Bellicose Content but Benevolent Delivery

Sally Jones led our meeting from the lectern as Co-Toastmasters of the day.  Stanley Yurth was Co-Toastmaster from his seat but led in revolutionary fashion by creating a special template for the agenda.  He made this available to all members in Google Docs.

Our Eyes and Ears team were as follows: Melinda Lowrance as Ah Counter, Brad Dienst as Grammarian, Don Groff as Timer, and Ron Climer as Word Master. Sally and Stanley included the descriptions of their roles on the agenda which was helpful for our guests. Our guests included Bernie Fox, Beth Cohen, Diane Emon, and Julia. 

Ron introduced our Word of the Day, bellicose, which he defined as an adjective that means demonstrating aggression. "Bellicose" was used abundantly throughout the meeting. He filled in as joke master to kick off our meeting with an impromptu joke about St. Peter and The Pearly Gates.

We had two speakers today. Our first speaker was Melissa English who's project was called How to Say It from the CC Manual. Melissa spoke in depth about personal health and the overall health crisis in our country. She talked about her personal health transformation, her experience as a health coach, her philosophy on food, and left us with some good ideas on little things we can do to help ourselves and the food industry including letting our voices be heard to our local grocers. Melissa was later evaluated by Judy Groff.  

Our second speaker was Don Emon. Don's speech, "A Magical Machine," was a project called Speaking to Inform from the Advanced Manual. Don informed us about the in's and out's of Nuclear Breeder Reactors, specifically how they can benefit society by producing more material than they consume and therefore extend fuel supply. Hopefully everyone was paying attention, because there will be a quiz next week on the difference between Uranium 235 and Uranium 238.  He ended with an original poem and was later evaluated by Stan Coss.

Our Table Topics were handled by Betty McCallister who kept us on our toes with a dizzying array of questions that ranged from "What are your personal seven wonders of the world?" to "Would you rather meet your great great grandchildren or your great great grandparents?" We had six members participate in these 1-2 minute impromptu speeches: Nathan Garnett, Stanley Yurth, Karen Alexander, Amy Sahf, Melinda Lowrance, and Ron Climer.

After our speech evaluations and Eyes and Ears Team reports, we heard from Michael Thompson in the role of General Evaluator where he gave us his evaluation of the meeting as a whole including what we excelled at and what we might consider working on for future meetings.

Thanks again to our four guests who came to visit, and we hope you come back!

Members present:  Amy Sahf, Betty McCallister, Brad Dienst, Carol Walters, Don Groff, Don Emon, Hoyt Griffith, Judy Groff, Karen Alexander, Melinda Lowrance, Melissa English, Michael Thompson, Nathan Garnett, Ron Climer, Sally Jones, Stan Coss, Stanley Yurth

Melissa English disappoints fellow Toastmasters by reminding them the sugary foods they crave most are actually poisoning them.