This week’s summary was provided by Vince. 

Once again Sunrisers woke to attend a great early Saturday morning meeting. Off with a intrepid start was Brett, the Toastmaster. This was Brett’s first time assuming the Toastmaster role. Brett held meeting together and we look forward to see Brett take on roles like this in the future.

The word of the day, and the theme of the meeting, was “Sui Generis” (pronouced: Sue-ee Generous).

Our Grammarian of the day, Michelle, introduced the term, meaning “one-of-a-kind.” The term easily weaved within the duration of the meeting. Michelle picked another valuable term and hope it finds its way into personal conversations, workplace discussions, and speeches in the future.

Neva took on the Timer role. She followed through with precision during the meeting. Always speaking with a big smile, she presented three small speaking roles when called upon for various timing reports. She continues to expand her public speaking abilities one small speaking role at a time. She exemplifies her membership by speaking in some way at every meeting she attends.
Read more ›

The theme Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters this week was Coming of Age, and our first-time Toastmaster Nicole S. did a fantastic job shepherding our meeting through. She also brought a great and inspiring story of the academic maturation of one of her teen clients, with whom she worked for a long time.

Our first speaker of the day was Vince H., who delivered his CC Project #4 speech, “Little Dream Homes, Big Green Energy,” in which he discussed the history of Seattle’s building industry as it evolved. Noting that while sustainability and green energy are new concepts, he said the original settlers in the Seattle area for the most part built small homes made from natural, local materials and were therefore better from an environmental perspective in many ways than many contemporary structures. Interesting ideas, Vince. Look forward to hearing more on this topic from you in the future.

Ken B. was up next, bringing another story from his life to fulfill his CC Project 4 speech, “Yin, Yang, and the Power of Women.” He related an incident that happened during a Filipino Kali matial arts class in which he was paired to spar with a woman. As a self-proclaimed traditional-minded man when it comes to the sexes, Ken was at first reluctant to spar with a woman because he had been raised not to hit females. However, once the fight started, he found himself outmatched by her agility and technique which left him exhausted and beaten (literally). An entertaining speech, Ken.
Read more ›

You are required to login to view this page.

I had the honor of being Toastmaster for last Saturday morning’s Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters meeting. The theme was “Love Song” so I brought in Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does it Better,” one of the many love songs which haunted my tormented, romantic youth in the 1970s.

We had a great variety in our speeches, as usual.

First up was Ken B. with his CC project #2: “What is Love,” which was a hilarious story about a love triangle among him, his former girlfriend Michelle, and her pet potbelly pig, Alex. Ken adopted Alex for Michelle, and the pig started out a cute, cuddly, small pet; however, the store misled them about Alex’s eventual size, which grew to 250 pounds. Ken soon found himself with no room on the couch or bed, and eventually they decided they couldn’t keep Alex. Ken went the extra mile to get Alex adopted so that he could live out his life on a farm. Great story, Ken!  Read more ›