FS Toastmasters

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.

     It was the first gathering for the new year: a great one, even if small in attendance.  Many members were currently under the weather or had even more severe health issues.  Melinda had laryngitis but did her best to lead us in the pledge of allegiance.  Here she embraces Don and Diane just as they had to leave for a pressing appointment.      What do you do when you are prompted to speak with no preparation?  Do you pivot or do you press on full steam ahead?  Do you let yourself be vulnerable?  Jeanne Resen, the leader of this meeting on table topics, advised to simply bear on with the truth.      Today's meeting had some deep truth-seeking, some flights of fancy, and some missed opportunities.  It all comes with the territory, especially when it is uncharted territory.        Participants drew some very challenging topics from a bag, spoke for one to two minutes with timekee...

Brad was our Toastmaster of the Day today as we found ourselves back in our normal meeting space. Thanks to our two guests for being with us today, Molly Garnett returning for a second time and Michael's guest Brianna.  The theme Brad chose was Finite and Infinite Games with a focus on Play, and the word of the day was "Misinformation", which was woven in by speakers throughout the meeting. Thanks to Brad for gifts of holiday eye glasses and candy as part of the meeting. After hearing a well-delivered joke about jokes from Ron, we heard from our first speaker of the day, Stanley. Stanley is working on his Evaluation and Feedback Project, and he gave a wonderful speech on the importance of gratitude including sharing his own personal transformation with learning how to incorporate it into his life. Our second speaker was Stan. His speech was titled "Some Dreams You Just Let Go For a Time". It was the Storytelling Advanced Manual s...

We had a slight change of pace at this week's meeting. Due to a craft fair that took place in the big auditorium we usually meet in, we had to relocate to a much more cozy living room style space which offered the group an entirely new setting to work on our public speaking. Amy led our meeting and chose "Keeping the Peace" as the theme which was reiterated in our word of the day "Diplomacy" and throughout our Table Topics. Susann was our Joke Master and shared a holiday themed joke about Martha Stewart preparing for Christmas. A signature part of Toastmasters is reciting a famous speech. Speaker 1 was Judy who masterfully memorized and delivered "The Jimmy V Never Give Up Speech", an inspiring speech on living with cancer. Don E was our second speaker, and he spoke on the subject of evolutionary psychology. It was a fascinating speech that included subtopics such as racism and cheating. The speech challenged the audience t...

President Judy Groff did a tag team as the Toastmaster with intense, "disastrous" transitions as her husband Don reinforced her theme with six solid table topics. These covered the gamut from California wildfires to school shootings to natural gas explosions to the elections. Hoyt as joke master gave an innovative way to have all the family there for Thanksgiving.  (You had to be there.) Margaret Davis gave "The ABC's of Maple Syrup."  Being from Vermont, she explained the content of presentations she and her husband give in the area to boost sales of her authentic maple syrup products from Vermont.  She exposed some of the imposter products that masquerade as Maple.  She demonstrated how up to two taps are put on the trees.  Margaret said the Sugar Maple may live and "work" for 300-400 years.  A tree of just 30-40 years was too young to tap.  She also showed some of the intensity or robust range in different bottles captured in the three mon...

Today was a big day for Four Seasons Toastmasters. In addition to a great meeting, our meeting was  video recorded  to be featured as part of an English curriculum for international students. We also did an outreach event at Pardee Hospital and had our monthly officers meeting (notes below, including information on the upcoming TLI conference for those interested). In honor of the election this week, Hoyt chose the theme "Waiting for Results" as meeting leader.  Michael and Sally were our featured speakers. Michael's Research Project from the Pathways program was about the Russian Adoption Program and his personal story of adoption. Sally gave the second half of her Evaulation and Feedback Integration Project and gave an improved version of her speech called "The Hero and the Peach", an entertaining account of her family history.  Stan brought a newspaper to the meeting and used some of current events to create speech prompts as Table Topic Ma...

Happy Halloween from Four Seasons Toastmasters!  Nathan led our meeting this morning and chose the topic Sugar, calling it the True Spirit of Halloween. Throughout the meeting, he shared memories of trick or treating as a child and gave the groups some facts and advice on sweet treats. Ron then introduced our Word of the Day, Nefarious, meaning wicked, and then shared his unique sense of humor with us by filling in as Joke master. We had two speakers today, Melinda and Amy. Melinda ran with the theme of the day and, with a sense of light-heartedness and nostalgia, shared some of her memories of being a kid at Halloween. She was later evaluated by Don Groff. Amy, our social media guru, then gave us an excellent overview of social media in her Mentoring Moment and encouraged our club to be more active on platforms such as Facebook as a way to keep the community informed of what Toastmasters is and what we're up to.  Our Table Topics, led by Karla, were also theme-...