February 22, 2020 “Oleg’s Birthday”

Happy birthday to Oleg, Happy birthday to him, Happy birthday dear Oleg, we hope you join us next time.  Yes that was today’s theme for our Toastmaster meeting. But the birthday-boy was absent from the meeting; and Bill joked that he was hiding in the eating area just outside the meeting windows.  We had giggles and laughters today with the help of Isabella and Jovica, who bridged our meeting with the birthday theme.  We had some people sing happy birthday rendition that were surprising. During the table topics, people share their birth anniversary memories. We learned how to say happy birthday in multiple languages from Young, who won the best Table Topics award.  

We had two icebreaker speeches.  Young shared his goal for joining toastmaster to advance his communication and leadership skills as a STEM professor.  Hannah gave her icebreaker Getting Comfortable being uncomfortable, with a goal of becoming a better communicate as an engineer.  Petar repeated and refined his speech with Crashing American Dream of a Car at 16.  Jimmy delighted us with  a eulogy of the infamous internet personality Grumpy Cat. 

The technique of evaluating and delivering an effective criticism is something we practice at Toastmaster.  The evaluators today were Scott, Aleli, Bill, and Jovica.   Each delivered against a 2-3 minute time box and all stayed within their time, with Scott winning the Best Evaluator award.  
The general evaluator, Paula, provided general meeting observation and added to the speakers evaluations.  Ana, our grammarian gave her report on how many times the word of the day “optimistic” was used.  Samantha was a first-time timer at our Club and she kept our speakers on track.  

Isabella finished up her toastmaster duties handing the meeting to former Club President, Bill, who closed out the meeting with soliciting for feedback from Zayden, a former member, visited us again and his guest and friend Gabby.  Jarred was also a returning said that the meeting was “cool”. 


Some business topics were brought up by Jimmy and Aleli at the end of the meeting.  Jimmy reminded the club about new 6-months renewal Club fee are due at the end of March, asking the members to renew as early as possible.  Aleli asked for volunteers for the Division G Contest in 2020, as she is chairing the event on April 11th. 

Happy birthday to Oleg!  Where is Oleg?  

Posted in Meeting Summary