Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters tacked-on another excellent meeting this weekend. We had 13 members and 4(!) guests attend. Mary took the reigns as our Toastmaster. This was her first time in the role and she did a fantastic job!
Our speakers were Rich and Madeleine. Rich spoke about the benefits of juggling and shared a short explanation of how he learned the skill. He then gave a demonstration and warned, “In my next speech, I plan to juggle chainsaws and I’m selling tickets for the front row.” Scott took him up on the offer.
Madeleine piqued the interest of many with her speech titled, “Ms. Manners’ guide to impeccably correct Toastmasters’ Behavior”. Seriously, who wouldn’t want to hear the content of that speech?! Toastmasters meetings require lots of coordination. Good-mannered Toastmasters contact the meeting leader early and often. Our Toastmaster Mary agreed, communication is helpful.
Steve led our table topics session. He prompted members with an obscure word and then asked them to provide a definition. Our guest, Omar won table topics by defining a word whose definition is more memorable than its pronunciation. Omar’s winning response? “I’ll define that word by saying, you wouldn’t want to get caught with any in your pocket on the streets of New York.”
Our evaluators were Scott and Dick. Scott asked Rich to consider incorporating sources for the facts he referenced in his speech. Dick asked Madeleine to present a “part II” of her speech to elaborate on her key points and to reinforce her message. Nicole presented the general evaluation of the meeting. Patrick and Jun Lei filled the roles of Grammarian and Timer.
At the end of the meeting Madeleine volunteered a “Toastmasters Moment” by commenting that Toastmasters has made her much more comfortable providing constructive feedback to others.
Our next meeting is scheduled for April 27th. Rich will be our Toastmaster and the theme will be “dealbreakers” and we’ll meet in the back conference room.