Toastmaster Elliot introduced the meeting with a round of home baked cookies and fun facts about cookies. Traci presented her speech titled ” Conditioned to flourish”, a reminder that life is short and should be enjoyed fully everyday. ” Dance in the playground of life, cultivate your playground ” she exorted. Belle presented ” Thinking about cookies”, memories of their grandmother’s love for her family. ” Love is newspaper clippings, super bad chicken, tight hugs, smiles” all dispensed generously in a lifetime.

Bill led the group in a round of cookie inspired table topics.

The word of the day was ” Rizz”.
Our next and final meeting of 2023 is Saturday, December 16th.

Happy holidays Sunrisers! May your holidays be rich, sweet, soft and crunchy!

With only one month left this year, how about taking a quick look at 2023 in preparation for new year’s resolutions? For Paula, the Toastmaster of the day, 2023 was about growth over fear, when she tried things that previously scared her such as, competing in the international speech contest or swimming in the large bodies of water. 2023 was also about the pursuit of happiness in the most simple things, such as live music, silent disco, paddle boarding.

The word of the day was ” mirth” meaning amusement or joy.
Elliot presented” My first work mentor: a warm welcome”. He shared the lessons learnt from his mentor at work which stay with him to this day.

Cris presented ” Active listening for the win!” a two part speech where the second, longer part is an exercise on active listening. In this case, Cris used table topics to demonstrate her active listening skills.

Table topics touched on new skills acquired this year, bad habits about to be quit, a Losers’ Ball at new year for all those without a plan( now, that’s something to plan for!) and a funny question: Do mosquito scientists like mosquitoes?

2023 was a year of growth and new adventures and it’s not over yet!

Our next meeting is December 9th.

Ice breakers and toastmaster moments

Have you ever found yourself enjoying a public presentation when in the past, you would have done everything to avoid it? That is an example of a toastmaster moment.

Practice makes perfect. If you have been a member of a toastmaster club for a while, you are bound to improve your public speaking skills and overcome your fears of public speaking in time. Your toastmaster moments are in the making.

Toastmaster Bill chose the topic of toastmaster moments to reflect on his journey from being paralyzed by panic attacks at the thought of public speaking to someone who slowing learned to find his own smile and his own voice to share his story of survival.

This led to reflections on ice breakers, these dreaded exercises that are so important for team building. Belle presented “Ice breakers: an analysis.

Our guest Jon shared a lively power point presentation of his recent trip to Japan. I do not recall the title but it should have been ” Japan: a most fantastic destination.”

Traci led a lively round of table topics.

The word of the day was ” maelstrom”

Icebreakers initiate the breaking of the ice by forcing connections. Every time we meet, we break the ice and share our stories. In so doing, we seek and find our voices and conjure our past experiences from the dark corners of our past, to be brought to broad daylight where they may flourish or fade away.

We come together to find our voices, to tell our stories to the world.

Our next meeting is November 18th.