Good afternoon fellow toastmasters!
The daylight is hanging around a little longer with each passing day, but we never let the sunset on our education at Cromwell Community Toastmasters! Tuesday March 19th was a fantastic meeting, here is the meeting recap:
Members in attendance Stephen McGirr, Tom Alvord, Winston Phillip, Andrew Watt, Kristyn Neal, Schuyler Diehm, Sheetal Patel, Maureen Willett, Beth Pruchnic
Guest in attendance Carmine DeYoung, Peter Wnek, Chloe Zanardi, Marcus Schumacher, Chris Scoppetta, and Daniel Proiette
Sheetal Patel dropped the gavel at 6:35 p.m. to start our meeting off, welcomed everyone to the meeting, and passed control to President Stephen McGirr, who went right into his business meeting topics. First item was to remind of dues that need to be paid. $51 is due this cycle, $45 for Toastmasters International and $6 for club dues. The second item mentioned was the upcoming Division B International and Tall Tales Speech contests, Saturday March 30th, at the Waterbury Town Hall from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.. Come and support our International speech winner at the Area 25 contest, Carl Lepack! It will be a! great meeting with great speech’s all around. Your officer team highly recommends the opportunity to be exposed to well-rounded speakers!
We had some guest introductions, with a 2nd time visit from Carmine DeYoung, a Distinguished Toastmaster still deciding on which club to join in the area. We share with her great meetings, jump in Carmine! Peter Wnek with his 2nd visit working on transferring his thoughts to words a little better. Great seeing you again Peter! Chris Scoppetta, first time visitor, who is the President of Cedar Hill Toastmasters. Chris was looking to give a speech at, and visit, a different club than his own. Well he came to Cromwell, and JOINED! Welcome to the club Chris!! 2nd time visitorChloe Zanardi, who is looking to brush up on her public speaking skills, an! d from her performance at the meeting, is going to be unstoppable in her journey! First time visitor Marcus Schumacher, was also visiting from another club, Eagles in Wallingford. Marcus was finally able to make a meeting, and states he will definitely be back! We also had the pleasure of Daniel Proiette joining us and making the meeting. Daniel wants to be around those that are also improving their skills and came to the right place! We look forward to growing with you Daniel!
Stephen McGirr then passed control of the meeting to our Toastmaster of the Night, Sheetal Patel. Sheetal wasted no time and got right to work, as we had a full speaking agenda, and proper timing is in the hands of the Toastmaster. Sheetal started with calling up Stephen McGirr with our invocation. It was a thought on vibration, and how everything in this world vibrates, including emotions. With the Law of Attracting where like attracts like, we should use the Law of Attraction, and getting into a positive state of emotions and excitement, and quietly focus that on everything ! we want that is good in this world. He states he feels he cheated to get what he wanted in his career, but the laughter from the audience makes him think they feel he worked for it…you decide!
Our next meeting objective, was to call on our functionary role holders to hear about their duties for the night. First up was composed guest Chloe Zanardi as the word of the day supplier. The word of the day was “potent” which means “having great power, influence, or effect”. It was used a solid half dozen times in different variations. The next role called upon was handled by Andrew Watt, as the Ah Counter. The purpose of this role is to observe and keep track of, all filler words used throughout the meeting and gives report at the en! d of the meeting when called upon by the general evaluator. Guest Carmine DeYoung DTM was next tapped as our Grammarian of the night. The grammarian takes note of correct or incorrect grammar usage, such as Carmine picking out “wanna” and “gonna”, as well as noting phrasing such as “need a little more feel better” and colorful use such as wiggling feet into the sand. The next role was held by Beth Pruchnic as our Timer for the night. The timer keeps track of speeches, Table Topics, and evaluations, and signals when certain time thresholds are met. The timer signals these time markers with colored cards, records the total time used, and reports at the end meeting.
Moving onto the prepared speakers, Stephen McGirr was our first with a speech from the advanced speaking manual “Speaking to Inform”. The speech titled “Pathways” from project #3 “The Demonstration Talk”, took a look at how members can access their education in the Pathways program. It was a power point presentation that took the members step by step through the process of selecting a path, starting their projects and printing out the evaluations for the meeting. Guest Marcus Schumacher was Steve’s speech evaluator and shared that it was a fitting project choice to share and the presentation method was very good. Possible additions were to smooth out the presentat! ion and time the slides as there was brief disconnects, and a handout also would have been valuable. But a very good speech with relevant information for the listeners.
