It was a bright Saturday morning for our Toastmaster regular meeting. We started late due to agenda-difficulties, and ended the meeting 20 minutes later than usual, due to the Club officer election and voting period.

Members have different reasons to join a particular club. We were thrilled to hear that Judy decided to join, after her initial visit at our last meeting. We had one visitor Vivi, who wanted to observe our session.

Steven, as the toastmaster of the day had to truncate or shorten the meeting content, the time ranges of speakers, due to officer elections. He introduced the theme “Internal Audit”, and the Young, our grammarian, introduced the word of the day “Introspection”. Paula was the timer, provided the role’s objective and timing windows.

Scott facilitated a technical and realistic Table Topics. Staying within the theme, Scott provided scenario based questions. Setting up the stage of, “all the management of the IRS has been removed, fired, and there is a new set of management and policies. The new elected head of IRS is called to Congress to speak; he setup a committee to help him answer the questions on the Hill. Scott gave the setup and instructions, which was to prepare him on the questioning by Congress. Each table topic volunteer had a question topic. They needed answer extemporaneously, giving data and support material to Scott to help him prepare. “The IRS laws are updated/amended to deal with the Covid19 pandemic, what are those changes?” [Jovica]. “What will be the revenue expected during this year in light of Covid19?” [Hannah]. “What is the impact to the business and how do we deal with larger corporation taking advantage for the stimulus? [Bill] ” If you were the president, what would you recommend for the IRS tase, disclosures, etc”? [Judy] “What key trends have you discovered this year?” [Young]. Heavy and technical table topics, it surely made us all feel like we were at work, when asked to answer impromptu to some hard questions.

We had two speakers Petar and guest speaker Brian. Petar spoke on the “Bond Between Grandparents and Grandchildren”. Brian spoke on “Justice Must Be Served: Exposing the Conspiracy Against Michael Flynn”. Sam evaluated Petar speech, highlighting Petar content organization, like the old-fashion way to use prompt of holding up is grandparents photo, for the great eye contact. Some suggestion were conveyed on looking more comfortable and less stiff during presentation by taking more breaths and letting the body language be more loose. Sam also suggested a little more vocal variety, in addition to the good volume that Petar had exhibited. Lara was the second evaluator. Praising the interactive advance speech by Brian, Lara pointed out the many good content and delivery, including commenting on his suit and tie attire. The speech was technical and was setup to be a contentious or confrontational Q&A with a hostile audience; but the audience so early in the morning, was not hostile to the Presidential Press Secretary and his Michael Flynn defense. We were so glad to have Brian be our guest speaker and have him present an advance project.

The general evaluator provided a shorten version of her section or critique. Instead of facilitating the entire Evaluation Section, the agenda was slightly different then the Zoom agenda that’s been applied since March. Traci commented on than 25% GE orchestration, was now 7% for just the GE, a shorten evaluation at that at just 2 minutes. She suggested that the Club should have Zoom tips and FAQs to assist on common understanding and best practices. Traci ended her evaluation that the Toastmaster should send out the agenda earlier in the week and not the day off.

The Toastmaster handed back the meeting at 8:57 to the President who then started the motion for new officers election. We’re transitioning into a new term beginning on July 1, which means our officers will be changing.  We have a proposed list of officers (verbally naming the position and candidates). Today, the Club will vote for the nominees.

Proposed Officers / Voted New Officers based on Votes during meeting.

Club President – Paula
Vice President Education  – Jovica
Vice President Membership – Young
Vice President Public Relations –  Steven
Club Secretary – (none / tbd)
Club Treasurer – Scott
Sergeant at Arms – (none / tbd)
Immediate Past Club President – Lara

Lara as President set the motion to vote. Aleli as Secretary, seconded the motion on the selected Officers. Lara asked for the quorum—a majority of the active members—is needed to conduct club business, including electing officers, to confirm elections of the new officers. Any concerns, comments can be either vocally said during the business meeting or typed on the Zoom comments. To fill in the empty roles, Lara asked if anyone was interested to serve as Secretary or Sergeant at Arms. Steven, Paula, Bill directly nominated specific individuals on the meeting; and there was no responses. Due to the missing position, the President and incoming President will followup on those positions to fill offline.

The business meeting ended at 9:20 and the members hung-around socializing until 9:37, including visiting guest Vivi and guest speaker Brian.

Due to the annual convention for District 2 Toastmaster, today’s meeting is cancelled. See email sent by the Club President below.

May 4, 2020 at 12:22 PM

Hello Sunrisers! [Member Distribution List]

As a member of Toastmasters International, you have opportunities to participate in events and activities in the larger scope of the Toastmasters organization. Our local club is part of District 2, which serves much of western Washington. You can learn about what District 2 is up to at their website here: https://d2.toastmastersdistricts.org/
Every year, District 2 hosts an annual conference. It is typically a large in-person event, and it has a price attached for those who want to attend (typically around $100). This year, District 2 has decided to host the conference online instead of cancelling. Due to this change, they are offering the conference free of charge.A few of our officers are already registered for the event, and given this unprecedented opportunity, we would like to encourage all of you to register as well. The conference will be held on Saturday, May 16 2020 from 8am-2pm.
***PLEASE NOTE*** This is during our typical meeting time. We are cancelling our normal club meeting so that you will have the opportunity to attend the conference and learn more about how Toastmasters can impact your life.

