Report by: KEVIN WALSH
One of the best and happiest things is about to happen: in the Fermoy Youth Centre on Tuesday evening next, September 5th, at 8.15 pm, Fermoy Toastmasters launch their NEW SEASON that will go right the way through with fortnightly meetings every second Tuesday to May of next year. We are ready to embark on another great and wonderful journey through warm and convivial togetherness, the advancement of friendship, exciting personal discoveries and a cheerful optimistic spirit charting a fun-filled and delightful course through the months ahead. Every meeting sends you home feeling so good inside for having been there and taken part – that is the magic of it. For there is no better source of good feeling than friends pursuing their shared goals in a warm and genial atmosphere. Our President, Kevin O’Neil, and all of our members and friends, cordially invites you to join with us to enjoy and to contribute to the making of many more memorably entertaining and pleasant meetings in the months ahead.
We in Toastmasters are a close but ever openly and warmly welcoming circle of friends and extended family united in warm sentiment and good feeling who rejoice together in all moments of each other’s gladness. We all extend renewed congratulations to our longest serving member not alone here in Fermoy but in Ireland and Britain, John Quirke, who together with his dear wife Josephine celebrated the Golden Jubilee of their marriage this summer and very warmest good wishes for many more years of health, happiness and peace together.
If there is joy, of course there is sadness too as we all come together in mutual support and comfort. We send our heartfelt sympathies and condolences to Mary Whelan on the passing away from this life of her dear mother-in-law Eileen and also to Tim Fitzgerald on the death of his father-in-law, Ned Barry, which occurred during this past summer. All of our activities revolve essentially around the spoken word in its preparation, its delivery and to its attentive listening. The poet Emily Dickinson once wrote, “A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day”. It is rather like that with those whom we love who are no longer with us; they may have passed from the reach of our senses, but not our hearts. Lives lived in this world have not ended, but changed. All that is noble and good in every human being is preserved and glorified to become part of that higher expression of life where we will all gather again beyond all cares and sufferings, in a place of everlasting light and peace. Nothing can take away the sadness of loss for how can we ever stop missing those whom we loved? But this awareness of being on a spiritual journey offers so much encouragement and hope knowing that the sadness now will be part of the joy later on the morning side of the hill.
Now as the last of the harvest is gathered in, we come to our time of assembling together in warm feeling and joyful hearts, delighted and happy once again to be in each other’s company. Soon the gavel will sound again and the meeting is called to order, its familiar traditions and procedures marking off a special interlude of some two hours complete with a chatty quarter-hour tea break when we can all draw away from everyday happenings to share, enjoy and be inspired by the enthusiasm, talent and creative energy that everyone puts into making our meetings so happily bright and successful. Three or four short prepared talks, many spontaneous contributions in the impromptu topics sessions, the enrichment that comes from positive feedback makes for something so very invigorating and refreshing. We are here because we love being here in a shared generosity of spirit. In giving of the very best of ourselves we receive the very most in pleasure, satisfaction, personal fulfilment and a greater happiness that illuminates and enhances every corner of our lives whether at work, home and play.
It is all about the thrill of giving it a go on the way to achieving personal growth and a better and more rewarding life. It is by doing that everyone succeeds. The effort is its own success. The challenge lies in not taking oneself too seriously and with a sense of fun and adventure, there is this endless sense of astonishment and brilliant surprise at just how kind, open-hearted, entertaining and deeply interesting our fellow members and friends are which in turn enables each and every one of us to find the true harvest of richness in ourselves. The more we share the more we receive. It is a place where the individual is celebrated in everything that they are and can be. But no individual is ever alone. There is constant interaction, exchange of ideas, the stimulus of contact and the opening out of new horizons in friendship and mutual support. In Toastmasters we all find our own unique and original voice together with a beautiful sense of belong in a circle of friends. It is a forum where everyone can be themselves and offer something to the rest of us that nobody else ever could for everyone is unique and original. Just to think that there is no one in the world the same as you and never will be again gives our lives such dignity and meaning.
The art of communication is so wonderful because it comes from the heart. In a very short time guided by the simple step-by-step manual every member receives it is astonishing the progress that everyone makes with a little effort, gaining insights and support from fellow members, each and every one of us learning for ourselves and being so happy in it. I have been in this organisation for quite a few years now. Yet every meeting is something so entirely new and fresh and completely original. Everyone is just so nice, so welcoming and full of kindness and goodwill, so that it is impossible to stay away. Coming to the meetings as a guest, please relax and be at your ease. You will not be asked to speak – unless the spirit moves you!
This cherished club has been flourishing in the heart of our town and wider community for close on fifty years now. It is a vibrant local treasure: one of the oldest clubs in the country, yet full of ever youthful energy and zest. We are dedicated to building each other up and to having fun together while making a better and more rewarding life. It is stimulating to the mind, opens out new frontiers of possibility and brings an enhanced sense of well-being that puts a new spring in your step. Now we set out together on our exciting and lovely journey once more with lightness of heart, with warm smiles and good wishes, with the kindest of thoughts and brightest hopes, knowing that we are following in a noble and great tradition that has a simple and beautiful elegance of style and purpose and accomplishment about it that brings out the very finest in us all and makes our lives so much healthier, better and more uplifting and fulfilling in every way. And the more who share this with us, the greater the blessings and the benefits for all.
We hope you will come to our meetings beginning next Tuesday, September 5th at 8.15 in the Fermoy Youth Centre, and every other alternate Tuesday from then until next May and discover what a glorious feeling it is be part of Fermoy Toastmasters. For further information, please contact Mary Whelan at 087 7971006 or Kevin Walsh at 058 60100 or log on to our mobile-friendly website toastmastersfermoy.com or find us on Twitter @ FermoyT.