Visiting Cedar Hill President Chris Scoppetta, was up next with project #8 from the Competent Communicator manual, Getting Comfortable with Visual Aids. His speech “Building a Better Beverage” took us through the process of making Kambucha, a homemade fermented tea full of living probiotics. A tea very good for the GI tract. Tastier than water, and more beneficial than any sports drink on the market. Andrew Watt was the speech evaluator and shared that there were some opportunities to add dramatization with the visuals, especially the growing live culture in Chris’s science experiment looking like drink, and taking a shot at drinking it in front of us as a perfectly safe to drink ! beverage. It was a very informative speech and a great topic for sharing visual aids!
Next on the agenda was Schuyler Diehm with a speech that was evaluated and will count towards an as yet undecided project! Get credit for ALL speeches you give in Toastmasters! Schuyler’s speech shared with us how to stop “Hitting the Snooze Button”. Want to get up on the first alarm? Want to start your day right and keep your energy at a high level when you wake up? How about thinking quickly on your feet w=once you get to them? This speech is what you need to hear! Chalk full of tips, background information, and supporting notes, even I remembered the speech the VERY first time my alarm went off the next day and I tried to hit snooze! Chris Scoppetta was Schuyler’s speech ! evaluator and shared that he absolutely crushed it! It was clear, direct, and relatable topic with supporting documents. Chris shared there was opportunity to use the room more and act out some parts to more effect (getting chased by a bear). A really good speech that I’m sure wasn’t the only one to remember the next morning…
Our final prepared speaker of the night, was Beth Pruchnic, who gave her very first Ice Breaker speech! Her speech shared with us so much about who she is and what she is all about. From her childhood picture on the beach, to her triathlon picture of her on the beach as a woman, and her future…on or near the beach! A competitive woman with goals and a strong background with many, many, MANY activities and interests, we are so glad to have a strong, positive, ambitious woman as part of our club as a friend and member! Stephen McGirr was her speech evaluator and presented her with her Ice Breaker candy award! Also he mentioned what a great ice breaker it was, sharing so much information about herself! and doing it with many Toastmaster cues entwined. She repeatedly used the rule of three, had great eye contact, and vocal tone, and was comfortable with her space. A tip for moving forward, is to not hold onto something with one hand the whole time so we can really experience your freedom of movement! Can’t wait for more!
We next had our Table Topics portion run by Tom Alvord! Tom explained that Table Topics is what we do every day in general conversation, just with and added time limit component. Tom had with him a set of general questions that enabled some excellent answers. First up was Marcus Schumacher with what you love about entering spring time. Marcus shared that he likes that things get better, less snow, more daylight. Not so much cold and freezing anymore. Spring is the opening for the rest of the seasons. Getting out into the day again, preparing for summer and the fall as well. Until we have to retreat back indoors again in the winter. Kristyn Neal shared with the members a favorite spring time activit! y. Kristyn likes to garden and test her skills, and apparently patience! As she states she doesn’t have a green thumb but a black thumb. Planting a garden and trying with seeds at first and if that doesn’t catch start with the little pre-started potted plants. One pesky task that seems to get in the way is the watering part…must remember to water! Winston Phillip was next up sharing about spring food. What types of food, do you associate with Spring? Hot dogs! How about barbeque? Spring is when we roll out the grills and start cooking outdoors. This led to a whole slew of thoughts in ice cream, chips, West Indian food and Spanish food, island food. Food is good! Chloe Zanardi next shared her view on what the changing of seasons means to her. Change of seasons, change of clothes! Switching out the closet of winter clothes, going through them, finding what she won’t wear anymore, what can go to goodwill. She’s not one to sell the c! lothes online, so giving them away works best. Change of seasons, change of thought and mood, and cleansing! Making new again from the winter.
We then switched it over to the evaluations portion of the meeting which was led by expert General Evaluator Andrew Watt! Andrew shared that we did a great job making an excellent meeting. The beginning was tough and started a little late, but that means for his section, he was right on time when he ended at 8:05! We also invited Tom Alvord up who will be filling roles for the next meeting at this meeting. That way we can all be prepared and understand our assignments for the next!
Our next meeting is on April 2nd! Can’t wait to do it all again with a full house of members and eager participants!! Thank you all for your participation, and we will see you soon!!
Steve
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