancement and grace to all our meetings. In Toastmasters there is a place for everyone.
We all hope that you will come and share in the joy, cheer and adventure of our first meeting of the new season at the Fermoy Youth Centre on Tuesday evening next, September 13th, 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.com or find us on Twitter @ FermoyT.