I had the honor of being Toastmaster for last Saturday morning’s Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters meeting. The theme was “Love Song” so I brought in Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does it Better,” one of the many love songs which haunted my tormented, romantic youth in the 1970s.
We had a great variety in our speeches, as usual.
First up was Ken B. with his CC project #2: “What is Love,” which was a hilarious story about a love triangle among him, his former girlfriend Michelle, and her pet potbelly pig, Alex. Ken adopted Alex for Michelle, and the pig started out a cute, cuddly, small pet; however, the store misled them about Alex’s eventual size, which grew to 250 pounds. Ken soon found himself with no room on the couch or bed, and eventually they decided they couldn’t keep Alex. Ken went the extra mile to get Alex adopted so that he could live out his life on a farm. Great story, Ken!
Holly was up next with her CC Project 3 speech, “Sugar Bird.” She began with a story of a mountain hike, during which she took a snack break to eat a granola bar. The crumbs which dropped to the ground were 
immediately consumed by a flock of small birds. She fed them a little more before realizing that they were all getting cracked out on all the sugar and becoming extremely aggressive. She used this example to lead into talking about the effects of sugar on birds and on humans. She went into detail about how sugar affects the body and how it is processed, as well as the problems Americans encounter due to an overabundance of sugar in our diets. Very informative. Thanks, Holly!
Our next speaker was Nicole S. giving her CC Project 10 speech, “Play it Again,” in which she talked about the speech-making process and how we often don’t deliver the speech we really want to the first time around. She spoke about the advantages of repeating speeches, especially the opportunity to improve them using the feedback provided by fellow Toastmasters. A very inspiring speech that had me mentally paging through my past speeches to think of which ones would benefit from repeating them (spoiler: all of them). Thank you, Nicole!
Finally, our fourth speaker, Aanya, gave her Project 7 speech: “I’m so . . . . Don’t be so . . . OCD!” In her talk she discussed how the term “OCD” (for obsessive-compulsive disorder) has become commonly used, often flippantly and thoughtlessly, in every day speech to mean “uptight” or similarly negative things. She went into detail about what an OCD diagnoses actually means and encouraged us to be more mindful in using the term. Thanks, Aanya, for that insightful speech.
Aleli took the podium next as Topics Master. She had several members break into pairs and give 30-second impromptu introductory “commercials” about themselves to one another, as you might in a networking or other social situation. Peter, Marti, Vince, Jung, Paula, and our guest Bo all participated. Peter and Marti won Best Table Topics for their chat against the imagined setting of a speed dating encounter. Nice work!
Next up were our evaluations, with Michelle, Marti, Tina, and Neva providing feedback to the speakers and Tom giving our general evaluation. Tina won Best Evaluator for her response to Nicole S. Congratulations!
Johnny was our Timer and our Grammarian was Scott C., who ensured that his word of the day “Askew” was used many times by sitting in front of the podium with a large sign to remind us of it. Nice job, guys!
President Peter closed out our meeting with announcements:
* The International Speech and Evaluations contests will be held next week at our regular place and time. Contest Chair Katey is still recruiting contestants and volunteers, so get in touch with her if you would like to compete or can help with one of the many functions required to run the contest. One way or another, please turn out for the competition to support the contestants!
* As of March, our club will meet every week in our current location.
* March 26 will be club photo day. Our club web page photo needs to be updated with all your smiling faces. Please come to that day prepared to say cheese and be part of the photo.
Have a great week!
I'm a writer, editor, sit-down comedian, and keeper of many hobbies.
