Bill did double duty today by stepping in as President to call our meeting to order, and he was the Toastmaster of the day! Our theme was “Connecting with your audience”, and Bill gave many wonderful exemplars of how to do this during the meeting. Dave chose convey for the word of the day and it was used frequently. Vansi did a great job keeping time. Bill apologized for the meeting running late today, and conveyed chagrin at this rare event. Our first speaker was Bethlehem, giving her Pathways Icebreaker speech #1, “How I got here”. Her composure and engagement with the audience was warm and friendly. Her speech told an interesting path of country, family, education, married with children, and goal for career improvement as the purpose for attending Toastmasters. Kathy gave her Pathway #1 Icebreaker, “Food for thought”, and spoke about her passion for cooking, and the number one famous person she would have liked to invite for dinner was Julia Child. Speaker #3 was Brett; he gave his Pathways L2 Project 3, Lessons of a mentee, and shared a good way to articulate ideas clearly when you are nervous is to rehearse by speaking to an object on your desk, such as a rubber ducky. But an even more beneficial way to practice speaking would be to have a mentor you can bounce ideas off of and get feedback. We had many opportunities for audience participation when Rachel, our Table Topics Master invited members to use a pre selected word and make up an impromptu speech, then ask the next member to Top That! it was a lot of fun and had whacky stories. Jovica raised his hand and offered to give an impromptu speech about his recent trip to Serbia with his girlfriend to visit family. He spoke of delicious ways to prepare sausage and barbecue meat. Lonnie, stepped in as a guest to evaluate a speech, and he has been a member of Toastmasters at another club. Member dues will be collected during the month of September, $51 to any board member.
Professional Development Specialist Medical Surgical Nursing.
