Lachlan Auer has been awarded the prestigious Silver Thistle Award at Knox Grammar School for public speaking. This is the highest school colour award that a Knox student can achieve. It generally goes to students in Years 11 or 12 who demonstrate sustained excellence and uphold the traditions of the School. The full thistle is in silver thread with the wording, also in silver, of the name of the activity (public speaking) and the year of award. 

Awards are assessed by the Colours Committee chaired by Head of the Knox Sport Academy (KSA) who oversees, vets and approves the awarding of all School Colours. Conditions of eligibility differ slightly for each activity and all awards are subject to considerations of dedication and appropriate conduct.

Mary McCafferty, Lachlan's mother said "It is a very high honour and I am very proud of Lachlan’s achievement... thanks to Turramurra Toastmasters for giving Lachlan the opportunity to participate in public speaking and achieve his Silver Thistle Award."

Congratulations, Lachlan, from all of us at Turramurra Toastmasters, a well deserved award!

Read more about Lachlan and other Knox lads here, Read about our Youth Leadership for Knox here.

Lachlan Auer's Silver Thistle Award.

And now for some light-hearted relief...
One of our Toastmasters shares a story of being a Toastmaster Parent. Read on.

Woohoo! District 70 is a Distinguished District!
Ian Chick, Immediate Past District Governor, announced tonight that District 70 has achieved Distinguish District status for 2009-2010. That's the third year in a row that D70 has reached this level. Well done to all NSW & ACT Toastmasters!

Turramurra Toastmasters Boasts TWO Area Governors!
Turramurra Toastmasters had two members inducted as Area Governors last Saturday (26th June) at the District 70 Changeover Dinner. Our out going Club President Theresa Han is now the Area 34 Governor which takes in clubs in and around Chatswood. Iain Gorry, our out going Sergeant At Arms is Area 10 Governor which serves North Sydney clubs.

From left to right: Philip Bendeich 2010/11 District Governor, Laurel Holterman our new Hawkesbury Division Governor, and Area Governors Cheryl Brown A8, Iain Gorry A10 being tickled by Cheryl, John Inglis A22, Christine Deutsch A47 and Theresa Han A34. Absent was our own Area Governor Kathleen O'Rourke for Area 16 and John Woolston A25

10 Presentation Tips
Written in plain English for speakers of all grades: great as a reminder for seasoned speakers or as a pep-talk and for sound advice for new speakers. Read more.

Toastmasters Youth Leadership at Knox Grammar.
Turramurra Toastmasters Youth Leadership course at Knox Grammar gets results. Read Toni's first term report and find out how far Lachlan went with his winning speech. Read even more about the course here.

Evaluation Podcast
Brush up on your evaluation technique with this 18minute discussion from the Toastmasters International website. Or download it from here and play it on your personal music player (MP3 player, iPod, iRiver etc)



District Conference visited by Turramurra Toasties!
Theresa & Iain visited the D70 Annual District Conference over the weekend of 21-23 May. There were many highlights... not just one or two! Meeting International Speech winners, Darren LaCroix (2001) and our own Mark Hunter who is the current world Champion was quite a thrill and so educational.
Lachlan from Knox Grammar represented Turramurra Toastmasters youth leadership showcase with 5 other students from around the state. If you would like "perspective" on tomorrow's leaders then this was where you'd see it in spades. It was very humbling to see such wonderful presentations by people so... young!

The new District 70's new officer lineup is:

• District Governor - Philip Bendeich
• Lt. Gov. Ed. & Training - Kaylene Ledgar
• Lt. Gov. Marketing - Jan Vecchio
• Central Division Gov. - David Fisher
• Eastern Division Gov. - Elaine McLoon
• Hawkesbury Division Gov. - Laurel Holterman
• Monaro Division Gov. - Elizabeth Symmons
• Northern Division Gov. - Bob Kirchner
• Phillip Division Gov. - Aaron Gibson
• Southern Division Gov. - Therese Cook
• Western Division Gov. - Ron Marriott

For more information about the winners of the D70 International Speech and Evaluation Contest visit this D70 page.

New Club Officers Voted in!
It's that time of the year again when we vote members into club officer roles. The following members were voted in the May 5th special meeting.

