Volunteermatch.org, said Sam. First time toastmaster at SST Club, Sam introduced the theme as Volunteer Opportunities. Sam is an advance presenter and belongs to multiple TM Clubs. Although it was her first time as TM at this Club, she masterfully and smoothly ran the meeting with flow and transition.

As secretary of SST Club, Aleli presented an educational moment on the duties of the secretary, and asked the members to consider volunteering for the position starting in July. The Educational Moment section of the agenda is a space for a club officer to speak on a prepared topic, for educational or edification purposes.

One of the favorite part of any Toastmaster Club is the table topics section, where it gives members without an agenda role, and guests, the opportunity for impromptu speaking. Keeping with the theme of volunteerism and using the Word of the Day “Guinea Pig”, Bill gave a scenario and asked for volunteers. Isabella’s question was related to being a guinea pig for Covid 19 testing. Petar’s question was on dream volunteer job. Paula’s question, she punted and decided to answer Petar’s question of a dream volunteer job as a coach, traveling world wide to boost moral. I thought I heard her say chess coach and her bit of journalism writing. Jovica’s question was about unseen helpers. Lastly, Scott’s question was about a real-world quirky volunteer experience; and Scott shared about his over the boarder walking of the food.

We had only one prepared presenter for this zoom meeting. Jimmy used Power Point to share about Nancy, Jackie, Michelle, his chickens. With the Idaho family farm, Jimmy’s desire to raise his own chickens from his grandparents. From the first eggs, to what bullies chickens are, to his interaction with his grandparents, Jimmy had another well prepared and entertaining speech.

Scott was the GE, orchestrating the evaluation portion of the meeting. He first introduced Steven the speech evaluator. Steven not only gave us an evaluation, but a walking tour of house. There were the round robin evaluators of Isabella, Petar, Paula, and Aleli. Scott wrap-up the evaluation section with his overall observations. Pointing out virtual background usage, table toastmaster staying with the theme, congratulating Jimmy on a great job, and asking evaluators to consider using the sandwich-method, emphasizing the positives firstly.

Sam’s closed the main meeting and passed the closing to the President. VPE was absent at the meeting, and the agenda role for next week was skipped. The President made the closing comments that there is a new officer selection committee that will be contacting members in April and May. The intent is to have new elections at the end of May for new officers to serve July 2020 thru June 2021.

Starbucks was the theme and the Toastmaster started with setting the scene. Paula had a coffee house virtual background, starting her facilitation before the start of the meeting, with agenda distribution, starting social conversations, and priming the early morning audience for another Saturday regular meeting. Everyone adjusting to the new normal of meeting online instead of in person. Despite the limitation of meeting online, Paula brought us together and led our imagination as if we were all together at a coffee house.

Bill, former president of the club, had an 3 minutes to share an educational moment at the beginning of the meeting, using a power point slide. This educational moment section in the Zoom agenda is new, allowing officers of the club, opportunities to speak in the meeting.

Jimmy was the toastmaster for the table topics, which is the impromptu speaking section of the meeting. There were four participants, Steven, Lara, Jovica, and Bill volunteered for an improvisational scenario speech.

Our one speaker was Sam, who gave her second presentation at the club. Titled “The Cold Killer”, Sam had illuminated a light under her chin and starting telling a story of a serial killer, who hid his victim’s bodies in the snow. As part of the Advance Communication serious The Entertaining Speaker”, Sam entertained us, gives us shivers, and woke us up. Lara evaluator Sam’s speeches. As a trained theater and stage performer, commented on Sam’s theatrics in telling the story, commending her on her vocal variety, and asking her consider even more body movement or body language for dramatic effects. There was a two round robin volunteers with Paula and Petar.

The General Evaluator orchestrated the evaluation portion of the meeting by introducing the section and each evaluator role. Aleli was the GE for this section and she lightly covered the entire meeting. Isabella gave a timer report and Steven provided a grammarian report. One highlight from Aleli’s observation was Petar’s great interests in Sam’s speech, which led to genuine round robin critique.

Paula concluded her TM duties with the Starbucks coffee house background, and like the start, warm smile and closing remarks before handing off the meeting to the VPE and President to end the meeting.

During the closing of the meeting, the President mentioned that a business meeting with the Officer Committee would follow the meeting immediately after the regular session ends.

