Heritage – Meeting of March 25, 2017
Our theme for the day was “Heritage.” Ken was this morning’s Toastmaster. It was Ken’s first time being Toastmaster and he did a wonderful job! There were 15 members present and one guest at this morning’s meeting.
Cara was our first speaker of the day. Cara gave her sixth speech titled, “My New Best Friend” from the Competent Communicator manual. She shared with us how she recently purchased Amazon’s voice activated assistant, Alexa. Cara had some great points about how Alexia was very helpful with her day-to-day activates. Some examples include the ability to set timers while cooking, adding items to her shopping list, and the overall ease of interacting with Alexia for other tasks. Over all, Cara enjoys this new technology and how it makes her life easier.
Julie was our second speaker. Julie gave her fifth speech titled “CrossFit: Officially a Way of Life” from the Competent Communicator manual. Julie tried a variety of different fitness routines throughout college including LA Fitness and the college gym. She told us about her first experience at the CrossFit gym. Her first day consisted of sprinting, flipping tires, swinging sledgehammers, doing pushups, and hang power lifts! Julie has been doing CrossFit for two and half years and absolutely loves it. She compared it Toastmasters, but for the mind, since both have a challenging and supportive environment.
Neva was the third speaker of the day. Neva gave her seventh speech titled “The Decades Long Battle Over Funding for Basic Education” from the Competent Communicator manual. The main objective of this speech is to “research your topic.” Neva knocked this speech out of the park! She gave us detailed facts and stats of Washington state’s education program. It turns out Washington is ranked 20% below the national average for state education funding. Neva also described how homeowners are responsible to fill the funding gap.
Aleli was our final speaker of the day. Aleli gave her third speech titled “The Worker” from the Story Telling Manual. Aleli shared with us some very descriptive stories from her small business owner friends. The one story that has stuck with Aleli over the years is the one of her friend who was a Physician’s Assistant at the state jail. The story comprised of a mentally unstable inmate who swallowed razor blades. She found through listening to her friend’s stories that business owners typically aren’t humorous but instead have painful life stories.
Preston led our table topics session and our guest of the day, En Jean was voted best “table topic participant.”
Our evaluators were Kiki, Andrew, Yanyan, and Bill. Tom served as our general evaluator. Andrew was voted as “best evaluator.”
Our next meeting is scheduled for 4/8.
