On the evening of Tuesday, March 28th, the members of Fermoy Toastmasters gathered amid warm greetings and expressions of mutual good wishes that is the hallmark of our club as a place of happiness and friendship. As can sometimes happen, some of our most faithful members were unable to join us due to various circumstances beyond their control, yet we assembled in good numbers and with eager cheerfulness and cordial sentiment ensured a memorably a memorably pleasant and genial gathering. Club President Eilish Ui Bhriain expressed congratulations to Kevin Walsh on his recent win in the Area Speech Contest in Mallow with his speech evoking a happy Sixties childhood and on behalf of all expressed good wishes to him in the Divisional Contest in Limerick.
Chairing a meeting is an art that requires precision and affability. At very short notice one of our most popular and distinguished members, John Kelly, seamlessly took on that role, radiating warmth, charm and a winning relaxed style that made for a truly great evening. Mary Whelan then came to the lectern offering her special take on the spontaneity and liveliness of topics where members are asked to speak off the cuff on a theme about which they have received no prior notice. With polished ease and grace, Mary offered us one gentle challenge after another and quickly got everyone involved and actively participating, sharing their ideas and experiences, offering their own unique and enriching insights, in a process of mutual interaction that soon filled the room with beautiful creative energy and enlivening eagerness.
Memories of childhood snowfalls, whether the recent St. Patrick’s Day festivities expressed the diversity and variety of Irish society and culture today; apart from Cork, what was your favourite county in Ireland; the old courtesy of opening doors for ladies and the merits of couples sharing the costs of their first date, not to mention the inevitable Donald Trump and his antipathy to the American media. With one topics session before the mid-point tea break and the second afterwards, this was a hugely enjoyable and masterful display of all that is best and most wonderful about Toastmasters.
Michael Sheehan was her first set speaker of the night, an exceptional Toastmaster and a very good friend. There is a saying that ‘the willing helper does not wait to be called’, and Michael most generously gave me a lift when otherwise I would have been precluded from attending. And that was not all he brought to our meeting but also a showcase interpretive reading presentation whereby the member is asked to take a work of poetry or prose from a famous writer of past or present and to make it come alive for the listeners. Seated beside the lectern Michael gave a notably exuberant and colourful reading of Percy French’s poem Carmody’s Mare. Beginning with a brief introduction on the life of this great Irish writer and composer of popular ballads, with fluid gesture and dynamic vocal variety the scene of a late Victorian race meeting was vividly recreated to the imagination, the initial dismay as the horse seemed to falter at the outset yielding to palpable excitement as the winning post was triumphantly passed, with Evaluator John Quirke recording the listening pleasure of us all.
Our next speaker was John Sherlock who told us of the design and variety of the tower cranes that dominated our urban skylines during the boom years, almost entirely disappearing when the recession hit to their more recent emphatic return, a true economic weather vane. These huge machines with their girders and gantries are never ungainly but are possessed of an ineffable majesty of scale and design as they turn and swing to and fro against the sky, each marking a great building project and powerfully symbolic of optimism and hope. All of this and more John so lucidly illustrated with diagrams and representations so skilfully drawn by him on the flip-chart, for which he received the warm and richly-merited plaudits of Evaluator Mairead Barry.
Clare Guy gave us a well-crafted and excellent speech on the way too many scientists have abandoned the study of the natural world in favour of an excessive over-use of computers and internet, no longer examining at first hand the flowers that grow and smelling the roses, the frogs that leap in tranquil ponds, the dolphins that swim so gracefully around our coasts and estuaries. With impeccable research and illuminated by quotations going right back to the brilliant early pioneers of modern natural sciences like Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace, delivered with confidence and poise, on a subject about which she cares deeply as being herself an accomplished botanist, this was a very fine speech indeed. The manual stipulated the speaker should strive to do without notes; Clare did not need any and stood apart from the lectern establishing a close rapport with the audience and told us in clear and simple terms how if you love nature, then you must seek out the waters and the wild. A positive and thoughtful evaluation was given by Kevin Walsh.
Our fourth and final speaker was Kevin O’Neil who gave us a fascinating talk on the life and times of legendary carmaker Henry Ford, whose ancestors migrated from Somerset, England to West Cork and eventually on to the United States where he spearheaded a revolutionary transformation of assembly line manufacture, launching in 1908 the classic Model T, which to this day still holds the record as the world’s highest selling car. ‘You can have it in any colour as long as it’s black’, he famously remarked because black paint dried quickest enabling new cars to be moved swiftly off the production line. Ford tripled his workers’ pay from the standard industrial wage of the time to some five dollars an hour, explaining that he wanted his employees to buy his cars. The early price tag was some 800 dollars, later falling to a mere 300. Using illustrations of Ford and his automobiles, this very fine speech by Kevin was a handshake across time to a brilliant industrialist who not only put America but the whole world on wheels. Michelle O’Brien well evaluated this speech for its range and accomplishment, while Eilish Ui Bhriain as General Evaluator spoke of the value and uniqueness of every contribution that made for such a lovely and uplifting meeting.
A warm handshake into a better and more enjoyable life awaits you at our next meeting on this coming Tuesday, April 11th, at 8.15 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 website toastmastersfermoy.com or find us on Twitter @ FermoyT.