It was a bright Saturday morning for our Toastmaster regular meeting. We started late due to agenda-difficulties, and ended the meeting 20 minutes later than usual, due to the Club officer election and voting period.
Members have different reasons to join a particular club. We were thrilled to hear that Judy decided to join, after her initial visit at our last meeting. We had one visitor Vivi, who wanted to observe our session.
Steven, as the toastmaster of the day had to truncate or shorten the meeting content, the time ranges of speakers, due to officer elections. He introduced the theme “Internal Audit”, and the Young, our grammarian, introduced the word of the day “Introspection”. Paula was the timer, provided the role’s objective and timing windows.
Scott facilitated a technical and realistic Table Topics. Staying within the theme, Scott provided scenario based questions. Setting up the stage of, “all the management of the IRS has been removed, fired, and there is a new set of management and policies. The new elected head of IRS is called to Congress to speak; he setup a committee to help him answer the questions on the Hill. Scott gave the setup and instructions, which was to prepare him on the questioning by Congress. Each table topic volunteer had a question topic. They needed answer extemporaneously, giving data and support material to Scott to help him prepare. “The IRS laws are updated/amended to deal with the Covid19 pandemic, what are those changes?” [Jovica]. “What will be the revenue expected during this year in light of Covid19?” [Hannah]. “What is the impact to the business and how do we deal with larger corporation taking advantage for the stimulus? [Bill] ” If you were the president, what would you recommend for the IRS tase, disclosures, etc”? [Judy] “What key trends have you discovered this year?” [Young]. Heavy and technical table topics, it surely made us all feel like we were at work, when asked to answer impromptu to some hard questions.
We had two speakers Petar and guest speaker Brian. Petar spoke on the “Bond Between Grandparents and Grandchildren”. Brian spoke on “Justice Must Be Served: Exposing the Conspiracy Against Michael Flynn”. Sam evaluated Petar speech, highlighting Petar content organization, like the old-fashion way to use prompt of holding up is grandparents photo, for the great eye contact. Some suggestion were conveyed on looking more comfortable and less stiff during presentation by taking more breaths and letting the body language be more loose. Sam also suggested a little more vocal variety, in addition to the good volume that Petar had exhibited. Lara was the second evaluator. Praising the interactive advance speech by Brian, Lara pointed out the many good content and delivery, including commenting on his suit and tie attire. The speech was technical and was setup to be a contentious or confrontational Q&A with a hostile audience; but the audience so early in the morning, was not hostile to the Presidential Press Secretary and his Michael Flynn defense. We were so glad to have Brian be our guest speaker and have him present an advance project.
The general evaluator provided a shorten version of her section or critique. Instead of facilitating the entire Evaluation Section, the agenda was slightly different then the Zoom agenda that’s been applied since March. Traci commented on than 25% GE orchestration, was now 7% for just the GE, a shorten evaluation at that at just 2 minutes. She suggested that the Club should have Zoom tips and FAQs to assist on common understanding and best practices. Traci ended her evaluation that the Toastmaster should send out the agenda earlier in the week and not the day off.
The Toastmaster handed back the meeting at 8:57 to the President who then started the motion for new officers election. We’re transitioning into a new term beginning on July 1, which means our officers will be changing. We have a proposed list of officers (verbally naming the position and candidates). Today, the Club will vote for the nominees.
Proposed Officers / Voted New Officers based on Votes during meeting.
Club President – Paula
Vice President Education – Jovica
Vice President Membership – Young
Vice President Public Relations – Steven
Club Secretary – (none / tbd)
Club Treasurer – Scott
Sergeant at Arms – (none / tbd)
Immediate Past Club President – Lara
Lara as President set the motion to vote. Aleli as Secretary, seconded the motion on the selected Officers. Lara asked for the quorum—a majority of the active members—is needed to conduct club business, including electing officers, to confirm elections of the new officers. Any concerns, comments can be either vocally said during the business meeting or typed on the Zoom comments. To fill in the empty roles, Lara asked if anyone was interested to serve as Secretary or Sergeant at Arms. Steven, Paula, Bill directly nominated specific individuals on the meeting; and there was no responses. Due to the missing position, the President and incoming President will followup on those positions to fill offline.
The business meeting ended at 9:20 and the members hung-around socializing until 9:37, including visiting guest Vivi and guest speaker Brian.
