Good evening fellow Toastmasters!
Kudo’s go out to all the brave souls that fought the floods and rain to seek out growth, personal development and a great time amongst friends Tuesday night on October the 2nd! Here is the meeting recap:
Members in attendance Maureen Willett, Beth Pruchnic, Alex Trachishin, Stephen McGirr, Carl Lepack, and Andrew Watt
Guests in attendance Phil Gagnon and Ute Brinkmann
Our President Stephen McGirr banged the gavel at 6:30PM to start the meeting off, and immediately went into a 5 minute break to allow for last minute preparations while dried of a little from the torrential downpour and storms we had! Almost as thunderous as Stephen’s gavel bang! We then started the meeting with TWO new member certificates, one for Maureen Willett, and one ! for Beth Pruchinic. They also received freshly printed name tents, which can be just as valuable! Welcome to the club and enjoy your journey of growth and personal development! We also had a visitor, Phil Gagnon. To help familiarize ourselves with one another, we gave a brief introduction with our names, where we were from, and how much fun we had traveling to the meeting in the storms through flooded roadways and poor visibility. Welcome everyone!
Stephen McGirr then started the meeting off as the Toastmaster of the evening first calling upon Andrew Watt to give an impromptu invocation by reading the Toastmasters International Club Mission Statement printed on our agenda’s. “We provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills. Resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth.”
Stephen then led us through the agenda, first calling upon the functionaries to explain their roles. Countess Maureen Willett took on the role of Ah Counter in her first meeting as a member and Grand Duchess Beth Pruchnic tackled the grammarian role. Stephen! spoke to Maureen before the meeting and she used the name descriptions jokingly so Steve went with it and added them for flare! Alex Trachishin was our impeccable timer of the night. The word of the day was given by Beth Pruchnic, and was “Nocuous” meaning harmful. Also available to use was the antonym “innocuous” which means harmless.
Andrew Watt was our first speaker of the night with his “A different perspective on time.” Looking into the realm of astrology, Andrew shared with us his obvious passion on the subject with in depth knowledge of the planets, moon, and other celestial happenings. Andrew shared with us what ancient civilizations saw the passing of time as, and how depending on how many times you saw an event that happened once every 30 years, you could say how old (lucky?) you were. With the passing of time on a completely different level for celestial bodies, ! Andrew left us with a quote from Bill Gates stating “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and under estimate what they can do in ten years.” Ute Brinkmann was his evaluator and shared that the hand in pocket start to the speech limits his voice, as we all talk with our hands. At some points it seemed that Andrew liked speaking to the floor, but did do well for the most part speaking to us all in turn. Ute shared a gloves off evaluation intended for expert speakers, and Andrew was very much appreciative for Ute’s guidance! We all were!
Our second speaker of the night was Carl Lepack, speaking from the Competent Communicator Manual speech project, “Your Body Speaks”. Carl’s speech was titled “How to build and maintain motivation.” Carl shared with us that we should have the end in mind first when we are deciding our paths asking us “What do you want?” Be specific, and be intense about it! Wake up and spend every day living in the present moment, be aggressive and follow, listen to role models that are successful. Stephen McGirr was his speech evaluator. Carl had to leave early and we didn’t get to give his speech an evaluation in the meeting, but since I am writing thi! s now….you can hear some of it. Carl is definitely growing as a competent speaker quickly. He is aware of his previous evaluation suggestions and actively seeks to touch upon the fundamentals each speech project aims to help us improve at. Carl went further into the “U” than I have ever seen before from other speakers and STAYED THERE. I feel this could be a little overwhelming to the audience with the proximity at times, especially with the amount of energy Carl brings to his speeches, but a bold move and one that really showed confidence. Don’t forget that when we step that far in, some of the audience may be to your back. Excellent topic and well done.
Next on the list with the final project from level one of his Effective Coaching path, Stephen McGirr delivered a speech aimed at helping us improve our speech preparation research and resource sharing during the speech. Stephen spoke about the dangers of cave exploration and shared several resources from research teams on navigating blindfolded to the frequency of earthquakes. Alex Trachishin was his speech evaluator and it was Alex’s FIRST TIME evaluating! Alex shared what he liked about the speech and followed the pathways suggested format beautifully. Alex even shared suggestions for Steve to push himself by trying to really memorize the resources he was quoting from, givin! g a more seamless and smooth delivery to the speech. Fantastic Alex, way to jump in to one of the hardest roles of being a Toastmaster!!
Our final speaker of the night was Ute Brinkmann. Mute is working on her pathways level two assignment, “Communicating Styles”. Ute did some research and found that there are FOUR speaking styles on one website, FIVE on another, FOUR again on a third, SIX speaking styles on still yet another. There are many speaking styles and Ute is direct in hers! Ute is German, she tells it like it is, but maybe could use more sugar talk to sweeten her style! Andrew Watt was Ute’s speech evaluator and shared what a quality speaker she is. It is always a privilege to her Ute present!
We next had our Table Topics portion run by Andrew Watt! Andrew went back to touch upon the subject of his speech and the visuals that the human race has used to reference celestial bodies. In this fashion, Andrew shared the typical theme of certain bodies in our solar system, Moon, Venus, etc by their depictions. Stephen McGirr was first up. Andrew had Stephen visualize and woman, with a comb in one hand, a mirror in the other, and she was riding backwards on a bull! This sight made Stephen think that she must have been on a farm where her husband scared the cattle and one ran through the house while the wife was preparing to go out. Alex Trachishin had the pleasure of viewin! g a man on a throne with four wheels drawn by a cat and a goat! This made Alex think of Ford and his automobile as when it was first introduced maybe people didn’t quite understand its use or how it worked. There must have been some process before they realized what was better as they very well could have tried using goats and cats to pull them! Ute Brinkmann had a boat with a ripped sail, with a fisherman holding a net about to catch a big fish. This made Ute think about religion and the fisherman tales in the biblical stories. A star, Bethlehem, fisherman…not much into Astrology though! Our guest Phil Gagnon gave Table Topics a try and gave a go at a picture that had no takers earlier on in the Table Topics Session! A man, in a dome, sits at a desk, writing letters. Phil started off by sharing some of what his personality traits are as a Leo; he is a type A personality, aggressive, also into astronomy. Shared his first admiration with the night ! sky from the movie Star Wars in the 70’s. Phil would like to impart his love of the sky’s with his children, while checking out blue stars, red gas giants, and the moon.
When switched it over to the evaluations portion of the meeting which was led by expert General Evaluator Stephen McGirr.
Our next meeting is on October 16th! Can’t wait to do it all again! Thank you all for your participation, and we will see you soon!!
Steve
