We are making a transition with the officer that is to act as the interim secretary. In lieu of minutes, here's the agenda. The only addition is that Ron Climer filled in as the grammarian.
The Fall 2020 Speech Contest was special. Our two FSTM contestants, Jeanne Resen in Humor and Karen Alexander in Evaluation, represented us very well. Jeanne is a humorist extraordinaire. She'd set the bar high back in the late summer with her stage shenanigans in a Pathways speech. She'd incorporated feedback and came back with an even more entertaining speech. Jeanne continued to refine and never gave a revision by rote; it always seemed fresh and aglow with new ways to engage laughter. Her main two stories were wonderfully told. Her opening, too, was inviting and funny. Her ending was easily the most dramatic and laugh-inducing of any I've ever seen (and I've seen lots of humorous contest speeches over the past seven years). One difficulty with Zoom is that there is no laugh meter for the audience. A judge cannot truly measure the speech's fullest rating in two important areas: audience response and effectiveness....
Toastmaster Brad Dienst gave interesting insights and interludes into longevity, and Word Master Susann Swan supported the theme with "venerable." Joke Master Betty McCallister incited laughter with a teenage son whose father with the wisdom of Solomon withheld driving privileges: if Jesus and others of his time had long hair, that did not mean the teen could forego cutting his hair and still get a car to drive. Jesus and others also did not have motorized vehicles. Speaker Stan Coss converted his back pocket speech before another club two weeks ago into a Pathways project that emphasized body movement. His title was "These Black Lives, especially, Mattered." He explained how three people gave lessons in a life that mattered. Truth be told, the slide used above, along with the mule, was much smaller than Stan recalls. The mule at times had to pull a rubber-tired wagon loaded with green tobacco leaves, not just thr...
Toastmaster Karen Alexander chose cookies as the theme, in part, she said, because it was National Peanut Butter Cookie Day. It probably was also a relief and comfort from all the recent news. Joke master Stan Coss gave a journal of some jokes on the pandemic, he said, to try to get back the power. Don Groff had previously spoken in tribute to a role model in George Wingfield, and today Don spoke of the personal influence of another Reidsville legend, Leo Rentz. Don said he'd proudly worn his little league jersey with Rentz Oil and Mickey Mantle's number seven on the back. Mr. Rentz had become a wealthy man with his resourcefulness in putting out wildcat fires with dynamite. Don had first met him at a Rotary Club luncheon when Rentz had presented Don with an award for being an outstanding student athlete and citizen. In 1970 Don had accepted a job to learn the oil business for a year before he decided to...
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