Today’s theme, introduced by our Toastmaster Judy, was “Summer of ’21.” Judy led us through the treasured benefits of vacation. A few mentioned: it builds memories, provides that kid experience of endless summer days, and it gives us permission to have a free day to just be.

President Moises’s quote of the day was “We might think we are nurturing our garden, but of course it’s our garden that is really nurturing us.” The word of the day, presented by Grammarian Jovica was “Sultry.” A perfect word for the hot and humid weather he experienced on his Vacation of ‘21.

Lara gave the first speech of the day, titled “Wanna Get Paid for Public Speaking?” She took us on an exciting journey investigating her next move with public speaking. Through this fun and spirited speech, she provided tips from experts on how we can level up our speaking toolbox, and get paid.  A few of those takeaways: your speech is your product, narrow in to get specific on a category for speaking, and define your wheelhouse. She closed with a cliffhanger to stay tuned … we will be the first to hear her Keynote Speech!  Yes! 

Wanna learn more? Check out these three insightful sources that Lara credited in her speech. Michael Port’s book, the Referable Speaker, Brian Rashid’s article in Forbes, “10 Steps to Starting a Speaking Career from Scratch,” and Side Hustle HQ’s article “Starting a Public Speaking Business.”

The next speaker on our itinerary was Bill. He started his thought-provoking speech by proclaiming that he is an Anti-racist.  He acknowledged that talking about race is uncomfortable. He chose courage over comfort to inspire us to consider the inequality that still exists and guided us to investigate this injustice further.  His authentic and natural speaking style pulled the audience in to listen to his personal story of how he arrived at being an advocate for this cause. He shared alarming data that he learned in Isabel Wilkerson’s New York Times Bestseller, Caste, The Origins of Our Discontents. I’m inspired to read this book, to learn more about systems of human ranking, and to comprehend the price we all pay in a society torn by artificial divisions.

Hola! Our final speaker destination is Mexico City with our tour guide, Moises. Right now marks the 500-year-old anniversary of when Spanish conquistadors, and their friends, seized the city from the Aztec Empire! That’s quite a milestone.  In Mexico City, you can visit Zocalo, tour the National Museum of Anthropology, ride roller coasters at 6 Flags, and enjoy local food and drink. Moises introduced a special active drink through a story he experienced with it on a sultry day. This drink, Pulque, is an Aztec brew with origins over 2,000 years old.  It would be fun to toast the 500-year-old anniversary with Pulque, but since it’s a challenge to find in Seattle, I will be using its descendent, Tequila, and toast with a Margarita instead. Cheers to the ancient and modern Mexico City!

Judy doubled up on roles today to be our Table Topic Master. She initiated this event with a slide deck of helpful strategies to tackle table topics.  Today’s challenge was to talk about a given summer object, such as swim goggles, peach, electric fan, and more.

This meeting was a virtual vacation. Our speakers took us on adventures back to historic roots, they provided action items for us to enjoy right now, and they created a vision of a hopeful destination for the future. 

How does your garden grow?

Keep sharpening your sword at Toastmasters!

Our next meeting is on August 21^st.

Our Toastmaster, Ahmad, introduced the theme of the day “Self-care.” Self-care is so many things: going on vacation or simply enjoying a fresh cup of coffee. A good place to find it is by asking yourself, “what makes you happy?”

President Moises’s quote of the day was “A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” The word of the day, presented by Grammarian Paula was “Edify.”

Our Self-care theme was woven throughout the three speeches.

Moises took us on a relaxing and heartfelt journey to his hometown, reenacting a visit from which he recently returned. He reminisced about a creative game that he played with his cousins as a youngster. He told us about a project his family was currently working on, and he showed a picture of an artist handcrafting a hammock, which he purchased on this trip. In addition to the beautiful scenes that flashed before our mind’s eye with his words, he also displayed several pictures inviting us into the journey. It felt like I was in a passenger seat next to him.

Isabella edified us with her icebreaker speech for her next Pathway, Team Collaboration. She shared her personal story of how Toastmasters prepares her to be more effective at work. At work there are many meetings, discussions, and presentations. Isabella believes that continuing with Toastmasters allows her to practice skills required for work. She linked 3 roles from Toastmasters to those required skills. Continuously studying and practicing with Toastmasters prepares her to make a greater impact at work. I absolutely agree with Isabella. This was a refreshing speech reminding us of the benefits of Toastmasters. Part of self-care is being prepared. Regularly showing up for Toastmasters helps us to do just that.

Ketan charmed us with his fun icebreaker speech. Out of the gate he hooked us with a question. Can we care for our soul by keeping it simple? KISS. The Keep It Simple Stupid principle states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated. Ketan shared his story of growing up, and how he chose his career, by KISS. He listened and humbly accepted the wise Jedi force from his father to Keep It Simple Stupid. He now has the opportunity to use those Jedi mind tricks on his son. For Ketan’s mental wellbeing he practices keeping things simple. It was such a delight to hear this fun, personal and well delivered speech from Ketan. I’m inspired to design my systems with simplicity in mind.

