Celebrate with Distinction!

Betty McCallister, Toastmaster, chose Celebrations as the theme of today’s meeting. She said we have good reason to celebrate because with all our new members this month, we now have enough members to qualify for the Distinguished Toastmaster Club Award. We had everything but enough members.

Betty introduced  two guests who slipped in. Peter is from Florida who we learned is visiting clubs on a trip as he pursues his Distinguished Toastmaster Award. Melissa English said she has moved here from Colorado where she was a member of a charter club. She is visiting around in search of a Toastmaster club and found us.

The Eyes and Ears team members were the following: Grammarian, Jeanne Resen; Word Master, Melinda Lowrance; Ah-Counter, Don Groff (and Amy Sahf shadowing); Timer, Stanley Yurth. Stanley had never even shadowed as timer, but he did a meticulous job. Hoyt Griffith had no “paucity” of jokes as Joke Master. Paucity was the word for the day meaning scarce or shortage.

Speaker #1 was Nathan Garnett doing a revised speech about the teacher strike last month. His goal was to make adjustments in that first speech given the feedback provided by the evaluations. He hooked us with his title, “Stop being Finicky, and start Being “Finn”icky. Finland had the education system he described as being the top in the world. Evaluator Carol said he accomplished his objectives especially with increased focus.

Speaker #2 was Ron Climer with his title, “The Job For Which You Did Not Apply”. He gave us the difficult back story about why he had to be absent for a couple months. Evaluator Jeanne gave a number of observations for Ron and the rest of his audience.  The extra job of evaluator was not one Jeanne had applied for, but, when the original evaluator had to cancel at the last minute, she stepped up.

Judy Groff did Table Topics around the theme of Celebrations. Amy Sahf, Melinda Lowrance, Michael Thompson, and Stan Coss all responded to various prompts about what, where, how and even why not enjoy celebrations. 

Don't forget Judy and Don's "Team-building-get-acquainted Party on June 23.  The gathering will be recorded for the club website at fourseasonstoastmasters.com, but it'd be far better to be there in person.

Don Groff is shadowed by Amy Sahf in his demanding job as ah counter.   If subordinating conjunctions like "so" and "and" are overused, they need clicking. Otherwise, you get run-on sentences, a no-no in spoken and written language.  Other filler words like ah, anyway, you know, uh, lip smacks, xeroxes and long pauses, may need clicking. Too much clicking may spawn even more filler words due to nerves.  Some pauses and some repetition are not to be clicked but applauded as effective techniques.   To learn all this, it helps to shadow.

Toastmaster Evaluators are to be gentle on new member speakers.  But when it comes to veteran speakers, the gloves are off.  One technique for delivering encouraging and helpful evaluations is to use the "sandwich" approach.  This means beginning with a glow or two, having a grow or two, then ending with a glow or two.