The second Zoom meeting at the Seattle Sunrise Club, Lara opened the meeting as president and Toastmaster of the day, greeting the thirteen enthusiastic regular members.  As a smaller group, we started a bit late at 2 minutes past the hour and yet ended on time. The zoom meetings are one hour short, slightly different than our extended longer agenda for the in-person meetings.

The Table Topics Session was fantastic and creatively different. Imagined and facilitated by Scott, using the theme of “1 Million Subscribers”, as an international news broadcast anchor, he setup the scenario and chose a pairing of Interviewer-Interviewee.  Bill interviewed Jason, who was on cruise to the Caribbean that had a confirmed infected Coronavirus case.  Steven interviewed Paula, the first Vatican female Catholic Pope.  Aleli interviewed Vivienne, the CEO of the largest toilet paper manufacturer.  Lara interviewed Jimmy, who was responding as Jay Inslee, the WA-State governor that called forth the first state emergency response due to Covid-19.  Jovica interviewed funny man Oleg, as the President of the United States.  Oh the voices, the acting skills, and comic relief was a fantastic way to start the morning.

Isabella was the primary and only prepared speaker, who spoke on the elevator pitch for a job interview.  Paula was the speaker evaluator, giving advice on the delivery, presentation, attire, and giving tips for interview techniques, especially the decoupling and bundling topics. Paula open up the round-round evaluations, something new to our Club.  We are introducing the round-robin toastmaster evaluations, to allow more speaking and audience engagement opportunities.  The volunteers that raised their hands were Petar, Lara, Bill, Jimmy, Jovica, and Aleli. 

General Evaluator, Steven, gave a critique of the entire meeting, from the early greeting banter, which felt like a regular in-person meeting, as the members waited for the club president to start.  He suggested showing or sharing the agenda, praise Jovica’s ability to share the word-of-the-day “Perspective” as his virtual background screen, and lastly, Steven ended with his recommendation to use the group chat to say hello to members as they join zoom or other encouraging comments.  

Who has the best interview or elevator pitch advice?  Who had the best table topics scenario in today’s table topics interaction pairing?  Who made us laugh the most for our early morning meeting?  Well, you just had to be there. 

Zoom zoom zoom……the Club’s first online meeting at Seattle Sunrise Toastmaster was a Zoom meeting. Our club is changing with the times, as we mobilize to online meetings only from March 21st through June 1, 2020.

Jovica was the Toastmaster in a shorten 1-hour meeting. Introducing the Zoom platform, tips on audio, and video, with enthusiasm. He started the meeting introducing the grammarian Steven, and timer Aleli.

New to the agenda is space for our VPE to give an Educational Moment. Oleg encouraged all of us that it will be a useful learning process for us all to meet online using Zoom.

Something old and something new. Samantha was the Table Topics toastmaster. Highlighting the theme of “broken glass”, she ran a mysterious criminal inquiry of our members. In a court-room setting, asking the volunteers to plead guilty or innocent to the scenarios, each participant had a unique charge to address. One of our most popular table topics ever, there were 7 volunteers that participated. Paula and Bill once again injected such creative and funny answers as they denied the charges.

We had one speaker, Bill, who repeated one of his most inspiring speeches, titled “Mindfulness for Coronavirus Anxiety”. Bill walked us through two exercises, one for deep breathing meditation and another exercise called RAIN. The breathing set us all up to be receptive and reflective. Bill then taught us the RAIN acronym, which is an ancient Buddhist mindfulness tool to cope with hardship. It has four steps:

1. Recognize what is going on
2. Allow the experience to be there, just as it is
3. Investigate with kindness
4. Natural awareness, which comes from not identifying with the experience.

Another change to the online agenda is the evaluation section of the meeting. Previously, the toastmaster facilitated this section. On the online meeting, the general evaluator would introduce this section and facilitate all the evaluators, including the evaluators, timer report, and grammarian report. Jimmy evaluated Bill’s speech and conducted a round-robin of impromptu evaluators. Jovica, Petar, Aleli, Scott, and Sam had words for Bill presentation, all positive praises for a pertinent and helpful speech, commenting even on his choice of a peaceful background.

The toastmaster finished his role of the day and handed the meeting to VPE to review the assigned roles for next meeting. The Club President closed the meeting, asking for feedback of the members for the 1st ever online meeting for the Club and boy, almost everyone gave their feedbacks. Ending the meeting at 9:15 AM, we all quickly zoom out of the meeting.