Our President Eilish Ui Bhriain and the membership of Fermoy Toastmasters extend warm greetings and very best wishes to all for a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful New Year. The Club enjoyed a memorably pleasant evening at the Annual Tall Tales Contest and Christmas Party on December 20th last with our President emerging as a well-deserved winner. At all times of the year everyone is a winner in Toastmasters. We look forward to extending a very warm and universal welcome to our first meeting of 2017 which will be held on Tuesday next, January 17th, at 8.15 pm in the Fermoy Youth Centre. We embark on this coming season that will bring us from the depths of winter to the bright fresh green days of Maytime. Now when the glow of Christmas lights have faded away, these early months of the year can seem grey and bleak. But there are so many wonderful and hugely enjoyable activities out there open to all of us to join and take part in. And from personal experience I can assure you there is none better, more rewarding, enjoyable and fulfilling than taking part in Toastmasters.
A New Year opens the door to New Beginnings. That is why this is the time for making and carrying through New Year’s resolutions. To begin any new challenge or adventure always requires the saying of a quiet but emphatic Yes to yourself. In Toastmasters we extend an open invitation to everyone to say a great resounding YES to such new beginnings, to setting out to hugely stimulating and entertaining meetings, to spending time with some of the very nicest people and best friends you could ever meet anywhere, to exploring your talents and discovering the joy and fulfilment that comes with using the mind in new, exciting and creative ways. To experience the rewards and the pleasures of a greater proficiency in the arts of expression, to finding the satisfaction that comes from a deeper and more engaging form of listening, the sparkle of good company, the cheer of humour, the stimulus of learning by taking part is a passport to enjoyment, pleasure and happiness. This is such great fun and one of the very best and most life-enhancing things that anyone could ever hope to be a part of for by being impressed and uplifted by what other people can do there is no greater surprise than the discovery of what we can all do and achieve for ourselves.
And none of us can tell what we can do until we give it a go. Everything truly good and worthwhile in life requires a little effort, a setting aside of time, a generous giving of your energies and thought to gather a harvest of joy. You could not ask for a more brilliant exercise of the mind. In Toastmasters our meeting room is our stage and our words are our own. No one hands us a script, the richness and diversity of every meeting is drawn from the ideas, the fresh thinking, the speeches and presentations whether prepared or delivered off the cuff in the topics session as we come together for two hours every two weeks to give and to share of ourselves in a great outpouring of mutual generosity of spirit. Just as in the garden, you get back what you put in. Sharing in this creative energy is wonderfully uplifting and refreshing. Success builds on success and there is no limit to the vistas of possibility and potential that await us. The more you give the more you receive for the wellsprings of inspiration when stirred always bring up new ideas and creative vigour within the genial framework of a wonderful circle of friends. In our journey of personal growth no one is alone but we are together building ourselves up in shared encouragement, support and goodwill that makes us all so much stronger, better, happier people able to offer so much more to the wider world of family, work and community.
Whenever we reach beyond the boundaries of what is readily familiar there is such an exciting sense of achievement and the thrill of having done it and succeeded in the pursuit of our personal goals. The beautiful well-balanced concept that shapes every Toastmasters meeting not only in Fermoy but right around the world is one which gives everyone a voice, offers an opportunity to every member and participant to come on board and make their contribution. It is the careful control of time that reveals the essence of the noble craft. There is no place here for long-winded verbosity. On the contrary we emphasise brevity and there is such wisdom in that. The lighter and more economical the style, the more the full and unfettered truth is revealed. Most meetings will have three of four set speeches each not more than five to seven minutes’ duration. It is amazing how much can be said then with clarity, simplicity and directness when all that is superfluous is cut away leaving the shining diamonds of insight and understanding and inspiration to emerge to please, uplift and delight the listeners.
Every speaker has the benefit of an evaluator who praises their achievements and points the way to some suggested place of even further improvement for there is no ceiling to the standards of excellence that everyone can attain as each may choose to define it. For those outside the set programme there is the bracing opportunity provided by the impromptu topics session which involves quick thinking and brief contributions on a theme about which no prior notification is given (guests are never asked to speak on these of course, although are happily free to do so at the appropriate time if they wish). As ideas and energy are mobilised it is a pure unalloyed joy to see and hear so many getting involved and having their say, reaching into themselves to share so readily their own unique vision of reality. Participation is the key to achievement. To stand up, to take part, to say your piece, to be listened to and have the pleasure of listening to others, sharing time, creativity, talents and ideas so that everyone goes away feeling happier, illuminated and fulfilled makes life so much more pleasant, zestful and rewarding. That is the ideal which makes this organisation the exciting and wonderful place that it is.
We hope you will come along to our first meeting of the New Year on Tuesday next, January 17th, at 8.15 pm in the Fermoy Youth Centre. For further information, please contact Eilish Ui Bhriain at 087 1235203 or Kevin Walsh at 058 60100 or log on to our mobile-friendly websitetoastmastersfermoy.com or find us on Twitter @ FermoyT.