The conference will include:

• Keynote Address by Deepak Menon, International President
• Keynote by Mark Brown, 1995 World Champion of Public Speaking
• Keynote by Yelena Balabanova, Accredited Speaker
• Virtual Awards Ceremonies
• Community Leadership Award – Kim Peterson, Uniquely Savvy
• District-level International Speech Contest
• Annual District Business Meeting (all members invited; required for specified officers)

Even if you are only able to attend part of the conference, the experience will help you understand more about Toastmasters International, and I’m sure it will motivate you to do more with your own professional and public speaking goals. 
In summary: Our meeting on Saturday, May 16th is cancelled. We encourage all of you to register for and attend the District 2 Annual Conference instead. Register here.

Lara Grauer
Club President

Jovica was the Toastmaster improvisor, without an agenda handout, introducing the theme of the meeting “Proper Question”, or in Jovica’s rephrasing, “Asking A Good Question”. We had two visitors, two second-time-speakers, six table topics participants, an impromptu general evaluator, with two evaluators and round robin volunteer evaluators.

Traci facilitated the table topics section using the theme of the meeting. Giving the instructions, she posed the proper questions: “What if you could make a perfect mother’s day celebration?” [Paula] “What would be your master mind retreat?” [Aleli] “What kind of animal would you like to meet and where?” [Jimmy] “What or where is your oasis?”[Judy]. Wrapping up the section and giving her insights and encouragement, Traci close the section and return the online speaker back to the Toastmaster.

The Toastmaster introduced the two speakers, who prepared a speech from one of the many Toastmaster manuals. Both new members, it was their second presentation at the Club. Young, as a data scientist, presented his UW research proposal on monitoring trajectory of a disaster and responses. Young outline his research proposal and possible outcome. Quoting the famous speaker Tony Robins, “Emotion is created by motion”, and giving a callout of visiting guest Judy from her table topic response, Young delivered a well developed and practiced speech. The second speaker was Hannah, a millennial professional woman, speaking of her quarter life crisis. Like an icebreaker speech, we learned more about Hannah’s goal oriented approach and her thoughtful reflection on what could happen, what did happen to her, when you achieve your goals in your Plan for Life.

Jovica called upon for an impromptu general evaluator, Aleli, to facilitate the evaluation section. Partner with the two evaluators Petar and Paula, along with the round-robin volunteers, the evaluation section highlighted their appreciation for the speakers preparedness and delivery. The round robin volunteers were Lara, Sari, Paula, Judy, Scott, and Jimmy. Some of phrases, from the robin robin, the suggested improvements where, “consider the hook”, “show it in a dramatic way”, “personal and powerful, and you could have expanded on the content”. Then the general evaluator, commented on the entire meeting, and closed the section with handoff to the Toastmaster.

President Lara warmly asked the two visitors, Sari and Judy, to share briefly on their meeting experience. We’re always so glad to have guests join us on our Saturday morning regular meeting.

Lara also had club business announcements at the end of the meeting, before the meeting adjourned. First, the committee for officer election has concluded their work and our next meeting will announce and induct the new set of officers. Second, the May 16th regular meeting is cancelled due to the majority of the officers attending the District 2 Toastmaster Convention Online. Thirdly, the officers committee will meet immediately after today’s regular meeting to discuss the club operations.

And the meeting was full of data, the math geeks woke up and took over our Toastmaster Meeting early Saturday morning. Starting with Young as Toastmaster of the Day, he introduced the theme, the roles, with calm assurance and confidence. Wait, is this his first time? Oh most excellent toastmaster….

And then there was Scott with his prepared speech full of statistics on charts, graphs, (AND)… he inserted a personal story of Covid preparedness for his grandparents. Oh Really, Scott! How could you be that geeky and touching at the same time. How do you balance the reality of death, the casualty of Covid19 pandemic with the very personal conscious anxiety over family safety. “I remember thinking in late January”, said Scott, as he started tracking the statistics. Daily analysis of the trends, to the monthly counts, to the projections to 1 million. Dark numbers.

Scott tracked critical data and trends locally and world wide. This is how he cope and protected his own. Emailing his grandparents of his analysis and recommendations, Scott shared his personal journey of realization of the seriousness of the virus, to tracking to fight, and preparing for the worst. Throughout the power point presentation, Scott used his voice, which was neither dramatic nor light hearted, and the prepared graphs to effectively communicate the reality of Covid19.

And then the end to the meetup came so fast. The President adjourn the members at 9:03, and announced that there was a special committee meeting after the regular meeting to continue the work for officer nominations.

The next regular club meeting is in two weeks, May 9th. Per the Officer Memo to the Club in March, we will continue to meet in our online Zoom meetings, as guided by District 2 Toastmaster Leadership. Hopefully everyone is getting more familiar and comfortable with this platform, as we expect to continue with the online meetings thru May and perhaps beyond.

The club is following the District 2 leadership guidelines for Covid19 response, officer elections, dues, training, conferences, and many other related club alignments. For additional information for D2TM, please check out their website: https://d2.toastmastersdistricts.org.