It was a case of sharing the love at the St. Valentine’s Night meeting of Fermoy Toastmasters in the genial and ever welcoming riverside Youth Centre. Our President Eilish Ui Bhriain shared with all of us the pleasures of delightful chocolates that are so traditional on this occasion when romance and love are celebrated and then having called the meeting to order announced that there was no better place than to be than here with such special and wonderful friends. She praised the club as a forum where speaking from the heart is valued and appreciated. For we come together for our mutual enjoyment and ever greater personal growth that leads to a happier, healthier and better life. Friends together can accomplish anything.

      At every meeting John Sherlock most kindly brings a packet of mints for Kevin Walsh to sooth and ease his often delicate throat. On this night John sadly could not be with us because of a family bereavement, but in an act of the most touching thoughtfulness and kindness he still arranged for Kevin to have these mints. Now that is an example of the very greatest and most heart-warming goodness in action. We look forward to seeing John again very soon while our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.

      The club represents a huge reservoir of talent, experience, wisdom and skill that can be most liberally and advantageously drawn upon.  At very short notice, John Kelly assumed the control of the meeting as Toastmaster or chairman of the proceedings for the next two hours, a task that he carried through with all of his inimitable charm, grace and affability. A meeting that is chaired well goes well and brings out the very finest in everyone as John so brilliantly succeeded in doing that evening. Careful and precise timekeeping was also observed throughout by Fanahan Colbert, keeping everything on track and ensuring everyone gets their fair chance to share and contribute.

      Michelle O’Brien came to the lectern as Topicsmaster and brought to us a lovely selection of thoughtful themes and engaging subjects that got everyone actively involved and speaking off-the-cuff spontaneously, naturally and readily as we all discover within ourselves a delightful richness of ideas, feelings and insights that is ever so invigorating and uplifting. There is such an immediacy and freshness about it all.  Indeed what defines this organisation and marks its essential uniqueness is the level of direct involvement and participation offering challenge but also bringing lasting pleasure and satisfaction. This is the moment when those members not on the prearranged programme get their chance to take part and to be heard.

      We were overjoyed and most impressed by the debut response of Nina Keating who gave a beautiful and most eloquent response to a topic on whether a good career path is better than having someone to hold. While acknowledging the importance of success and fulfilment at work she upheld the lasting happiness and blessing that comes from human closeness and warmth and also through other ways such as making room in one’s heart for an animal. She reminded us that when Dog is turned round it spells God.  It was such a lovely and delightful contribution for which Nina won the ribbon for Best Topic of the evening.

     Our four set speakers turned in truly star performances.  The wonderful Mairead Barry delivered a gentle and evocative reading of a traditional lullaby full of tenderness and deep feeling set in a time of historic castles and great events that contrasted so poignantly to the gently sleeping child in the cradle where all our stories begin, singing the refrain with a restful and charming lilt that struck a delightful chord with all her listeners.  No one can do it quite like dearest Mairead who, as her evaluator Denis O’Brien later pointed out, can take something old and breathe new life into it and carry us to places of the heart where there is sunlight and peace.

     Then our Meeting Organiser and Educational Vice-President, Kevin O’Neill, took us on a journey of discovery to the essence of Toastmasters. He recalled going to a meeting of another club some years ago and left at the interval. The opportunity had not yet found its moment. This theme was taken up later by his evaluator Frank O’Driscoll who also recalled his similar departure from a meeting some years earlier when the time had not been ripe for him. Later he came back to join and become such a brilliant Toastmaster who is cherished and admired by us all. Kevin told us of his desire to improve his powers of expression, to reach out in better and more effective ways and to give presentations that would carry an audience.  In every way he has found in Fermoy Toastmasters all that he was looking for and more as in an astonishingly brief time since joining he has advanced so far and achieved so much.

    Jerry Hennessy made a highly informative presentation on something that affects all our lives: laundry. Relaxed and well-researched, Jerry charted the history of a hundred years of washing from the days of hard scrubbing and the rainwater barrel through to the advent of the twin-tub washing machine followed by the automatics and the tumble dryers of today that replaced drudgery with convenience. He used excellent illustrations on the other side of the meeting programmes with the largest showing a line of newly washed clothes fluttering in the wind. This was a speech among the very finest for which he was warmly complimented by Kevin Walsh.

      Finally, in another late change to the programme, John Quirke gave us a colourful and entertaining recitation on the legend of Fr. Reilly’s Horse that had been the mount of the fallen rebel Andy Regan, in verses of vivid descriptive power evoking larger-than-life images of heroic races and the flash of the riders’ whips told with such immense confidence and extraordinary memory scarcely having to refer to his text, for which he was so amply praised by his evaluator Eilish Ui Bhriain.

     Then came the final summing up by Seoirse Neilan who spoke of how he has always found this club a most relaxed and very jolly place, with a congenial and pleasant ambience that never fails to motivate and to lead the way to ever greater enjoyment. We hope you will join us on that journey of fun, friendship and fulfilment at our next meeting at 8.15 pm on this coming Tuesday, February 28^th, in the Fermoy Youth Club.    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.