Starbucks was the theme and the Toastmaster started with setting the scene. Paula had a coffee house virtual background, starting her facilitation before the start of the meeting, with agenda distribution, starting social conversations, and priming the early morning audience for another Saturday regular meeting. Everyone adjusting to the new normal of meeting online instead of in person. Despite the limitation of meeting online, Paula brought us together and led our imagination as if we were all together at a coffee house.

Bill, former president of the club, had an 3 minutes to share an educational moment at the beginning of the meeting, using a power point slide. This educational moment section in the Zoom agenda is new, allowing officers of the club, opportunities to speak in the meeting.

Jimmy was the toastmaster for the table topics, which is the impromptu speaking section of the meeting. There were four participants, Steven, Lara, Jovica, and Bill volunteered for an improvisational scenario speech.

Our one speaker was Sam, who gave her second presentation at the club. Titled “The Cold Killer”, Sam had illuminated a light under her chin and starting telling a story of a serial killer, who hid his victim’s bodies in the snow. As part of the Advance Communication serious The Entertaining Speaker”, Sam entertained us, gives us shivers, and woke us up. Lara evaluator Sam’s speeches. As a trained theater and stage performer, commented on Sam’s theatrics in telling the story, commending her on her vocal variety, and asking her consider even more body movement or body language for dramatic effects. There was a two round robin volunteers with Paula and Petar.

The General Evaluator orchestrated the evaluation portion of the meeting by introducing the section and each evaluator role. Aleli was the GE for this section and she lightly covered the entire meeting. Isabella gave a timer report and Steven provided a grammarian report. One highlight from Aleli’s observation was Petar’s great interests in Sam’s speech, which led to genuine round robin critique.

Paula concluded her TM duties with the Starbucks coffee house background, and like the start, warm smile and closing remarks before handing off the meeting to the VPE and President to end the meeting.

During the closing of the meeting, the President mentioned that a business meeting with the Officer Committee would follow the meeting immediately after the regular session ends.

The second Zoom meeting at the Seattle Sunrise Club, Lara opened the meeting as president and Toastmaster of the day, greeting the thirteen enthusiastic regular members.  As a smaller group, we started a bit late at 2 minutes past the hour and yet ended on time. The zoom meetings are one hour short, slightly different than our extended longer agenda for the in-person meetings.

The Table Topics Session was fantastic and creatively different. Imagined and facilitated by Scott, using the theme of “1 Million Subscribers”, as an international news broadcast anchor, he setup the scenario and chose a pairing of Interviewer-Interviewee.  Bill interviewed Jason, who was on cruise to the Caribbean that had a confirmed infected Coronavirus case.  Steven interviewed Paula, the first Vatican female Catholic Pope.  Aleli interviewed Vivienne, the CEO of the largest toilet paper manufacturer.  Lara interviewed Jimmy, who was responding as Jay Inslee, the WA-State governor that called forth the first state emergency response due to Covid-19.  Jovica interviewed funny man Oleg, as the President of the United States.  Oh the voices, the acting skills, and comic relief was a fantastic way to start the morning.

Isabella was the primary and only prepared speaker, who spoke on the elevator pitch for a job interview.  Paula was the speaker evaluator, giving advice on the delivery, presentation, attire, and giving tips for interview techniques, especially the decoupling and bundling topics. Paula open up the round-round evaluations, something new to our Club.  We are introducing the round-robin toastmaster evaluations, to allow more speaking and audience engagement opportunities.  The volunteers that raised their hands were Petar, Lara, Bill, Jimmy, Jovica, and Aleli. 

General Evaluator, Steven, gave a critique of the entire meeting, from the early greeting banter, which felt like a regular in-person meeting, as the members waited for the club president to start.  He suggested showing or sharing the agenda, praise Jovica’s ability to share the word-of-the-day “Perspective” as his virtual background screen, and lastly, Steven ended with his recommendation to use the group chat to say hello to members as they join zoom or other encouraging comments.  

Who has the best interview or elevator pitch advice?  Who had the best table topics scenario in today’s table topics interaction pairing?  Who made us laugh the most for our early morning meeting?  Well, you just had to be there. 

Zoom zoom zoom……the Club’s first online meeting at Seattle Sunrise Toastmaster was a Zoom meeting. Our club is changing with the times, as we mobilize to online meetings only from March 21st through June 1, 2020.

Jovica was the Toastmaster in a shorten 1-hour meeting. Introducing the Zoom platform, tips on audio, and video, with enthusiasm. He started the meeting introducing the grammarian Steven, and timer Aleli.

New to the agenda is space for our VPE to give an Educational Moment. Oleg encouraged all of us that it will be a useful learning process for us all to meet online using Zoom.

