Modern Family: Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters December 12 summary

This week’s Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters meeting involved a multifarious collection of speeches, ranging in subject matter from plastics pollution of the oceans and unusual animal friendships to learning disabilities and diversity. It was hosted by our illustrious President Peter, who not only got to introduce himself as Toastmaster but also enlisted Nicole S and Tina to perform a brief skit on our theme to open our meeting. Peter played Dad at the dinner table, along with Nicole as Mom, and Tina as the phone-obsessed teenager. Remember Ordinary People? It was kind of like that. Except with smart phones.

First up was Nancy, who gave her CC Project 9 speech “You Don’t Have to Build a Catamaran to Make a Difference.” She used powerful visuals to portray the plight caused by discarded plastics which end up in our oceans—and often inside the animals themselves. She showed photos of the devastating results of this litter as well as discussed the many ways we can individually and as a society diminish the production and use of plastics through reuse, recycling, and innovation. The images have stayed with me since seeing them. Powerful stuff.

Michelle spoke next, giving her speech, “Surprising Friends,” to fulfill project 2 from the Entertaining Speaker manual. In it, Michelle described the unusual animal friendships including those of a hippo and a tortoise, a vegetarian lion and several farm animals, and Koko the gorilla and her pet kittens. The adorableness was thick and I spent about two hours at home in a YouTube cute-animal video binge after our meeting.

Nicole S. gave her CC Project 4 speech, “Learning Disabilities and the Splendid City.” She recounted some of her experiences with her learning disabled students and described her imaginative pedagogical metaphor of the Splendid City through which she sees each student’s unique situation—the student’s mind being the titular “city” which imports intellectual “goods.” When routes of import are blocked, she helps students find workarounds so that they may adapt. A beautiful, useful metaphor and a great speech.

Finally, Makato delivered his CC project, “Diversity, is it strength?” in which he spoke about the commitment to diversity of several large area companies—Amazon, Microsoft, and Boeing. He then recounted a dispute at work between two very different team members. While they saw only conflict between them, Makato was able to recognize that their diverse working styles actually complemented each other. He also spoke about how a work team can be like a family and emphasized that in family and in the workplace, diversity is a strength.

Scott C was our Table Topics master, and he took advantage of the approaching holiday to bring in several wrapped gifts. He asked each chosen speaker to try to determine the contents of their gift without opening it and then describe what they would do with it. Alexa, Mackenzie, Chuck, and guests Chris and Sue all gave it their best shot, and Chuck walked away with the Best Table Topics ribbon for his answer.

Our evaluations came next. Brett, I, Paula, and Preston presented our feedback for the four speakers, with Marti giving our general evaluation. Preston won the Best Evaluator ribbon for his feedback on Makoto’s speech.

Holly was our Timer for the meeting, and Neva was Grammarian, bringing her word “multifarious,” which I did not use in my evaluation but have now used twice in this write-up.

At the end of our meeting, President Peter inducted two of our newest members, Alexa and MacKenzie, into the club. Welcome!

Our next meeting is December 19. The theme is “Musical Chairs,” and we are still looking for a Toastmaster. Please contact Nicole C. if you are interested. It’s a great role to take on and a lot of fun. Also, there WILL be a meeting on December 26, so be sure to check the schedule to see if you’re on it!

Looking forward to seeing you all next week!