Good evening fellow Toastmasters. Here is a mid-way snack between meetings to keep you satisfied!
What a fabulous meeting we had on Tuesday April 2nd! Here is the meeting recap:
Members in attendance Stephen McGirr, Tom Alvord, Winston Phillip, Andrew Watt, Kristyn Neal, Schuyler Diehm, Sheetal Patel, Beth Pruchnic, Peter Wnek, Rob Dalo, Chris Scoppetta
Guest in attendance Carmine DeYoung, Marcus Schumacher, Becca Bard, and Douglas Bray
Stephen McGirr dropped the gavel at 6:30 p.m. to start our meeting off, dispensed pleasantries and housekeeping items, and passed control to President Stephen McGirr, who went right into his business meeting topics. The first item on the list was to speak about the upcoming year and the opportunities that lie ahead. If you want to continue building momentum in the areas of communications and leadership, take the next step in personal development and become a club officer! All club officer roles have transferable skills. Never stop learning, never stop expanding your skills, and never settle for good enough! Kee! p pushing out of your comfort zone, as Toastmaster is the perfect place to help you grow!
We had some guest introductions, with a 3nd time visit from Carmine DeYoung, a Distinguished Toastmaster still deciding on which club to join in the area. Still?!? We welcomed back Douglas Bray and his fiancée Becca Bard. Douglas had stopped by a couple months back and returned now that his schedule has opened up! So glad you could make the meeting and share it with Becca! Second time visitor Markus Schumacher was also in attendance, and came back as he really enjoyed the last visit!
Stephen McGirr then passed control of the meeting to our Toastmaster of the Night, Andrew Watt. Andrew shared that Toastmasters is a great place for us to develop our self-confidence and personal growth. He led us through a reading of the clubs mission statement, and expanded to add that what we do in the club setting is learn to lead and we learn to empower. Toastmasters is a great place to practice the skills that make for more successes in the business world!
Our next meeting objective, was to call on our functionary role holders to hear about their duties for the night. First up was Stephen McGirr as the word of the day supplier. The word of the day was “thwart” which means “to frustrate or prevent”. It was used a solid half dozen times throughout the night. The next role called upon was handled by Peter Wnek, 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 end of the meeting when called upon b! y the general evaluator. As Peters first time learning the role, he felt it was tough, but MUST be done to improve. Excellent mindset Peter! Double duty was given to Stephen McGirr as our Grammarian of the night. The grammarian takes note of correct or incorrect grammar usage, such as “public speeching” when it should have been “public speaking” or stating “the phone call I got” which would sound better as “the phone call I received”. The next role was held by Carmine DeYoung DTM 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, Beth Pruchnic was our first her second speech out of Level 1 in Pathways titled “Sales Shape” (it sounds the better of the two…).Her goal was to train a sales force on how to be better at sales. Beth really jumped into it by getting all the members to stand and asked how many burpees we could do. Knowing that the process in getting to 100 burpees takes some time, getting good at sales is also something that doesn’t happen overnight, but will get better with 10 simple pieces of advice! Picking some of the ten tips, Beth spoke about getting in early work to mentally prepare yourself for the day, and that being on time, is actually LATE. Additionally, the ! power of networking can turn up sales leads wherever you go, so keep your eyes open! Rob Dalo was Beth’s speech evaluator and shared that it was a great idea to use Toastmasters as a way to prepare for her business training. Feedback ranged from being exceptional in her ability to engage with the audience, and that there is no need to ever apologize when you start to speak!
Schuyler Diehm, was up next with the project “Persuade with Power” from the Competent Communicator manual. His speech “Gratitude” shared that when you lead with the emotion of gratitude, it wipes out all other emotions. Our brains can’t take in everything we see, so the Reticular Activating System, or RAS, can be trained to seek out what is most important to us. When we learn gratitude, and focusing on the good things in life, training ourselves to be more positive, life becomes better. It is not that anything changes around us, but that we have decided what to! focus on. To cultivate gratitude, think of three things every day to be thankful for. Something really big, something small, and an experience. Andrew Watt was the speech evaluator and shared that Schuyler has come a long way! He is getting to the point where he commands a room, and is loud and clear. Sharing Schuyler’s message, if you adapt, great things happen. Andrew noticed the asymmetrical and symmetrical movements he used and suggested maybe next time to add another level by maybe adding in a little spiritualism to the subject.
Next on the agenda was guest Markus Schumacher with project #5 your body speaks, titled “I am on fire”, which the audience learned was not meant literally! We should all be excited about something in life, and for Markus, he has been really excited for the last two weeks knowing he would be going to the Kennedy Space Center to watch the Falcon X Heavy rocket launch over the weekend! He shared a variety of movements with tension building to the launch, the flight to Florida, relaxing on the beach and setting up his camera. The few minutes before the launch will be especially palpable with the expected crowd with him to witness the launch. Tom Alvord was Markus’s speech evaluator and he sh! ared that he really drew us in with a great topic. The Kennedy Space Center was a great choice to use for the body language especially describing large and small rockets and the very clear and interesting way Markus crafted the story. As with most body language speeches, Tom suggested that there were opportunities to do more, but a very well done speech nonetheless!
We next had our Table Topics portion run by Kristyn Neal! Kristyn shared that the theme for the night was to pick up a penny, dime, nickel, or quarter, and read off the date stamped into it. Whatever the year is that you pick, describe anything you wish from that year of your life! It was an excellent topic and will surely be used again! First up was Rob Dalo with a coin dated 2002. It was the year Rob and his wife had their third and final daughter. After he had the back-up for his first daughter turn out to be such a blessing, his wife and he decided to have a back-up for the back-up! A great first start to the speakers! Next was Winston Phillip who picked up a coin with 2001 stamped into it. He ! states it was the year he graduated from high school, and he used to walk around with a large boom box. Winston brought it on the bus and played rap and reggae music. It was well received. He also played a tennis match with Venus Williams! He didn’t win…maybe next time Winston! Chris Scoppetta pulled a coin with 1999 on it. He shared his story with being in high school and in 7th grade. He wasn’t to enthusiastic as he was the same height he is now, back then! He was picked on for his size and bullied by shorter kids. He shared a story about having his drink tampered with and it was a red sports drink that when spilled all over looked like…well, you had to be there! Chris turned into a barbarian that day in the classroom, but seems to be docile enough now! Tom Alvord pulled the last coin of the day with one from 1957. Tom hails from a small town in Minnesota, and that year graduated from the 8th grade in a catholi! c school. It was at this time that he walked around in a fog because of an unknown sensitivity to processed foods. He received mostly D’s and F’s but luckily moved to a new town where everyone didn’t know how bad he was. He settled in with the choir because he sang well, and made new friends, that were none the wiser about how bad he was in his old town!
We then switched it over to the evaluations portion of the meeting which was led by expert General Evaluator Sheetal Patel! Sheetal shared that the room set-up was very nice being in a different orientation than normal, being on time in the before the meeting is invaluable to the toastmaster, and we should never apologize at any point when we are up taking center stage during the meeting. She then invited Tom Alvord who filled roles for the next meeting. That way we can all be prepared and understand our assignments!
Our next meeting is on April 16th! 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!!
