FS Toastmasters

Brad Deinst was Toastmaster for today’s meeting. He chose Unforgettable Mentors as the theme. After Sergeant at Arms, Don Groff called us to order, President Carol Walters welcomed everyone. We had a guest, Michael Thompson, a Lawyer with the Van Winkle Law Firm. Joke Master Hoyt Griffith told two really good jokes about mentors. Then Toastmaster Brad gave us some mentoring insights about who some famous people had as mentors.  The Eyes and Ears Team were Judy Groff, Ah counter; Jackie Branscum, Timer; Don Groff, Grammarian and Word Master. Stan Coss was Speaker 1 with “Chloe Goes Round and Round”. This was an inspirational speech about their daughter Chloe’s journey into, out of and back into their Foster home when she was an infant through about age two.  Brad gave another Mentoring Insight before introducing Nathan Garnett as Speaker 2. Nathan is working out of Pathways on a two part speech. This first one is the “rough draft” for the second speech. His ti...

Toastmasters prepare for the fun of the day, a TM meeting.  Jackie Branscum was Toastmaster and sent everyone the theme of “Fun” prior to the meeting. She assigned us to reflect on fun things we did as children and do now as adults. She used this theme effectively throughout the meeting. Don Groff, Sergeant at Arms opened the meeting with the pledges. President Carol Walters wasted no time introducing Toastmaster Jackie. The evaluation team were: Timer, Don Groff; Ah Counter, Hoyt Griffith, Grammarian, Stan Coss, with "delightful" as word of the day. Don Groff also served as Joke Master, getting the group warmed up. Sally Jones spoke from the High Performance Leadership Manual doing a project that will help her achieve the Competent Silver Award. She spoke about “Sowing Seeds” which is an outreach mission project she adopted after researching a need for collecting used church literature to send to needy countries around the world. Betty McCallister did a Mentorin...

This blog will provide a brief glimpse of the top three speakers  chosen in the International Speech Contest at North Carolina's Toastmaster Conference on May 5, 2018. First-place Winner Kevin Johnson was not a paid professional speaker.  He was trained to give counseling to those with a troubled past like himself.  He opened in wearing a boxing glove and called audience members "fellow combatants."   He told of having a learning disability in reading, being put in a special class, having others handing out insults, and of his being bullied.  He'd gone to drugs and alcohol to alleviate the pain, been taught by a friend to go sober, taken up boxing, and gone two rounds with a four-time toughman contest-winner.  Hiding behind his two gloves had defined his whole life of being guarded and being beaten.  Then in a defining moment he dropped his guard to try to risk everything to deliver a haymaker in the third round.  It'd caused the champion t...

We were called the Four Seasons Votemasters by Nathan Garnett as he took charge as Toastmaster of the May 2nd meeting.  Taking on the theme of elections, he told us a bit of his campaign strategy as he ran in the fall elections in Mills River.  He said he ran a $35 campaign in his bid to make personal contacts and not spending money his priority.  Probity was Hoyt Griffith's  word of the day, a word meaning integrity, a high moral standard.  Hoyt was also grammarian, Don Groff was ah-counter, and Don Glovan was timer. Carol Walters was the first speaker, optimizing on her project from the Entertaining Speech manual with interesting stories submitted by other Delta Kappa Gamma members.  These included an escape by baby snakes in the classroom and kindergartener questions about pregnancy and death. Melinda Lowrance gave her speech as a revised version of her last speech that highlighted quotes from Sojourner Truth.  In Pathways the assignment is to g...

A veteran and a newbie were featured speakers for the meeting. Sally Jones, Toastmaster, chose to use “April Showers Bring May Flowers” as the theme of the meeting. After an opening thought by Don Groff, Sergeant at Arms, and Pledge of Allegiance, President Carol Walters introduced VP Membership, Betty McCallister to induct our newest member, Jeanne Resen. Hoyt Griffith told a very funny joke as Jokester on salt water from the beach. The evaluation team members were the following: Grammarian, Karla Reese; Word Master, Don Groff; Timer, Don Groff; Ah Counter, Melinda Lowrance. Word of the Day was “Itinerant” which means traveling from place to place, like migrant workers. Speaker #1 was Nathan Garnett doing his second speech from Pathways. His project was to research a topic and prepare a speech accordingly. He chose insurance and gave us the knowledge he collected very creatively using a poem he wrote. He covered the history and reasons why insurance will be around a long, lon...

    There were clearly three stand-outs in today's meeting for which Carol Walters was Toastmaster:  Dr. Stan Dienst visiting the club he'd been a past member of for more than 10 years; Melinda Lowrance giving her speech on "Women and their Rights; Karla Reese's mastering some very interesting table topics.       Melinda gave a spirited delivery that included some choice words and a mini-speech by Sojourner Truth from 1851.  One memorable Truth was a rebuff of a man of the era saying  women can't have as many rights as men, because Christ wasn't a woman: "Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with it ."      Ron Climer eagerly did the ah-counting, Sally did the grammarian report of all the descriptive language, and Nathan Garnett did the timing.  Betty gave us some mentoring on how we might raise our family count to more than the current 14 members.  Ron did an evaluation for Meli...

      We were short on members today as several were out of town, but we were big on Toastmasters as we TM Jackie assisting TM Melinda.  The Saturday prior we'd had 10 members participate as speakers, role-takers, or audience members at the area contest at Habitat for Humanity in Asheville.  (More details are at    fourseasonstoastmasters.com   .)      "Bliss" was the word of the day described in a triad by word master Carol.  The triad is, of course, a set of three details that amplify a meaning in a momentous, pleasing way.  Co-Toastmaster Melinda Lowrance transitioned from Carol to say it was blissful to be in a meeting of Toastmasters.        Jackie Branscum presented the joke in a first class sort of way.  Ron Climer's speech resounded with laughs, as it was titled "Put some Humor in your Presentations."  Two tips Ron gave were that you can always make fun of yourself and you can always...