Our Toastmaster, Ahmad, introduced the theme of the day “Self-care.” Self-care is so many things: going on vacation or simply enjoying a fresh cup of coffee. A good place to find it is by asking yourself, “what makes you happy?”

President Moises’s quote of the day was “A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” The word of the day, presented by Grammarian Paula was “Edify.”

Our Self-care theme was woven throughout the three speeches.

Moises took us on a relaxing and heartfelt journey to his hometown, reenacting a visit from which he recently returned. He reminisced about a creative game that he played with his cousins as a youngster. He told us about a project his family was currently working on, and he showed a picture of an artist handcrafting a hammock, which he purchased on this trip. In addition to the beautiful scenes that flashed before our mind’s eye with his words, he also displayed several pictures inviting us into the journey. It felt like I was in a passenger seat next to him.

Isabella edified us with her icebreaker speech for her next Pathway, Team Collaboration. She shared her personal story of how Toastmasters prepares her to be more effective at work. At work there are many meetings, discussions, and presentations. Isabella believes that continuing with Toastmasters allows her to practice skills required for work. She linked 3 roles from Toastmasters to those required skills. Continuously studying and practicing with Toastmasters prepares her to make a greater impact at work. I absolutely agree with Isabella. This was a refreshing speech reminding us of the benefits of Toastmasters. Part of self-care is being prepared. Regularly showing up for Toastmasters helps us to do just that.

Ketan charmed us with his fun icebreaker speech. Out of the gate he hooked us with a question. Can we care for our soul by keeping it simple? KISS. The Keep It Simple Stupid principle states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated. Ketan shared his story of growing up, and how he chose his career, by KISS. He listened and humbly accepted the wise Jedi force from his father to Keep It Simple Stupid. He now has the opportunity to use those Jedi mind tricks on his son. For Ketan’s mental wellbeing he practices keeping things simple. It was such a delight to hear this fun, personal and well delivered speech from Ketan. I’m inspired to design my systems with simplicity in mind.

Our Table Topic’s Master, Steven, gave us one brief to discuss different aspects of self-care, such as financial, nutritional, and more. The brief: Covid is going to get worse and will continue to be bad until 2024. How will you practice self-care during these tumultuous times?

This meeting was self-care for me. It was relaxing, fun, entertaining, educational, creative, inspirational, endearing, edgy for a moment, enjoyed with friends and made me happy.

Keep sharpening your sword with Toastmasters!

Our next meeting is August 14th

Did you know that the average person spends about 58 minutes of the day eating? About 4 years in life consuming food!

For this second meeting of the fiscal year 2021-22, first time Toastmaster Jamie chose the topic of Good Eats.

Sergeant at Arms Bill Scott wasn’t present in this meeting, that’s why impromptu Sergeant at Arms, and past Sergeant at Arms, Judy Tandog shared with us zoom etiquette rules. Quote of the day was:

Be strong, you never know who you are inspiring.

Toastmaster of the day continued with the menu du jour: 

Appetizer of the Grammarian and Timer giving their introductions
Main course serving of three delicious and delectable speeches with a side of table topics, served family style.
Dessert of evaluations and a 
Nightcap of summary reports.

Word of the day, presented by Toastmaster of the day was:

gourmandize
meaning  to eat good food, especially to excess.

Unfortunately Grammarian was not able to join, impromptu Grammarian  for this meeting was Berni, Traci was in charge of timing speakers, impromptu speeches and evaluators.

Our three speakers for the day were:

Saurabh presenting his ice breaker “Connecting the dots.”, a speech with a chronological structure and a great title that blended perfectly with the closing quote from Steve Jobs: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards”.

Jinendra presenting his ice breaker “The secret ingredient.” An interesting speech using remarks from popular animated martial art movie Kung-Fu Panda, with great use of humor and imagery like “unscrew your way out of jail”.

Lara presenting “What do you want to be next?” from engaging humor pathway, which was very animated and entertaining. A great example on how to deliver a fun speech with vocal variety and hand gestures from different professions like archeology, architecture and from spider-man.

