While the official theme of Saturday’s meeting was “Exaggeration,” the theme that emerged throughout the morning was “Experience.” Each of the four speakers reached into their vast array of professional experiences to inform their speeches.
In her speech “You Can Make a Difference,” Andrea Shreni used her many years of experience as a Boeing engineer as she persuaded her audience to join her in helping to motivate young, Hispanic students to prepare for college.
Reaching into his years as a stand-up comedian, Andy Koopman’s “Techniques for Improving Memorization in Public Speaking” offered several shortcuts that could help Toastmasters to ditch their notes. Andy described the “Link” method, in which the speaker transforms paragraphs of text into interconnected mental graphics, and the “Memory Palace,” where the rooms of a house hold each of the speech’s paragraphs.
For Shane Baguyo, it was the experience of working in highly diverse public school settings that recently gave him the wisdom to leave his new job in an elite private school and return to his pedagogical roots. His speech offered several anecdotes from his private school that directly led him to that decision.
And in a follow-up to her previous “Down with Shame” speech, Marti Macewan reached into her years of sessions as a therapist to offer “Up with Empowerment,” a powerful presentation of how to achieve personal growth.
President Shen Yang presented the Best Table Topics Award to the meeting’s lone guest (whose picture I was able to capture, but whose name has somehow escaped my note-taking…sorry!!!), and the Best Evaluator Award to Michelle Delappe. (There is a rumor that Michelle has quite her job to sew a queen-sized quilt with all her ribbons.)
Without exaggeration, it was the best Seattle Sunrise meeting of October. But if our experience has taught us anything, we can be sure that next Saturday’s Speechathon will be even better. So be sure to grab your coffee to-go and join us.
