Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters December 10 summary, “Signs & Signposts”

This morning’s Toastmaster was Nicole S. who lead a great meeting with the theme of “Signs & Signposts.” Other roles for today’s meeting included Julie S. as Grammarian, Snjiv K. as Timer, and Paula L. hosting Table Topics.
Today’s first speaker was Aleli M. who gave her second speech titled, “Mr. Dirty” from the Storytelling Manual. Several years ago Aleli worked for an insurance company that would assess damage to client’s property. Aleli told us a story about a fire cleanup job she had to go to. This call confirmed to her that not only did she not like her job, but also she did not like fire cleanup jobs either! This particular job was extremely bad because the gentleman’s house that was damaged was stuffed with knick knacks and other items. Aleli and her team were tasked with going through and accessing and cataloging the damage and value of each and every item which took several days. Her advice was to stay organized in case your house has to be cataloged due to a disaster. Fantastic job, Aleli!

Our second speaker was Kathy M. who gave her second speech titled, “Impressions of Old Fez, Morocco” from the CC manual. Kathy took a trip to Morocco and shared her experience with us. While in Morocco there were three things that really stuck out to her. The first was the city of Meknes. This was an old walled city with fabulous shops, stalls, and restaurants. Second, were the Souq’s Kathy experienced. A souq is an open-air outside market selling a variety of goods. Kathy mentioned when she and her husband were in a souq her husband was feeling a high-pressure sales technique for a leather jacket. Fortunately, Kathy was there to rescue him before he was strong armed into buying it. Good save, Kathy! The third memory that stuck out to Kathy was the food. She had fantastic food with incredible flavors (like saffron) that were cooked in tajine’s. A tajine is a circular pot made of clay with a cone shaped top. Kathy’s closing thought was that she had such a wonderful time in Fez that she wants to travel more to experience those times again. Kathy convinced me to want to travel to Morocco and experience the sights, sounds, and food! Wonderful job Kathy!

Finally, our third speaker was Tina H. giving her first speech titled, “How to Encurage Your Audience with Effective Body Language” from the Using Body Language Better Speaker Series. Tina gave an informative speech on how to use body language in speeches to keep your audience captive and engaged. For this speech, Tina used a PowerPoint deck to show examples and images of the techniques she covered. Some of the tips she gave us was to have an open body, good use of eye contact and using the entire stage to move and make your points. I came away with a lot of takeaways that I’ll be using in my speeches! Great job, Tina!

Write-up by Paula L.

The theme of this post Thanksgiving Saturday meeting was “Thankful.”

Tom B. opened the meeting at 7:30 by welcoming all members and guests. He then smoothly transitioned the meeting to the Toastmaster of the day, also Tom B. who expressed thanks for the amazing contribution of all the committee members: Andy K., VP of Education, Nicole S., VP of Membership. Marti M., VP of Public Relations, Aanya LT., Treasurer, Preston K., Secretary and Jung K., Andrew H., and Yanyan B., Sergeants- at-Arms.

Tom introduced his helpers : Dean as the Grammarian and Aleli as the Timer. The word of the day was “Actual.”