Table topics master of the day Judy presented food related questions:

A childhood dish. What’s a favorite dish that you had growing up that you can think of that resonated with you in your childhood.

Your late night or 5 o’clock after work racooning, defined as going into the pantry and start digging for any snack that you can find, when you just want to eat something and you don’t know what it is.

Popular proverb says: Show me what you eat and I’ll show you who you are.

Come join us for delicious speeches and evaluations for dessert here at Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters!

Our next meeting is July 31st.

” Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things ”

For this meeting which I hosted as the Toastmaster, I chose this song and this topic today, to remind us of the crucial importance of collecting “Favorite things” to lift oneself and others on darker days when “the dog bites and the bees sting”.

I was ably assisted by WeiHu, Timekeeper and Jinendra, Grammarian. The word of the Day was ” Exhilarate”.

Three speakers shared their favorite things:

In ” My Top Three Favorite Things”, Ahmad related his love story with caffeine, mathematics and comedy. His first love started as a child and grew with his aptitude solving quadratic equations, which led to him landing in Seattle for higher studies( much higher, a PhD) and coming to the realization that comedy was joy; all of it: sit-coms, improv and now, stand-up. Quoteworthy quote: ” It’s a terrible year of my life, why not do stand up comedy?” Why not indeed? Makes total sense

In “Teachers, Toastmasters and Communication” Sarah shared her findings , from Toastmasters, about her communication style. She aptly illustrated her findings with concrete examples of supportive and initiative communication. Supportive communication: thank you notes to parents when their students did something good. Initiative communication: why dressing up as Joseph Mc Carthy -and staying in character- the whole day to enliven her US history lesson. Sarah is a dedicated educator, full of ideas and passion for her students. They are so lucky to have her. Quoteworthy quote: ‘ Be yourself, everyone is bad at being someone else”. Makes total sense.

In” Caffeine”, Jong explained the negative and positive effects of caffeine. It was hard for us, at Seattle Sunrise, to even hear of the negative effects of such a vital elixir, but we tried to keep an open mind as we listened. An excess of caffeine will dehydrate, cause sleep deprivation, among other ills. However, consumed in moderate amounts( up to three cups a day), caffeine will awaken, increase your attention span and help you through odious and boring chores. Caffeine also has anti-oxidants and, wait for it, apparently, also reduces your chances of contracting Covid by 10%!

Quotable quote by Ketan ( evaluating Jong): ” I shut my ears during the first part, so I know nothing about the adverse effects of caffeine”. My feeling exactly!

Isabella led a simple and fun round of table topics about ” Your favorite thing”. Weihu was voted best Table Topic and Lara and Traci tied for best Evaluation.

What are your favorite things? What makes you happy? Try to spend most of your life collecting your favorite things, these moments of happiness; like fireflies in a jar. May these fireflies brighten your way on darker days.

Our next meeting is July 24th.

For this first meeting of the fiscal year 2021-22, Toastmaster Sarah chose the topic of american history.

Sargent at Arms Bill Scott reminded us of zoom etiquette rules and provided weather forecast in the cities where members are joining from.

Toastmaster of the day continued with the story of Ralph Smedley and the beginning of Toastmasters as an organization.

Word of the day, presented by Grammarian Paula was athwart, meaning “in opposition to”.

Unfortunately Timer was not able to join, impromptu Timer for this meeting was Moises, who used zoom backgrounds to show green-yellow-red transitions.

Our two speakers for the day were:

Steven presenting “So, you want to add a bathroom?”, a speech about a well researched home renovation project, that included a tour to the bathroom-to-be with a spectacular view thru its floor to the bathroom downstairs. 

Moises presenting “Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters, the podcast.” An interest case to persuade our club to share recordings of meetings on audio streaming platforms.

Table topics master of the day Jamie presented history quizzes and reminded us that in this occasion table topics were not recyclable. Was Abe Lincoln a wrestling champion??

In this meeting we learned about the history of Toastmasters, and that some great stories are not found in history books, we can listen to them in speeches!

Our next meeting is July 17th.