It’s a new year and the club kicked it off right with a rejuvenating (but cold!) Toastmasters meeting in the Northwest Hospital Atrium. Can someone turn up the heat! Seriously.
President, Scott, opened the meeting on time to a group of members huddled-up with their coffee and coats. After introductions Scott introduced Sonja, the meeting’s Toastmaster.

Sonja got the meeting off to a great start by introducing the meeting’s Theme, “Singing in the Rain.” She talked about the movie and about Seattle’s reputation for being wet. However, Seattle is actually only the 41st wettest city. She also distributed a handout with 2013’s predicted chances for rain of all 365 days of the year for Seattle.

Speech one was an Icebreaker, given by Andrea who informed the club about the importance of food in her multicultural family. Speech two was an interesting story told by Rich to complete Project 6, Vocal Variety, about a trip to Mexico with his two best friends. It was a great story with a twist ending as we learned one of his friends was actually a dog!

Distinguished Toastmasters, Madeleine, gave speech three. She gave us a lot of information in a short period about what not to do when performing the role of Grammarian. We learned a lot about the proper use of conjunctives and how to use them and how not to use them and when they are appropriate and when they aren’t and how to critique them and…

Dick stepped-in at the last minute to be a masterful Table Topics Master. He had some great twisters on what resolutions famous men and women should be making.

Dave, Nicole, and Mary provided feedback to our speakers respectively and Steven, as General Evaluator gave the meeting’s overall evaluation prefaced with some great levity.

The meeting ended with Mary winning the best Table Topics ribbon by telling the club what Lucy from the Peanuts’ new year’s resolution should be: More compassion for Charlie Brown! At the close of the meeting, the club decided to hold their first ever evaluation contest. Details to follow!

The meeting ended at 9am. Our next meeting is scheduled for January 26th. See you there!
Secretary
Dave E.

9 members and 3 guests attended our meeting this Saturday!  The theme was “Rants & Raves”  and Madeleine was our Toastmaster.

Madeleine raved about Seattle’s recycling program and farmer’s markets then introduced a few roles.  Mary was our grammarian.  She introduced the word of the day, “invective” which everyone agreed fit the theme!  Our timer was Rich.

Our first speaker was Sonja.  Sonja announced that her boss had quit and she is being pegged as the successor.  She shared a few tips on how to navigate change more easily.

Our second speaker was Johan.  Johan announced that she is applying for the public health program at the University of Washington.  Her speech was about why she was a good fit for the program.  Members agreed that Toastmasters is a great place to workshop your professional development.  Great work, Johan!

Scott was our third speaker.  He provided members tips on how to purge items in  your closet and get money while doing it.

Our table topics master was Dick.  Dick prompted members with a topic and asked them to provide a Rant or a Rave about it.  Our guest Andrea participated and raved about American Express!Our evaluators were Nicole, Dillibe, and Steve.  Dave provided the general evaluation.  Finally, Mary provided acute feedback as Grammarian.  She called on members to minimize verbal slurs (‘ya vs you).

Andrea, Rich, and Steve tied for best Table Topics response.  Nicole and Dillibe tied for best evaluator.

At the close of the meeting, our guest Andrea decided to join!

Starting in January, our meetings will be held on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of every month.

 

Six members and 3 guests attended this week’s Seattle Sunrise Toastmasters meeting this past Saturday.  The theme was Live in the Moment!  Our Toastmaster was Steve and he wasn’t kidding when he said he had a surprise for the attendees.  A story about a broken printer and no printed agenda!?  Oops! Fortunately, members knew their roles and the whiteboard made for a suitable substitute for a paper agenda.

Steve started the meeting by expressing his disappointment that the Toastmaster of the meeting doesn’t get the rap the gavel as a part of his duties.  He then introduced Dave as our Timer and Maryallene as our Grammarian.

Nicole was our speaker for the meeting.  She gave her 10th speech from the Competent Communicator manual.  The title of her speech was Risky Lifestyle and she spoke about the importance of selecting the right foods to eat.  She was awarded her Competent Communicator badge at the end of the meeting.  Great work, Nicole!

Table Topics master, Sonja led a hilarious impromptu speaking exercise.  She surprised everyone by revealing the Table Topics Questions iPad app!  The questions prompted such a wonderful set of responses that Seattle Sunrise toastmasters recorded its first ever four-way-tie for best table topics!!!  Including two members and two guests.  WOW!

Rich evaluated Nicole’s speech and Scott was the General evaluator for the meeting.  As our grammarian, Maryallene ended up with a homework assignment to research the difference between “preventive” and “preventative”.  Turns out one’s a noun, the other’s an adjective.  Who knew!?

At the close of the meeting our president, Scott, pointed out that Toastmasters is the place for learning and for making mistakes in a supportive environment.  It’s okay to forget a printed agenda at Toastmasters.  Your employer may not be as forgiving.

As always, enjoy the next two weeks and we’ll see you at the next meeting!

Our next meeting: December 15 @ 7:30 in Northwest Hospital

 

The November 17th Seattle Sunrise meeting was another fun event.  Two guests showed up and Toastmaster Nicole lead the meeting.  The theme was “Forces of Nature”

The first speaker, Madeleine, told us How to Dazzle Any Audience Anywhere. She referred to 3 of Toastmasters’ advanced speaker manuals in her speech Speaking to Inform, Story Telling, and Persuasive Speaking. She also gave us examples from her own experience as a speaker to illustrate how each may be used to dazzle an audience.

Steve continued his journey toward Competent Communicator by completing project 6 Vocal Variety. He used the second part of his talk series on becoming your own primary care physician to do this. He shared 5 key things everyone should do to empower themselves when interacting with the medical community.

Guest Table Topics Master Tammy helped us practice our Impromptu speaking skills with various questions on how we have or would handle certain emergency situations.

Guest General Evaluator Lew helped us close the meeting with an overall evaluation of today’s meeting with a particular focus on Scott’s and Dick’s evaluations of our main speakers. The meeting adjourned at 09:00

Dave Eberhardt, Secretary