Our Table Topic’s Master, Steven, gave us one brief to discuss different aspects of self-care, such as financial, nutritional, and more. The brief: Covid is going to get worse and will continue to be bad until 2024. How will you practice self-care during these tumultuous times?

This meeting was self-care for me. It was relaxing, fun, entertaining, educational, creative, inspirational, endearing, edgy for a moment, enjoyed with friends and made me happy.

Keep sharpening your sword with Toastmasters!

Our next meeting is August 14th

Did you know that the average person spends about 58 minutes of the day eating? About 4 years in life consuming food!

For this second meeting of the fiscal year 2021-22, first time Toastmaster Jamie chose the topic of Good Eats.

Sergeant at Arms Bill Scott wasn’t present in this meeting, that’s why impromptu Sergeant at Arms, and past Sergeant at Arms, Judy Tandog shared with us zoom etiquette rules. Quote of the day was:

Be strong, you never know who you are inspiring.

Toastmaster of the day continued with the menu du jour: 

Appetizer of the Grammarian and Timer giving their introductions
Main course serving of three delicious and delectable speeches with a side of table topics, served family style.
Dessert of evaluations and a 
Nightcap of summary reports.

Word of the day, presented by Toastmaster of the day was:

gourmandize
meaning  to eat good food, especially to excess.

Unfortunately Grammarian was not able to join, impromptu Grammarian  for this meeting was Berni, Traci was in charge of timing speakers, impromptu speeches and evaluators.

Our three speakers for the day were:

Saurabh presenting his ice breaker “Connecting the dots.”, a speech with a chronological structure and a great title that blended perfectly with the closing quote from Steve Jobs: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards”.

Jinendra presenting his ice breaker “The secret ingredient.” An interesting speech using remarks from popular animated martial art movie Kung-Fu Panda, with great use of humor and imagery like “unscrew your way out of jail”.

Lara presenting “What do you want to be next?” from engaging humor pathway, which was very animated and entertaining. A great example on how to deliver a fun speech with vocal variety and hand gestures from different professions like archeology, architecture and from spider-man.

Table topics master of the day Judy presented food related questions:

A childhood dish. What’s a favorite dish that you had growing up that you can think of that resonated with you in your childhood.

Your late night or 5 o’clock after work racooning, defined as going into the pantry and start digging for any snack that you can find, when you just want to eat something and you don’t know what it is.

Popular proverb says: Show me what you eat and I’ll show you who you are.

Come join us for delicious speeches and evaluations for dessert here at Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters!

Our next meeting is July 31st.

” Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things ”

For this meeting which I hosted as the Toastmaster, I chose this song and this topic today, to remind us of the crucial importance of collecting “Favorite things” to lift oneself and others on darker days when “the dog bites and the bees sting”.

I was ably assisted by WeiHu, Timekeeper and Jinendra, Grammarian. The word of the Day was ” Exhilarate”.

Three speakers shared their favorite things:

In ” My Top Three Favorite Things”, Ahmad related his love story with caffeine, mathematics and comedy. His first love started as a child and grew with his aptitude solving quadratic equations, which led to him landing in Seattle for higher studies( much higher, a PhD) and coming to the realization that comedy was joy; all of it: sit-coms, improv and now, stand-up. Quoteworthy quote: ” It’s a terrible year of my life, why not do stand up comedy?” Why not indeed? Makes total sense

In “Teachers, Toastmasters and Communication” Sarah shared her findings , from Toastmasters, about her communication style. She aptly illustrated her findings with concrete examples of supportive and initiative communication. Supportive communication: thank you notes to parents when their students did something good. Initiative communication: why dressing up as Joseph Mc Carthy -and staying in character- the whole day to enliven her US history lesson. Sarah is a dedicated educator, full of ideas and passion for her students. They are so lucky to have her. Quoteworthy quote: ‘ Be yourself, everyone is bad at being someone else”. Makes total sense.

In” Caffeine”, Jong explained the negative and positive effects of caffeine. It was hard for us, at Seattle Sunrise, to even hear of the negative effects of such a vital elixir, but we tried to keep an open mind as we listened. An excess of caffeine will dehydrate, cause sleep deprivation, among other ills. However, consumed in moderate amounts( up to three cups a day), caffeine will awaken, increase your attention span and help you through odious and boring chores. Caffeine also has anti-oxidants and, wait for it, apparently, also reduces your chances of contracting Covid by 10%!

Quotable quote by Ketan ( evaluating Jong): ” I shut my ears during the first part, so I know nothing about the adverse effects of caffeine”. My feeling exactly!

Isabella led a simple and fun round of table topics about ” Your favorite thing”. Weihu was voted best Table Topic and Lara and Traci tied for best Evaluation.

What are your favorite things? What makes you happy? Try to spend most of your life collecting your favorite things, these moments of happiness; like fireflies in a jar. May these fireflies brighten your way on darker days.

Our next meeting is July 24th.