Always Prepared

John Glover breathed a deep sigh of relief after NAILING his Ice Breaker speech.  "Always Prepared" was the theme of today's meeting. Amy Sahf had her debut as Co-Toastmaster and led our meeting alongside Karen Alexander. 

Brad gave our meeting a humorous start with a joke about a frog, a fortune teller, and a most unfortunate realization for the frog that his future would involve a biology class, a student princess, and a scalpel. 

We had two Ice Breaker speeches. The first was from John who spoke on his work life as a financial advisor, his home life as a dog lover and easy commuter, his athletic life as a triathlete, and what he hopes to gain in his new Toastmaster life. Stan was our second speaker and gave his Ice Breaker speech as part of the Pathways program - 4 and a half years after his first Ice Breaker speech. He spoke on his love of art, drawing, and public speaking and about his upcoming project which will be teaching a public speaking course at a community college and, as he said with bewilderment, getting paid for it!

The table topics, led by Stanley, were unique and challenging. They involved learning life lessons the hard way, such as what you would do if you had five years to live, and whether it's better to fail or never try. Our participants were Margaret, Sally, Michael, Judy, and Melinda.

Nathan evaluated John's speech which included feedback on eye contact, using notes, and using dynamics. Ron evaluated Stan's speech with grows, glows, and seemed to invent a new word to describe Stan: "He has a certain 'relax-ed-ness' about him."  Brad Dienst, one of our resident wordsmiths, confirmed during the evaluation that it is indeed a word.  (It's British but rarely used.)

Our eyes and ears team was as follows: Word Master - Don Glovan, Ah Counter - Don Emon, Timer- Hoyt Griffith, and Grammarian - Don Groff.  Our General Evaluator/Table Topic Evaluator was filled in by Judy Groff.   The Word of the Day was "circuitous" which means winding or meandering. 

Always prepared?  That's as much a Toastmaster term as one for boy scouts.  Lead Toastmaster Karen had to have blood work done at 7:00 AM, and Sally Jones filled in by creating and printing the agenda.

These members were in attendance: Don 1, Don 2, Don E., Stan, Stanley, Melinda, Judy, Stanley, Ron, Nathan, Sally, Michael, Margaret, Betty, Amy, John, Hoyt, Melissa

Michael pledged to find world peace all by himself.

There is nothing circuitous about the path Four Seasons is taking in pairing and mentoring new members 

with the help of seasoned veterans.  Karen is not only a DTM but a past district (statewide) director.

Stan speaks about exploiting the grows of his fellow Toastmasters for his own personal gain

 (and that of 45 students at BRCC).  As for preparedness, Stan said, "I should have checked out my new pointer at Lake Pointe and asked to go first with the Power Point rather than move the table out of the way."  That's a BIG grow.