November 17, 2009 Weekly Meeting

Brian led our meeting today with a theme of Tinseltown.  Our participants, Gene, barbara, Jerry and Moe each talked about their favorite holiday.  Thanksgiving won that round of questions.

David discussed the structural portions of a courthouse in Waxahachie.  Yolande discussed her love of soccer and a recent collegiate game that made the headlines.  Phillip taught us to what steps to take now (while we are still employed) to help us find that next job.

Andrew, Carol, Rey and Bill were called upon by Alexis to answer Table Topics.

Justin, Marvin, and Bill helped the speakers to improve by evaluating their speeches.  Morry let us know that next week we may try the other side of the restaurant since we are packed in tight in the back room.

Yolande was best speaker, Marvin was best evaluator.  I can’t remember who was the best TT, they must have all been good.

November 5th Officers Meeting

Chuck found out that there is a two month grace period before removing previous members from the website so we’ll wait till next month to purge our website.

Morry reminded us that the District Conference is coming up.  Morry and Paul signed proxy form for contest so that Marvin and Barb will go in their places.

Marvin mentioned that the upcoming club contest should be held on Feb 2nd.  The area contest will be on Feb 19th.  Marvin will run this contest.

Paul discussed upcoming officer election first Tuesday in December.

Bill will order CC/CL badges all at once for a quarter (of the year) in lieu of one at a time to save shipping costs.  He will also order new CC manuals.

Charles discussed the option of moving to the opposite side of the restaraunt.  He said we’d try it on November 17th.

Paul mentioned that the 25th anniversary of the Plano Talkers is in January.  Stephen’s name was mentioned as a potential leader for that event.

October 1st Officers Meeting

October 1^st Officers Meeting – Paul, Bill, Chuck, Morry, Stephen, Charles, and David

Bill reported that we had 48 current members, but estimated we’d have over 40 since some won’t renew.  Chuck stated that he would remove members from the website that didn’t renew.  We discussed what options we have if our club grows to 60 people.  One suggestion was to move to the other side of the restaurant.

Morry discussed the need to fill the VP Membership role left by the absence of Scott Kain.  Chuck, temporarily filing Scotts role, created new folders for visitors, and he mentioned that Alexis volunteered to fill the position permanently.  We agreed she would do a fine job in that position.

David mentioned that he had not blogged our meeting minutes from the last few meetings.  I agreed that should be done regularly.

Stephen reported that everyone who wants a mentor now had one.

Bill will look into pen for guest speakers (twice a year for contests).

There was a discussion about the need to update the projector screen.  No action has been agreed to concerning this item.

The Officers March In(n)!

Breakfast Time for the Officers. Paul, Mary, Chuck, Marvin, Barbara, Stephen and Roger attended.

Chuck reported that we now have a picture on our Flickr site (link is on the Blog, upper right corner).

Mary reports that Charles and Justin have Joined, David (visitor on Tuesday) wants an application and we have to check on John’s Transfer into the club.

Marvin reviewed the roster trying to determine who will renew and who won’t. Looking at President’s Distinguished Club competition, when Mary completes her CC in April we will have 9 points. There was a discussion about whether or not to push to get the tenth point (two more CCs) and we decided to let them happen or not as the speakers complete the manual. Marvin told us about the next election (May 2009) of Officers and we decided that it is time to begin getting the word out to the club that we are looking for volunteers for offices. In general, one year is the longest anyone should hold the same office without a break.

Barbara talked about her recruiting efforts and Chuck asked if we could target more women as we seem to have only men as visitors. There was a discussion about how to do this. Barbara will work on it.

Stephen reported that there were no expenses or income for February and that Dues are Due. In fact, he has about half of the club dues already collected.

Roger reports that the club cabinet locks at the meeting site were broken by the restaurant. He will attempt to fix it this week. There followed a discussion of how the room should be set up and an arrangement was agreed upon. We will all work to set this up and see how it works.

Craig was unable to join us to report o the web site, although it seems to be working well as that is where all of our new members find us.

There was a discussion of the wearing of name tags. All of the Officers will wear theirs next week and we’ll see how it goes.

There was a discussion of how we can get special recognition for Gene and his Speech Craft at UT-D. Marvin will work with the District Officers to see what can be done.

Continued discussion about the next round of Officer Elections. Since Andrew hasn’t been able to attend lately, we nominated Mike to be the point of contact for members to discuss becoming officers.

The meeting ended right on time. This seems to be a good place to meet (not withstanding that two officers forgot that we had moved the meeting).

Welcome Back Color (It’s Spring)

Marvin opened the meeting and Barbara lead the Invocation and Pledge.

Paul was our Toastmaster and introduced his assistants: Charles as Grammarian; Stephen B as Ah Counter; Ollie as Timekeeper; and Brian as Vote Counter.

Our Speeches:

Justin gave his Icebreaker Speech (after only two weeks, good job).

Bill talked about “Spring Cleaning” more than just your house.

Carol regaled us with her adventures in India. We all love elephants, Carol.

Chuck lead the Table Topics and called on Bill S, Brent, and Roger.

Morry was our General Evaluator and he said he liked the room arranged the way it was last week. He introduced Mary, Stephen J and Joe.

Awards were given for: Table Topics: Roger; Evaluator: Stephen; and Speaker: Carol.

Marvin announced the Toastmaster and speakers for next week and announced the Area contest to be this Thursday at 6:00 pm. He also reminded the Officers of Thursday’s meeting and invited all members to join us.

The meeting ended on-time.

Tell Me Something Good!

Paul began our meeting right on time and lead the Invocation and Pledge.

Mary added some color to our meeting with pink agendas and introduced her assistants: Grammarian: Charles; Ah Counter: Barbara; Timer: Paul; and Vote Counter: Marvin.