Something old and something new. Samantha was the Table Topics toastmaster. Highlighting the theme of “broken glass”, she ran a mysterious criminal inquiry of our members. In a court-room setting, asking the volunteers to plead guilty or innocent to the scenarios, each participant had a unique charge to address. One of our most popular table topics ever, there were 7 volunteers that participated. Paula and Bill once again injected such creative and funny answers as they denied the charges.

We had one speaker, Bill, who repeated one of his most inspiring speeches, titled “Mindfulness for Coronavirus Anxiety”. Bill walked us through two exercises, one for deep breathing meditation and another exercise called RAIN. The breathing set us all up to be receptive and reflective. Bill then taught us the RAIN acronym, which is an ancient Buddhist mindfulness tool to cope with hardship. It has four steps:

1. Recognize what is going on
2. Allow the experience to be there, just as it is
3. Investigate with kindness
4. Natural awareness, which comes from not identifying with the experience.

Another change to the online agenda is the evaluation section of the meeting. Previously, the toastmaster facilitated this section. On the online meeting, the general evaluator would introduce this section and facilitate all the evaluators, including the evaluators, timer report, and grammarian report. Jimmy evaluated Bill’s speech and conducted a round-robin of impromptu evaluators. Jovica, Petar, Aleli, Scott, and Sam had words for Bill presentation, all positive praises for a pertinent and helpful speech, commenting even on his choice of a peaceful background.

The toastmaster finished his role of the day and handed the meeting to VPE to review the assigned roles for next meeting. The Club President closed the meeting, asking for feedback of the members for the 1st ever online meeting for the Club and boy, almost everyone gave their feedbacks. Ending the meeting at 9:15 AM, we all quickly zoom out of the meeting.

Due to the Coronavirus (Covid-19), Toastmaster District 2 Leadership has requested for all toastmaster clubs to adhere to social distancing, as a response to the State of Emergency by governor Jay Inslee. We had to cancel the scheduled meeting on March 14th, in order for the the Executive Committee to convene and plan how we will be transitioning to online meetings only.

Below is the memo that was emailed to all members.

March 14, 2020

Club Officers COVID-19 March & April Impact Communication 

Dear Seattle Sunrise Toastmaster Members and Guests: 

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, we are moving regular meetings to an online format. We’re excited to jump in using Zoom! We believe this will allow us to continue our learning journey together safely, while also pursuing our mission of improving our communication and leadership skills. Based on the current situation, we expect the online meetings to continue through April 2020, and maybe longer.

Many of our club officers have extensive experience with video conferencing, so we are in good shape, and ready to go. If you’re new to online meetings, remember that Toastmasters is a great place to try new things, and get support while you learn. We’ve got this!

In order to help you prepare, please find information below about our new meeting format, the modified meeting agendas AND membership fees payment instructions:

1. Seattle Sunrise Toastmaster new meeting format

• We are moving our Saturday meetings online effective March 21^st. 
• Regular Meeting Online Venue: Zoom Meeting Space  https://zoom.us/j/8944426030, Meeting ID: 894 442 6030

You will be receiving a zoom meeting invite from Aleli, our club secretary.

• For District 2 online meeting guidelines, click link to view guide
• Etiquette for Online Meetings, click link to view
• To experience an online meeting 

2. Modified Agenda for online meetings

• Meetings will be shortened to 1 hour- from 8 am to 9 am. 
• We ask that you join the zoom session at 7:50 – 10 mins before the start time. This allows time for checking your audio and video connections, and for everyone to get comfortable before the prompt start of the meeting. 
• The structure of the meeting agenda will change. We are focused on ways to encourage more active participation, so that everyone can stay engaged in this digital format. There will be fewer speeches, and some role changes. Please take a look at the schedule for the most recent updates, and contact the assigned Toastmaster if you have questions about how to prepare. 

3. Submission of Membership Dues

• Membership dues are due! Social distancing oblige, we invite you to submit your payments online, via Cash App.
• Click this video for a tutorial on how-to send the payment or follow the instructions below:
  • Open the Cash App mobile app.
  • Enter the amount you want to send: $51
  • Tap “Pay.”
  • Enter the “$Cashtag”: $seasuntm
  • Enter what you are sending the payment for: March 2020 Dues
  • Tap “Pay.”
  • Please submit membership fee payments by March 25.
  • Please contact Treasurer with questions or requests for alternative payment methods.

In this time of social distancing, it’s easy to feel disconnected and alone. The Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters club invites you to stay connected with your community of peer learners and friends online each Saturday at 8:00am. Let’s keep learning together until we can see each other face to face – hopefully soon! 

Thank you,

Seattle Sunrise Toastmaster Club Officers

Lara Grauer (President), Oleg Kobzar (VPE), Paula Liu (VPM), Isabella Zhang (VPPR), Jimmy Matsuura (Treasurer), Aleli Manalili (Secretary), Petar Spasic & Jovica Spasic (SAA)