The first speaker was Scott C., a long time member. Scott was working on CC project #6- Get comfortable with Visual Aids. Scott made a very effective power presentation titled “ Three Essential Tools for Woodworking.’ Have you ever wondered how the pieces of furniture you see in a furniture store are put together? Well, so did Scott. And he went a step further by taking a woodworking class! Scott informed us that furniture wood was not just any wood that could be purchased at Lowe’s or Home Depot. The wood that is used in furniture making comes from a few specialized stores. The wood that you can buy there is “ hit and miss” in that the surface is not necessarily even. Scott went on to share three commonly used tools that are used to even out the wood and to cut it . These tools are the joiner, the planer and the table saw. Scott used precise language and relevant pictures of the different tools and stages involved to make an effective case for woodworking classes. For me, the most convincing argument for woodworking classes is the beautiful table base that Scott built! Thank you Scott!
Speaker number two was Yanyan B. Yanyan was working on CC project #3: Get to the Point. Yanyan’s speech titled “Remembering my Grandfather” was a repeat speech.
Yanyan opened her speech with a powerful quote by Mitch Albom: “Love is how you stay alive, even after you’re gone” to introduce the powerful memories of her loving grandfather. Born in a mud hut on the banks of the river Yangtze in 1933,” Guan Chou,” which means “ Big Tree,” was named after a very big banyan tree that grew by the house. Being the first born of thirteen brothers and sisters, he had to drop out of school at age 8 to go to work and help the family. He stepped up unfailingly to support and help his family with love, humility, hard work and a perpetual smile. Like the big banyan tree, he provided shade to his family and his community. Yanyan highlighted three of the many qualities of her beloved grandfather:
1. a man of intelligence, curious, hardworking and innovative who taught himself many new things such as rice farming, construction of earth ovens, green tea production. No task was ever too big or too small for his talents, whether that be as the head cook of of many village weddings, or repairing his grand kids’ backpacks or bikes.
2. a man of positive energy who touched all with a warm heart, an ever present smile and a generous welcome. He showed compassion and unconditional love to his wife even though she was challenging to live with.
3. a man of courage who spoke up against wrongdoings and in his battle with cancer. Even though his body was just skin, bones and a protruding stomach two months before he passed away, he remained positive and creative, devising a special contraption so that he could pull himself out of the bed and not be a burden to anybody. He did not complain.
Yanyan concluded her speech with a quote by Cicero “The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.” Fourteen years after he passed away, her grandfather is still with her, inspiring and influencing her every day.
Thank you for sharing the memories of this wonderful man with us, Yanyan.
Speaker number three was Dr Ken B. with a back pocket speech about how he prepared for a humorous speech contest, by not preparing for it and ending up getting the first prize. Ken illustrated his plan to succeed which was to dedicate some time each day over a few weeks to attain the goal of preparedness. As the weeks ran out, he found himself adjusting the plan by increasing the number of hours needed over a shorter and a shorter period of time until the day before the contest. Despite his firm intentions to cram all night, he ended up having drinks with friends the night before instead. Despite the inner monkey voices telling him that he would fail, and delivering his speech on autopilot, Ken went on to deliver a winning speech!
His parting advice to the audience: Prepare! Don’t do as I did!”. Thanks for stepping up with an impromptu speech Ken. Prepare is what most of us will have to do because we do not have your talent for off the cuff speeches.
The last speaker of the morning was Andy K. For project #4 of the Humorously Speaking Manual, Andy chose a most personal topic: his hair, to be more accurate, his lack of hair. In his speech titled “ A hair raising story”,and using pictures from his personal archives, Andy took us back in time to the roots of his decision to “euthanize “ his hair. It all started the day Andy was born: bald! According to him, hair took a while to grow. By the age of three though, Andy was a sweet blond little boy whose hair was cut (badly) by his loving mother. In spite of that, his hair would look fairly good until about the age of 8, when his hair started getting weird and wavy. It went all downhill from there and the “bully buffet “ years set in with bad hair, glasses and buck teeth. Andy broke his mother’s heart in high school when he decided to go to SuperCuts to get an $8 haircut. In his high school yearbook, Andy sports a great haircut, which he attributes to months and months of airbrushing work. Ensued a California period with long locks on the beach, then a job with a conservative law firm and a last minute disastrous hair cut by his wife the night before he was due to start work. Then, in 1993, a revelation: the buzz cut, which did not look too bad. Coincidentally Andy’s best friend who then lived across the country also chose to solve his bad hair problem with a buzz cut around the same time. The big breakthrough came in 1998-99 when Andy decided to go to a Halloween as Tyler Durden from the film “ Fight Club” and shaved his head. He looked at himself in the mirror and liked it for the first time. He’s never gone back. Sporting a bald head has many advantages: savings in shampoo, conditioner, dates. Andy did end up getting happily married again. This must have been partly because he sports that bald look so well! Thanks for the trajectory of a successful choice of hair do in a most entertaining speech, Andy!

