Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters held a Speech-a-thon on Saturday morning, July 18, and if you missed it, you missed a good one. On a scale of 1 to 10, this meeting was amazing.
Our new President, Peter, opened his first meeting in his new role and announced that there would be some organizational changes coming as the officers get some new processes in place. We’re all looking forward to having Peter lead the club through the next year.
President Peter opens the meeting
Our Toastmaster Nancy brought the funny, along with a number of worthy items from her recent yard sale which she tried to unload on us, using her Toastmasters skills to talk them up. She. also read from a number of humorous yard sale signs she found on the internet. It so inspired me I went home and put a yard sign up in front of my house. I’m hoping someone will now buy my yard so I never have to mow or weed it again [rimshot].
Toastmaster Nancy reads from a yard sign
Our speakers were Titus, Katey, Brian, Rich, and Marti. Titus gave his Ice Breaker speech, “A Great View from the Outside” in which he introduced us to his fascinating background and upbringing and noted that for much of his life he felt like an outsider. Titus certainly fits in with us! Next up, Katey had the room rocking with laughter after her Project 3 speech from the Storytelling manual. She told a tale about a long-time intellectual cat-and-mouse game between her uncle, a guard on the Canadian border, and a particularly ingenious and bold smuggler.
Rich, Katey, Marti, Brian, and Titus deliver their speeches
Brian worked hard in his speech “Seattle Deserves an NHL Team” to persuade us that—you guessed it!–Seattle deserves an NHL team. After discussing the history of the sport in the region (who knew the Stanley Cup actually started here?!) and the many bringing in a team could provide our city, even I was convinced–and I don’t even watch sports on TV. Next up, Rich began his speech, “Attention Deficit Disorder,” by detailing three episodes of Darwin Awards Winners that again had the room in uproar. He then went on to discuss ADD in some detail, encouraging those with the condition or those who know someone with it to seek help before they end up doing something like siphoning sewage out of a motor home by mistake while trying to steal gasoline. Finally, in “Speaking Lyrically,” her speech from Project 2 from the Interpretive Reading Manual, Marti finished out the speeches by reading three of her original love songs (or NOT-love songs) as poetry.
During speech-a-thons we forego table topics to squeeze in five speeches, so next our evaluators-David K, Michelle, Aleli, Steve, and Dave E—presented their excellent feedback to our speakers. I had the role of General Evaluator and was proud to take home the Best Evaluator award for the week.
This week’s timer was Valerie and our grammarian Mara provided us the word “mellifluous,” which was much-used during the meeting.
Lots of laughing in this meeting
We were happy to have several guests, including Johnny, Amy, Scott N, Clint, Robin R. and Robin M., and Barry.
Our next meeting is Saturday, July 25 at 7:30 a.m., in our usual spot in the cafeteria of Northwest Hospital. (By the way, we strongly encourage members to spend money on beverages and/or food while there so that the hospital will continue to have an incentive to let us keep using that terrific room.) Our Toastmaster next week will be Nicole C, and the theme of the meeting is Gung Ho.
Hope to see you there!
I'm a writer, editor, sit-down comedian, and keeper of many hobbies.
