This week’s Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters meeting involved a multifarious collection of speeches, ranging in subject matter from plastics pollution of the oceans and unusual animal friendships to learning disabilities and diversity. It was hosted by our illustrious President Peter, who not only got to introduce himself as Toastmaster but also enlisted Nicole S and Tina to perform a brief skit on our theme to open our meeting. Peter played Dad at the dinner table, along with Nicole as Mom, and Tina as the phone-obsessed teenager. Remember Ordinary People? It was kind of like that. Except with smart phones.
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Summary written by Andrea:

Speech-a-thon! This is a great opportunity to hear 5 speakers in a row. Normally, our meetings include a lineup of 3-4 speakers and a table topic session (responding on your feet). What I love about speech-a-thons is that we learn not only speech styles, but topic content from various speakers, while discovering their passions. I often take what the speakers present do some further research on the topic. Today there were topics that peaked my interest.

Dave opens the meeting

One thing has become clear from my little-over-a-year of being a member of Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters: Our club is full of dreamers. Most of us drag ourselves out of bed in the dark on a cold, wet November morning such as this last Saturday, not just because we love the wonderful camaraderie and energy of our club and not even just for the fantastic and often moving speeches. We do it because we all have dreams or aspirations and know that honing our public speaking and leadership skills can help us achieve them. We learn from preparing and delivering speeches, from watching and listening to others speak and give feedback, and from giving and receiving constructive support from our fellow members. Our club is our gymnasium, our workshop, and our classroom, and it is also our dream factory.

As was true at our last meeting, this week our Toastmaster was a fairly new member to our club but an experienced Toastmaster. Tina led us through a terrific meeting with flair and aplomb, speaking from the heart about her admiration for big dreamers like our President Peter and how she’s worked hard to keep her own dreams from being crushed over the years.

We had an exciting lineup of two new speakers and two more experienced speakers, all delivering interesting and compelling speeches.

Our first speaker was one of our newest members, Holly, delivering her Icebreaker, “Never Give Up,” in which she gave us a brief overview of her life’s trajectory, framed by the the series of aspirations she’s had and worked on since childhood–from her early dream (and success) of being a dancer all the way through to her living her dream of being a body and fitness worker, helping others achieve their health and fitness goals. As with most dreams, hers required hard work, training, and sacrifices to succeed. Now she is on her way to achieving a new aspiration: becoming a better speaker. Congratulations Holly! Read more ›

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