The last meeting of the Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters was small but still ended the year with a bang rather than a whisper. Tom B. filled the role of Toastmaster for the first time and did a great—and as Peter noted, imminently pleasant—job as host for our meeting.
Our speakers were Alexa, Marti, and Valerie, with Peter jumping in with an impromptu speech in the #3 position to fill a vacancy left by another member who had to cancel.
First up, Alexa gave her Ice Breaker, “Oral Story Telling,” in which she recollected how she developed a love of oral story telling. Although she had enjoyed the mythology stories her father told as a child, up until being encouraged to take a class in radio, the oral medium had left her cold. Once she gave it a chance, however, she was hooked and has developed a passion for podcasts like This American Life. Great ice-breaker, Alexa and congratulations!
Marti spoke next, delivering her first speech from the Interpretive Reading advanced manual. She gave a reading of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story The Snow Image, in which a sister and brother, Violet and Peony, make a child in the snow which comes to life. Seeing the kids playing with what she believes is a real child, the children’s mother calls the three inside to warm up the snow child, with tragic results that any viewer of Frosty the Snowman can anticipate. Nice reading, Marti!
In Peter’s impromptu speech, “Live the Life You Imagine,” he recounted that much of his life had once been ruled by fear. His ability to overcome fear came by recognizing this fact, deciding he’d had enough of it, and studying and working to understand the roots fear and learn how to overcome it and live more fully. He came up with four pillars to conquer fear which he shared with us, all of which were based in understanding and action. Inspiring stuff, Peter!
Wrapping up our speeches for the day, Valerie’s “Bathroom Tiling 101” took us through the steps required to replace a one-piece form shower and tub with a new one, including doing the tiling. She said that the speech was inspired by her current home-improvement project and that she was only about halfway through the process. Among the lessons learned from her hands-on experience were to plan for such a project to take longer than you think it will and if you’re pregnant like she is, you might think twice about doing some of the steps since toxic materials are involved. In addition to enjoying the schadenfreude of hearing someone else’s labors in home repair to alleviate the constant pain my own, I also found the instructions useful—particularly the wisdom of knowing when to throw in the towel and call a professional. Thanks, Valerie!
Aanya served as our Table Topics master today, bringing winter-themed questions for Paula, Mark, me, and Michelle, and guest Ken. Typically people with speaking roles are excluded but we were down to a skeleton crew so Aanya widened her net. Michelle won Best Table Topics for her response.
I, Nancy, Michelle, and Mark evaluated the meetings’ speakers, and Peter delivered the general evaluation. Mark won Best Evaluator for his feedback on Valerie’s speech. 
Thanks to Amy for being Timer and to Paula for serving as Grmmarian, bringing the word of the day “munificence” to the meeting.
Our next meeting will take place 1/9. The theme will be Resolutions and our Toastmaster will be Nancy.
The officers will be at training, except for me. I will be celebrating turning 48 at some undisclosed top secret location (my house). Alexa has kindly agreed to fill in for me as Secretary in my absence.
P.S. Scott C and Nicole C were missed for many reasons, but among them was their photographic talents. Apologies that I only got one shot this time.
I'm a writer, editor, sit-down comedian, and keeper of many hobbies.
For those of you who are coming to MELE on Jan 9th, I’ll be speaking w/my other club Improv Masters! We’ll be talking about how to do improvised speeches and why the benefits of doing improvisational exercises. And importantly, we will play some really fun games! Join us!