President	Toni Hurley ATMB
VP Education	Iain E C Gorry CC
VP Membership	Narelle Sohier
VP Public Relations	Mavis McGregor CC
Secretary	Ian G Jane ACS
Treasurer	Joe Felizzi
Sergeant at Arms	Luke A Neander

The new roles take effect from July 1st 2010. TI will mail Officer Kits which contain a handbook for each role however officers are encouraged to spend time with past officers to come up to date quickly.
Congratulations and a huge thank you from our Turramurra Toastmasters members for taking on these positions.

We met the International President
On Monday 26th April, Theresa and Iain attended a special event held at Bankstown Sports Club to meet the International President of Toastmasters, Gary Schmidt. He managed to jump over the elephant traps set for him with answers to questions such as: why the International Speech Contests were only in English, what is the position of TI regarding parity between North America and everyone else, when was TI going to get is act together with regards to on-line administrative tasks (July 1 2010) and the structure of the leadership track in the future (new manual).
If club members would like to know more then please approach Iain or Theresa.

Click for a larger picture. From left to right: John Inglis (Area 16 Governor) Jo Spiegelhauer (Hornsby VPE) Leanne (Berowra VPM), Gary Schmidt (International President), Theresa Han(Turramurra President), Kathleen O'Rourke (Hornsby VPM), Iain (Turramurra Janitor).

Change over Dinner
Our change-over dinner will be on Wednesday Night June 30th, 6:30 for 7pm kick off. This is the dinner when the retiring club officers "hand-over" their roles to the incoming team. It's also a night when we hand out awards to our members for everything from Toastmaster of the Year to something humorous like Most Consistent Bad Speller. Please look out for your invitation closer to the date.

25th Anniversary
Was a great success! Read more soon.

Hawkesbury Division Speech Contest
Our Division's International Speech & Evaluation Contest was held on the 20th March 2010 at Asquith Leagues Club. Iain attended the night as was mightily impressed by the level of presentation of both the evening (organised by Thornleigh Vital) and by the excellent level of speeches and evaluations. Unfortunately Area 12 didn't succeed despite both Phil Keeling (eval-Bon Appetit) and Andrew Host (Speech-Hornsby) giving great performances. Iain was invited to be toastmaster for the Evaluation contest. See flyer for details.

Data Projector Handouts.
Due to an unexpected demand and the high "keep-ability" of the handouts from Iain's educational on Data Projectors we are publishing this link for those who missed out. Download it here.

The Awesome Power of Voice special presentation.
Wednesday 17th March 2010 7:15pm
What an exciting meeting we had with Mariette Rups-Donnely from Presentation Powerhouse who gave us a presentation on the power of voice and its importance in speeches.

What's more we had a bumper turn-out causing mayhem as extra chairs and tables were brought in. Many thanks to Mariette for her time and knowledge and thank you too to so many guests from other clubs. Read more about it and see photos






Area Speech Contest Friday March 12th
Our winners of Wednesday's contest, Theresa and Iain,  presented at the Area 16 contest on Friday 12th March at Elouera Toastmasters.Toni wrote;

Our Turramurra speakers acquitted themselves with Distinction. Congratulations Theresa and Iain G. for a job well done! Both were certainly the best looking, best dressed people on the night!  Winners were Phil Keeling (Bon Appetit for Evaluation) and Andrew Host (Hornsby) he spoke about organ transplants and the death of his first wife (whose organs were given to a number of people.) Powerful personal story – and justly deserved first place. All speeches were high quality – one of the best contests I’ve been to in a while.

Thank you to the Turramurra members who supported our speakers – Ian Jane (judge) Pam (asked at last minute to be Evaluation Contest Toastmaster!) Toni (asked at last minute to be International Speech Contest Toastmaster!) and Barry.

Club Speech Contest held Wednesday 3rd March!
Our club International Speech and Evaluation Contest was simply fantastic with so many entrants. Please visit the contest page for news and photos.

Hawkesbury Division website goes live!
Our division now has it's own website. Visit to learn all things "divisional". It has links to the HawkEye newsletter and popular resources. Coming soon will be division history and hall of fame. If you have historical material then please pay this site a visit to learn how you can contribute.