Zhou and Jon split the Best Table Topics award

Zhou picks a table topics prompt

Bill S works his table topics magic

Aanya won Best Evaluator!

Zhou and Jon split the Best Table Topics award

Today’s Toastmaster was Andrew and it was his first time leading the meeting. The theme for the day was, “Remembrance” and Andrew did a wonderful job leading the meeting! With a full agenda of speakers and evaluators we jumped right into the meeting.

Kathy was the Grammarian of the day and did a great job of tracking filler words and colorful use of language. Kathy chose “memorable” as the word of the day and many speakers used it throughout their speeches.

The first speaker of the day was, Marti. Marti gave her third speech titled, “Surprise Monodrama” from the Interpretive Reading Advanced Manual. Marti gave her speech in full costume and character of a homeless woman. This was the first time I’ve been able to attend a speech where the speaker was in full costume – what a great experience! Marti set the scene of her and a friend named “Charlie” at a bus stop. Her speech gave use insight into what it could be like to be homeless. Her character had a daughter that passed and away a granddaughter that made her very proud because she got a job.
Marti did an incredible job with her speech and I look forward to hearing more from you in this manual! It was like being at the theater with a free admission.

Brett gave his sixth speech titled, “Finding Out Before It’s Too Late” from the CC manual. Brett’s partner, Katherine was diagnosed with a very rare disease called FAP. This is a type of genetic cancer that affects the colon. When she was first diagnosed with the disease she went to many doctors for a diagnosis and available options to rid the cancer.
Katherine was given some advice that seemed to be very extreme such as removing the colon and other parts. She and her family wanted other options so they asked for other recommendations and discovered there were indeed less invasive options.
Needless to say, between two surgeries’ and several follow up visits, Katherine is doing great! Brett left us with the advice that if you think something is wrong with a diagnosis, you should go with your gut and get a different opinion. Wonderful speech, Brett!

Julie gave her third speech titled, “Feedback: How to Make It Constructive” from the CC manual. Julie shared some great takeaways for giving feedback to others.
When you give positive feedback, focus on specifics. For examples, don’t just say your communication is “good”. Instead, give specifics such as your volume of speech is always appropriate and you always make eye contact.
When giving negative feedback, make it descriptive by giving specific suggestions. We should also be aware of how much feedback we’re giving. It’s easy to give too much feedback so limiting your suggestions to 2 – 3 points is best. It’s also a good idea to use the sandwich approach when giving feedback. This approach uses a positive statement, a negative suggestion, and then followed by another positive suggestion.
Finally, it’s a good idea to summarize your feedback by main points so everyone’s on the same page. Julie, this was a fabulous speech with great actionable takeaways. I’ve already implemented many of your suggestions.

Cara gave her third speech titled, “Lessons Learned in Las Vegas” from the CC manual. Cara recently went to Las Vegas with friends and family and was a little apprehensive at first because she thought she wouldn’t enjoy herself. However, she had a wonderful time and actually came away with three lessons learned from the short getaway.
The first lesson Cara learned was “being open to new experiences.” She usually doesn’t drink, go out on weekday nights, and isn’t that much of a gambler – all of which are a common denominator in Las Vegas. Even so, she had a wonderful time in the Viva Las Vegas!

The second lesson she learned was “trust and verify”. An example of how Cara learned this lesson was by trying to find the Rock-n-Roll race she signed up. She was pressed for time to make it to the race so she asked a few Vegas locals for directions and was told the start line was only a few minutes away. Well, she and her race partners ended up having to take several modes of transportation getting them there just a few minutes before race time.
The third lesson Cara learned was “do what makes you happy.” Cara went to Vegas her way and not the typical drinking all day for an entire weekend but instead spent some time in the city, in the desert, and running a race.
Great job on your speech, Cara and glad to hear you had such a great trip to Vegas.

Visitors and members please note that due to many members having plans for the holiday weekends, we will not be meeting on 12/24 or 12/31.

We will resume our normal schedule in January, with our first meeting of 2017 on January 14.