Hello. We’ve accomplish our last meeting for July. Tom, our president, started the meeting off on time and on theme. The theme was of Meditations. A calm, relaxed, and appropriate environment emerged from the morning push to arrive. Tom customary reminded us of the mission of the Sunrise Toastmaster Club. We provide a supportive and positive learning experience, in which members develop communication and leadership skills. Tom introduced Toastmaster of the Day, Aleli. She spearheaded our meeting a week prior with emails, strongly encouraging members that had an active role to share as much as possible during the formative time for the agenda. This is the time for Toastmasters of the Days to polish the agenda for an excellent execution of the club meetings every Saturday mornings.
Aleli continued to initiate the meeting with introductions of club meeting roles, the Grammarian and Timer. The Grammarian this Saturday was Nicole S. She listened for creative uses of language, count filler phrases like “ummm” and “so,” and discuss the Word of the Day. The word was: Equanimity mental calmness in difficult situations). The Word of the Day is a Toastmaster activity to challenge members to broaden one’s daily vocabulary. Every time the word is mentioned during the meeting, we give a customary knock on the table. Members, take pause in recognizing the Word of the Day and challenge yourself to use the word in your speech or extemporaneous discuss during the next meeting!
The next role introduced is the Timer. Cathy fulfilled the Timer role this time. Her responsibility for the meeting is to express how each speaker has a set time to speak. When certain milestones are reached within speeches and short speaking opportunities, various colored sheets with become apparent. A green sheet means you are ready to finish. A yellow sheet means you are mentioning concluding thoughts. A red sheet means you have to finish.
Aleli spared no time getting to the core of our meeting by introducing the first speaker of the day, Marti. Marti spoke of her meetup, Fearless Powerful Speaking (http://www.meetup.com/Fearless-Powerful-Speaking/events/231014890/). The title of her speech was, Speaking ABCs. She was accomplishing the Competent Communicator (CC) Manual Project #05, the Body Speaks. Today she demonstrated with another member, Jung, an exercise that captured the attention of audience and was used subsequently throughout the meeting. The exercise was to express the ABCs in a confident manner. Try it, if you’re going to explain a complex topic to a small crowd of people and are anxious about how to deliver your message, disregard the content for a moment, focus on your tone and stance, and simply recite the ABCs. It makes for a calmer speaking experience when one can refine the many things that go on when publicly speaking.
As for calm speaking experiences, Preston followed Marti for the second speech of the day. Preston, a fine public speaker, spoke about the theme of the day, Meditation–What is it good for. Preston accomplished CC Manual Project #05, the Body Speaks. He demonstrated a technique of an inward, physical isolating, thought recognizing and containing, meditation. It was an excellent reminder of how many members and guests that come to Sunrise Toastmaster on a Saturday morning do so because of the very active lives we bring upon ourselves during the week. Meditating is critical to our success and health.
Speaking of something that is healthy, laughing, was the intention of the next speaker, Tina. Her speech was titled: Fact, Fiction, and Fart Jokes. She was accomplishing the Humorous Speech Manual Project #04, Keep Them Laughing. Tina started off with an animatedly delivered joke. Tina sang, explained, and conquered in her stage presence. She definitely kept them laughing.
The final speech of the day was from Vince. Vince’s speech was titled “Why Build Green.” He accomplished CC Manual Project #05. He continues to discuss where he’s coming from in his speaking abilities and continues to hone his project he wants to demonstrate in the Fall in another speaking venue.
Next on the agenda was Table Topics. Neva, becoming a prominent figure at Sunrise, lead the activity. Table Topics is an activity to extemporaneous speak, a challenge primarily for those who don’t have speaking roles. We go to Toastmasters to become better speakers. Neva presented a choice between speaking about something silly versus speaking about something serious. Kiki, Paula, Cara, and Bill had an opportunity to meet the challenge and did a wonderful job in capturing the opportunity of speaking extemporaneously.
Finally, Aleli introduced the evaluation portion of the meeting. Each Toastmaster meeting maintains this exercise. We speak to be critiqued and accept the feedback. Seattle Sunrise maintains a positive culture as the intangible value brought every Saturday morning. The evaluators will always mention praise for their speakers. Key feedback items last week were: projection, stance and gestures, vocal variance, and pace. Let’s encourage ourselves to incorporate these key points into our daily speaking.
No meeting next Saturday. Sunrise will reconvene 13 August for the Humorous Speech Contest. All members, guests, and anyone out there who wants to explore more about Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters are encouraged to attend. It is always a good laugh and a fun time. Have a good day, everyone.
