Habits and Routines

Our meeting today, despite it's theme of Habits and Routines, was anything but habitual and routine. We debuted a new Toastmaster of the Day and heard about cute, furry animals doing hard drugs.  Amy led our meeting for the first time, sprinkling facts, anecdotes, and inspiration about habits throughout the meeting. 

Don 2 shared a joke about a rabbit, a giraffe, heroin, and cocaine. There's nothing like a great premise to hook an audience.

Judy was our first speaker and gave her Ice Breaker speech for Pathways. She focused on why she got into Toastmasters, what she's gotten out of Toastmasters over the last 5 years, and shared that there are still things she'd like to gain such as improving her storytelling and humor skills. It goes to show there are always areas to improve.

Don 1 was our second speaker, and he gave his revised version of his Summer Jobs speech as part of his Evaluation and Feedback Project. Don focused on 3 jobs in particular: being a farm hand, helping to build I-26, and giving tennis lessons, and ended with the message of how important the experience of summer jobs can be for a person.

Both speakers had a lot of enthusiasm and even appeared to have great chemistry with one another. After a brief survey after the meeting, the group was unanimous that the two of them would make a great couple.

Stan kept the theme of the meeting during Table Topics where he gave the following prompts for off the cuff speeches:

1) What habit do you wish you would have developed earlier in life?

2) In your opinion, what is the worst filler word?

3) What role would you like to take on in our upcoming speech contest?

Jeanne and Nathan were our speech evaluators. Jeanne highlighted the fact that Judy is a good storyteller despite what she said. Nathan focused on Don's enthusiasm and character descriptions but also encouraged him to look more closely at the project objectives which were to revise a speech rather than give a continuation speech. 

We then heard reports from our Grammarian, Betty, our Ah Counter, Stanley, our Wordmaster, Michael (Word of the Day was "Rote" which means repetitive), and our Timer Don E. who instead of giving us all the individual speech times reported that we were all within our respected time allotment.

Lastly, Karen gave us her general evaluation of the meeting with some very keen insights. Three grows she suggested were to make it a point to address the audience better with our speeches, to properly give the stage to the person speaking by leaving the stage area, and to work on finishing our words that end with "G".

Don't forget about our upcomin' humorous speech contest. If you're plannin' on goin' or participatin' or bringin' a guest, it's goin' to be on Saturday, October 6th. 

Those in attendance were the following: Stan, Jeanne, Sally, Judy, Don 1, Amy, Hoyt, Don 2, Betty, Don E, Stanley, Karla, Karen, Melinda, Michael, and Nathan.

You can check out the weekend social at the home of Sally and Jim Jones  at   http://fourseasonstoastmasters.com/miscellaneous/celebrations/

        Melinda draws a name for a prize for those who paid their dues on time.

 Judy talks about not needing the lectern as a crutch thanks to Toastmasters.

 Don cleverly buying himself time during his Table Topic by distracting Stan and the audience.

 Table Topic Master, Stan, dresses in "formal" attire.