Our speakers:

Rick showing his vocal variety with a speech with no name.

Pete showed why being early helps with the projector discussed “The Start Up.”

Roger rehearsing his contest speech “Thanks Kiiye”. Nice suit!

Bill Butcher lead Table Topics and called on Morry, Joe and John.

Stephen J was our General Evaluator and he introduced Evaluators: Brian, Steve, and Chuck.

Awards were given for: Table topics: John; Evaluator: Chuck; Speech: Roger.

Announcements: the Area Speech Contest will be March 5th.

Paul ended the meeting on-time.

Cooperation is Synergistic

Paul began the meeting right on time and asked Barbara to lead the invocation and pledge.

Stephen J was our Toastmaster and he introduced his assistants: Marvin as Grammarian; Paul as Ah Counter; Brent as Timer; and Charles as Vote Counter.

Our speakers were:

Mary who told about her fun time “Gaming in Tunica”

Brian who gave us a briefing on Agile Development Methods.

Mike who talked about “Captain Billy’s Whizbang”

Carol lead the Table Topics and called on Ollie, Jerry, Roger and Barbara.

Stephen B lead an evaluation team consisting of: Chuck, Morry, and Joshua.

Awards were given for: Table Topics: Roger; Evaluator: Chuck; and Speaker: Mary.

Justin submitted his membership application and John was a visitor.

Paul ended the meeting on-time.

Let the Contest Begin

Paul called the meeting to order and asked Joe to lead the Invocation and Pledge.

Due to the contest and the amount of speaking ahead, Paul quickly passed the meeting to the Chief Judge Marvin.

Marvin briefed the members on the aspects of judging the contest, passed out ballots, and then handed the contest over to the Contest Master Barbara.

The first contest was the table topics contest with the following question: “Who would you like to have a secret meeting with and why?”

Roger was up first and talked about a meeting with Barack Obama.

Mike  was up second and talked about (Well I wasn’t there and don’t know).

Stephen J was up last and talked about a meeting with Martin Gardner.

The votes were collected and while the vote counters and Chief Judge were out, Barbara regaled us with a joke.

On to the Speech Contest.

Mike was up first with his Speech “”, discussing the importance of critical thinking and how it is missing in today’s America.

Bill was up second with his Speech “The Best Deal I ever Made”, a speech centered on a story of a deal he walked away from, which turned out to be the best decision he could have made.

Roger was up third with his Speech “”, where he told us all of the things he had learned from his dog that he had obtained after his last child went off to college.

The votes were collected and while the vote counters and Chief Judge were out, Barbara brought up the contestants to have them tell a little bit about themselves.

Finally, the contest results were revealed.

Table Topics:

First Place: Stephen J
Second Place: Roger

International Speech Contest:

First Place: Roger
Second Place: Bill

The area contest for Area 46 will be on February 27th – Location to be announced.

February 2009 Officer’s Meeting

We met at a new place and were surprised to find that the front door said they didn’t open until 7:00, which is when our meeting starts. We talked about this a bit since we would like to grab some breakfast before the meeting starts. Well it turns out that regardless of the sign they let us in and let us buy breakfast earlier than 7:00. So we’ll try this location at least one more time.

Attending today were Paul, Stephen J, Mary, Marvin, Barbara, and Chuck. Paul began the meeting by announcing that the “Last Chance” TLI is this Saturday. Looks like all of the Officer’s will get trained this time.

Mary said that she has 11 prospects and we all discussed what would happen if the club got too large. No action taken but something to keep in mind if our membership continues to grow. Mary said that 2 or 3 of her prospects had told her they would join this month. Since most of our new members come to us through the web site, we discussed making sure to keep the member bios and Officer Bios up to date.

Marvin talked about President’s Distinguished Club. Mary is 2 speeches away from CC. That and Officer’s Training and our Dues Update in March will give us a total of 9 points. We would need 2 more CCs to get 10 points and that is possible but not for sure. We also discussed making sure of Mentor assignments, ensuring we have people involved in the upcoming contests, and reviewing the concept of Table Topics for all of our members to ensure everyone knows they need to talk for at least a minute.

Barbara needs more magazines for her publicity campaigns to our guests. We also talked about how to get some publicity from the upcoming contest winners.

Stephen said that we only had one transaction this month, a new member paid dues. We expect an influx of money in March from Dues Renewal. Paul will be receiving the roster by email, a first this year at it usually comes by mail.

We also discussed a new table arrangement to give our speakers a chance to work the room differently. We will try this after the contest.

We adjourned a bit early but all agreed that we liked the place for meetings.

Not a Tumultuous Meeting

Paul called the meeting to order with a full house, 20 members and 3 guests (Doug, Rick, and Justin). Bill S lead us in the Invocation and Pledge.

Our Toastmaster, Jerry, had a tumultuous weekend but he brought a full and complete agenda for the meeting. He introduced his helpers:  Timer: Steven B; Ah Counter: Roger; Vote Counter: Mary; and Grammarian: Paul.

Our speakers today included:

Chuck working in an Advanced Manual with “Watching the Game” and some dialog with Charles.

Brian with his #7 speech: “Just Say No to Waterfalls”

Ollie introduced his “Division Project for 2008-09″

Stephen J lead table topics and called on Charles, Joshua, and Sonya. For some reason, only one was able to stay up for a full minute.

Pete lead the evaluation team consisting of: Rick, Marvin, and Barbara.

Awards were given to: Table Topics: Sonya; Evaluator: Barbara; and Speaker: Chuck.

Joshua was our Jokemaster and we all had a good laugh.

Jerry turned control of the meeting over to Paul who reminded us about the Officer’s meeting on Thursday at a new location.

The meeting adjourned right on time.