One thing has become clear from my little-over-a-year of being a member of Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters: Our club is full of dreamers. Most of us drag ourselves out of bed in the dark on a cold, wet November morning such as this last Saturday, not just because we love the wonderful camaraderie and energy of our club and not even just for the fantastic and often moving speeches. We do it because we all have dreams or aspirations and know that honing our public speaking and leadership skills can help us achieve them. We learn from preparing and delivering speeches, from watching and listening to others speak and give feedback, and from giving and receiving constructive support from our fellow members. Our club is our gymnasium, our workshop, and our classroom, and it is also our dream factory.
As was true at our last meeting, this week our Toastmaster was a fairly new member to our club but an experienced Toastmaster. Tina led us through a terrific meeting with flair and aplomb, speaking from the heart about her admiration for big dreamers like our President Peter and how she’s worked hard to keep her own dreams from being crushed over the years.
We had an exciting lineup of two new speakers and two more experienced speakers, all delivering interesting and compelling speeches.
Our first speaker was one of our newest members, Holly, delivering her Icebreaker, “Never Give Up,” in which she gave us a brief overview of her life’s trajectory, framed by the the series of aspirations she’s had and worked on since childhood–from her early dream (and success) of being a dancer all the way through to her living her dream of being a body and fitness worker, helping others achieve their health and fitness goals. As with most dreams, hers required hard work, training, and sacrifices to succeed. Now she is on her way to achieving a new aspiration: becoming a better speaker. Congratulations Holly!
Next up, another new member, Neva, gave her Icebreaker, “A brief introduction to magnetic resonance imaging.” Her speech was a fascinating and informative layperson’s overview of the technology behind MRI machines, which she operates as part of her job. The three elements involved in making MRI’s work–water, magnetism, and radio waves–work together to give very clear images of the inside of the human body, as well as allow many measurements of the body that would be impossible to achieve without MRIs. Having had one done on me when I was 12, I can say I would’ve loved my technician to give me the explanation of what was going on. Congratulations and thanks for making my brain bigger, Neva!
Kyle was our next speaker, delivering his final project speech for the CC manual, “Our Entire Realities Can Change with Just One Thing.” He discussed a recent epiphany he had after being cut off in traffic twice in a row by rude drivers, saying that just one thing–making a conscious effort to get outside himself and see the world around him (including rude drivers) without putting himself at the center of experience–allowed him to be more generous and patient in those circumstances. A valuable insight to learn from, Kyle, and big congratulations on completing your CC!
Our final speaker was Kiki, with her Project 4 speech, “Frog Legs and Fur Coats.” Like her previous speeches, this talk focused on stories about her family, particularly her grandmother who, judging from what we’ve all heard, was a fascinating character. Kiki’s talk was filled with terrific descriptions of her grandmother’s affection for black coffee, cigarettes, blackberry wine, and collecting furniture and furs. Looking forward to hearing more installments and stories, Kiki!
Our Table Topics Master for the day was Tom, who approached the theme of Impossible Dream via the song title, providing prompts from a “Man of La Mancha” angle and others to draw out responses from Scott, Junlei, Nicole S., me, and one of our guests, Alexa, who took home the Best Table Topics ribbon for her response.
Our evaluators came to the podium next, with Aleli, Aanya, Peter, and Maxwell giving feedback to the speakers and Clint acting as General Evaluator for the meeting and taking home the Best Evaluator ribbon.
Our guests were: Alexa, Melania, MacKenzie, and Ken. Thanks for coming and we hope to see you back again soon!
Johnny kept our meeting on time this meeting, and Emily was Grammarian, providing “proclivity” as the word of the day, which several speakers used to good effect.
Our next meeting is November 21, and it’ll be a Speech-a-thon with five speakers and no table topics. Our Toastmaster will be Dave E. I will be in Maui next week (poor, poor me), so Andrea has agreed to fill in as Secretary. Thanks, Andrea!
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