With Rich J. at the helm as the Toastmaster of the Day, Seattle Sunrise members were treated to a few extraordinary moments this past Saturday.

Stepping outside of the typical speech format, Nicole C., with the help of her cotton friend “Eddie,” presented “Surprise and Delight,” a cruise-ship quality tutorial at Seattle Sunrise prices on how to fold bath towels into animal shapes.

If the collective oohs and ahhs and smiles in the room were any indication, hers was a lesson that we were each anxious to put to the test back home with our next round of house guests.

Thanks to some last-minute complications with another community group who shares our meeting venue, Seva Kumar was able to show off his improvisational skills in his speech, “Are You Detail-Oriented?” Without naming names, the community group in question failed to communicate their scheduling needs and forced Sunrise members to relocate to a cramped conference room, despite Seva’s ongoing efforts over recent weeks to coordinate venue-sharing with the group.

Undaunted by the resulting turmoil, Seva was able to draw on the morning events to illustrate the main point of his speech: namely, a plan – no matter how well organized – can only succeed with complete buy-in to the details and execution.

The third moment that stood outside the Saturday morning norm was Table Topics, led by Scott C. Rather than asking for individual responses to questions, Scott organized respondents into pairs, with one member simultaneously non-verbally “miming” their partner’s verbal response.

It was a formula that led to plenty of laughs, with members Jun-Lei and Andy K. walking away with the Best Table Topics ribbon for their depiction of surviving a bear attack.

Rounding out the speeches were Peter F’s inspirational “The Comfort of Risk” and “How Suburban Dandelions Challenged My Heuristics” by yours truly.

With the former, Peter recounted a brief moment in his life when he gave into his fears and vowed never to do that again. Peter cautioned us all to challenge our own fears head on and live out our dreams. With the latter, I discussed how neighborly lawn-maintenance advice led to my rethinking of various agricultural technologies.

Walking away with the Best Evaluator ribbon was Marti ME, for her evaluation of Nicole and Eddie’s towel folding presentation.

The meeting’s theme was “Moments of Truth,” and the truth of the matter is that Saturday brought us all another round of extraordinary Toastmaster moments. The next Seattle Sunrise Toastmaster meeting will be Saturday October 11. Please join us.

Five strong speeches helped to lower the curtain on summer for the Seattle Sunrise Toastmaster club this past Saturday during its monthly “Speechathon.”

Opening the meeting was one of the group’s newest members, Daniel Robins. Daniel used “Path to Self-Improvement,” his Icebreaker speech, to talk about his own, long journey to self-improvement. It was a journey that started in high school, passed through a near bout with the law, and continues to this day.

Marti MacEwan, addressing Toastmaster’s “Persuade with Power” project, took her seven minutes to convince club members and guests that they each had the power to change the trajectories of their lives. Her speech, which was titled “Down with Shame,” was informed by Marti’s many years of experience as a therapist.

Little did any of us know that for at least a few swashbuckling souls in the world, this past Friday was “Talk Like a Pirate Day.” To honor that date, Katey Noonan educated us all on a brief history of pirates with her “It’s a Tough Life Being a Pirate.”

Junlei Chen was joined by special guest Autumn Ta for her first Advanced Communication Project, “Conversing with Ease.” Junlei offered us four rules of how to engage in conversation with strangers, which were illustrated by an improvised on-stage conversation that she had with Autumn.

Hockey, with a cameo mention of hockey Hall-of-Famer Bobby Orr, was the subject of Brian Hudnall’s speech, “Rediscovering My Passion.” After his knees could no longer take the abuse that the sport threw at them during his high school years, Brian thought he had hung up his skates for the last time. But little did he know that years later, the simple act of getting back on the ice again would reignite his love for the game and remind him why he was so passionate about the sport growing up.

Scott Champion walked away with the “Best Evaluator” ribbon for his general evaluation of the meeting.

The next meeting for Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters will be on Saturday, September 27.

As always, our doors are wide open for the curious, so please join us for what always promises to be yet another enlightening and inspirational gathering of genial Toastmasters.

It was a meeting of smiles, guffaws, and off-the-cuff reflections as Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters held its annual Humorous Speech and Table Topics contest on Saturday, September 13. This year the contest could have just as well been called, “The Day Andy Koopmans Won It All,” as the the erstwhile comedian, writer and magician walked away with both awards.

For the humorous speech contest, Andy contributed “Snipped: A PG-13 Story of My Vasectomy.” I’ll let the reader imagine the snippets that strung that speech together.

Rich J raised his share of smiles and laughs with his tale of highway deer, beach-bumming skunks, and two of his best friends growing up, in his speech “Eddie and Chester.” (Not to ruin the punchline, but Chester was his family dog.) And Katey N offered executive-wannabes valuable insight into how to survive the dog-eat-dog world of the corporate world with “Survival Skills in the Modern Office Environment.” According to Katey, one’s ability to succeed in today’s office setting is directly related to how one manages morning coffee breaks, noontime lunches, and afternoon Happy Hours.

Janell H, Andy K, and Peter F took up the call of competition in the Table Topics portion of the contest. Toastmaster Jun Lei ‘s question for the contestants — “If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do?” — brought a tone of deep reflection to the meeting, with Andy’s response getting the winning nod from the judges.

The next Seattle Sunrise meeting will a Speechathon on Saturday September 20. Guests are always welcome, so please join us.

Peter incorporates gestures into his speaking

Turning to a fashion designer, comedian, the famous “author” Anonymous, and Confucius for inspiration, Toastmaster Marti MacEwan evoked a sense of “balance,” the meeting’s theme, throughout her duties.

Mark White opened the speeches with the help of some books, a Kindle, and an iPhone as props, as he discussed the differences between the business models of Amazon.com and independent bookstores.

Scott Champion‘s speech, “A Bridge to Brooklyn,” brought us to New York City, 1866. As Manhattan was growing, a proposal to build a bridge to Brooklyn was put forth as a way to relieve the population pressure. The proposal languished until one winter when New York City harbor froze and no one could travel between Manhattan and Brooklyn. That spring officials quickly agreed to build the bridge, but soon thereafter skyscrapers rose in Manhattan, ironically reducing reducing the need for the bridge.

Seva Kumar, in “Early to Bed, Early to Rise,” took us on a journey through his history of alarm clocks. When his new boss forced him to wake up early for 9 am meetings, he was challenged to make the meetings on time. So he experimented with various alarm clock configurations to rise early, but nothing worked until he learned to wake to an exercise regime and maintain a vow to go to bed early, as his mother had long since advised.

In “Why an MBA Now?,” Shen Yang discussed how the devastation of China’s landscape brought on by economic growth and natural catastrophes pushed him to apply for an MBA program so he can start an engineering firm that will help to rebuild the landscapes of his native China.

Shane provides feedback to Mark

In table topics, Katey Noonan asked for advice in how she can balance her own increasingly out-of-balance life. Michelle Delappe took home the ribbon for best evaluator, and Peter Feysa provided the denouement of the meeting with both the word of the day (“denouement”) and the winning Table Topics presentation.

Peter wins the award for best table topic response

Bea is inducted as the newest member of Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters!