Politics: Where’s the Acumen in that?

Andrew is back from vacation and called us to order right on time.

We have three guests today; Tonye (ton-ea), Rachel and Brian. (Don’t miss their exciting comments at the end of the meeting!)

Marvin lead the invocation and pledge.

Our Toastmaster today is the very political Jerry. his assistants are; Barbara as Timer, Stephen J with the clicker (already active), Morry counting votes and Mike with the word of the day: Acumen.

Our Speakers:

Stephen B with a powerpoint presentation “Searching for BFA”, a discussion about his grandfather.

Sonya with her iceBreaker in words and pictures.

Chuck showed several powerful pictures while discussing “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life” based on work by Dr Danial Amen, www.amenclinics.com.

The Timer reported that all speeches were within the limits and the Toastmaster called for a vote for Best Speaker.

Mary lead a very political table topics: Andrew promised a “Chicken in Every Pot”; Joe explained why Dallas should be a host city for a convention; and we didn’t know quite so much about Roger’s youth until he had to vette himself for ages 5 through 10. (80-year secrets! -hmmmmm)

Craig lead the evaluation team of Bill B, Carol and Gene.

Joe had a wonderful time telling us his joke of the day about Brett Favre on his first day in heaven.

Awards: Table topics: Roger; Evaluator: Gene; and Speaker: Chuck

Drum roll please: All three of our guests said they will be joining us (but none left us any money).

Reminder: Area 46 Humorous Speech and Tall Tales contest on September 5th. Details soon.

Cliches -Avoid them like the plague!

Marvin started us out right on time since Andrew is on vacation.

Invocation and pledge were lead by Gene.

We have 21 members and four guests in attendance today: Michelle, Marcus, Tamela, and Tonye (pronounced ton-ea). Marcus came as chuck’s guest and the other three found us on the internet.

Our Toastmaster today is Stephen J and he introduced our theme “Cliches – Avoid them like the plague” (I wish I could put the accent mark over the e in cliches. if you know how to do that, white me a comment.)

Our Grammarian Stephen B announced “Trivia” as the word of the day. He also told us that the term cleche’ comes from the early days of printing when manual typesetters used the term to describe phrases that were so often used that they had been formed into a single block for ease of use 9instead of having to spell out each word every time).

Our Ah Counter is Carol who had been active since the “opening bell”. Our timer is Craig and Jerry will count the votes.

Our Speakers:

Pete told us about his grandfather’s funeral is a speech entitled “Today is Important.”

Mary prepared for a speech she will make at Purdue University in October with a talk called: Innovative Work practice: Corporate Wellness”

Morry introduced us to the World of Warcraft with his explanation “So you wanna be a Tank?”

The Timer reported everyone within the time limits and the Toastmaster called for a vote for best speech.

Roger lead a table Topics discussion of several cliches: Gene talked about the origin of “Barking up the wrong tree”; Andrew recalled his days at sea with the origin of ‘Loose cannon”; and Bill B told us what it means to ‘Buy the farm.”

Marvin lead the Evaluation team and we heard from Sheryl, Barbara and Paul.

Bill B told a great joke about the 80-year-old woman and her four husbands (banker, circus ringleader, pastor, mortician). The punch line was a cliche – fitting right into the meeting theme.

Awards for today: Table topics: Andrew; Evaluator: Barbara; Speaker: Mary.

Our meeting ended with a call on our guests for comments. After the meeting, Michelle submitted her application for membership. We look forward to her Icebreaker.

Aren’t you glad you aren’t gelid?

Marvin called the Club meeting to order right on time. He welcomed our guest, Michelle, who found us through the web site.

Pete lead the invocation and pledge.

Chuck was our Toastmaster and introduced the theme (title of this post). He called on Paul to give the word of the day. The word is “gelid” meaning extremely cold. Unfortunately by the end of the meeing some of the members were gelid.

Chuck introduced following people who described their duties: Barbara was Ah Counter, Morry was Timer, and Sheryl was the Vote Counter.

The three speakers were:

Bill gave an interesting persuasive speech that had the club role-playing a Board of Directors for a Trust. Bill was to convince us “Why 1003 Serende Lane is not the right choice for the Smiths.”

Jerry spoke for 10 minutes on home security and some easy steps we all need to take.

Joe gave his Ice-Breaker speech entitled “Change” about the various changes he went through leading up to his current work in Finance.

Carol lead the Table Topics and used the theme to guide our speakers to tell us about experiences in the cold. Roger, Mike and Sonia took the challenge. Unfortunately only one of the speakers qualified due to failure to use the word of the day (Roger) or too short (Sonia).

Gene had the General Evaluator role and called on Marvin, Rick and Mary to evaluate the three speakers. Gene recommended that we announce the TM and Speaker assignments for the next two weeks at each meeting to avoid a scramble to find people to fill roles the day before the meeting.

Today’s awards went to: Mike for Table Topics, Mary for Evaluator and Jerry for Speaker.

Chuck also presented Participation Certificates to the five members who had competed in the Humorous/Tall Tales contest last week.

Marvin resumed control of the meeting and asked for the assignments for the next two weeks. The meeting ended on time so only 1 detractor because one speech title was missing from the agenda.

August Officer’s Meeting – 8/7/2008

Well, some of us were there. Stephen J., Roger, Paul and Chuck enjoyed breakfast and a discussion of Club business.

As you all may know, David will not be available to be WebMaster. Chuck has now been given the admin login to the web site and will make some administrative changes.

How are we progressing toward President’s Distinguished Club status for 2008-2009?

We have 3 new members this half (need 4 each half year).

We have completed 2 CL manuals and need 4

We have 4 people aiming to complete their CC manuals and we need 4.

Five of Six Officers have completed Officer Training (Roger will complete tonight). We need to do that again for the 2nd half year.

Dues will be due in August/September with the final list due at TI HQ by Oct 1 (on time counts for President’s Distinguished). We will plan to update all address/telephone records at that time and make sure that all copies of every address/phone number match.

Stephen reported that he has purchased a new stop watch for the club. It will be available next meeting. He said that we have received the new copy of the Successful Club Series. Making speeches from the series is a required element of the advanced speaker awards.

Roger remarked that we need to promote the attendance of Club members at the Area and higher contests to support our contestants. He mentioned that our meeting supply levels seem to be OK.

Paul is preparing a new membership drive. We all debated the idea that we just need to drive people to our website since the last three or four people to visit and join came to us through the website. The idea is to have multiple sources of visitors so as to attract people from various sources. Paul will be developing an email for each club member to send out to people on their “Friends” lists.

Chuck has received the Secretary’s manual from Gwen and found it to be the 2005-2006 version. He will download the latest from the TI website.

Meeting adjourned a few minutes early.

Contest – Laughing all the way!

Tuesday the 5th of August was Humorous Speech and Tall Tales Contest day at Plano Talkers.

Andrew opened the meeting right on time and Carol led us in the invocation and pledge.

Chuck was the Contest Master. He was assisted by the Chief Judge Bill S., the Timers Paul and Rick, and Jerry was the Sergeant at Arms. Jerry and Bill counted the ballots.

After a brief introduction of the contest rules and instruction on the proper use of the ballot form, the speaking began. Our humorous speakers were:

Mike: “How to Succed in College without Really Trying” where we learned that honesty is the best policy.

Mary was the “Big Rig Mama” who learned that you can put up with almost anything (even bugs in the shower) if you have an experienced guide who becomes your friend.

Gene continues to cheer for the Rangers which is funny in itself but he told us many reasons why “Baseball is a Funny Game.” We didn’t even know there was a “Bench Coach.”

After all the laughing, the silence while the judges completed their work was almost deafening. Finally the Chief Judge left and we learned that Mike and Mary had told us real-life experiences and that Gene had always found the Bench Coach funny.

Once the Chief Judge returned, we began the Tall Tales competition.

Stephen J. told the “Tale of Two Hairs” and had us all all spellbound right to the very last.

Bill told of his experience with a UFO.

The Chief Judge left to count the ballots and we determind that Stephen tells stories to his daughter when they ride in the car and Bill had described a real-life scenario, except for the UFO part.

The Winners will represent the Club in the Area 46 Contest on September 5th (location to be announced):

Best Humorous Speech: Mike

Runner-up: Mary

Best Tall Tale: Stephen J.

Congratulations to the winners! The flyer for the Area Contest will be distributed as soon as it is available. Hope to see the entire Club come out to cheer on our contestants.

We adjourned a few minutes late so earned one detractor.

Don’t be a Cantankerous Toastmaster!

Marvin stepped in for Andrew and started the meeting right on time.

Paul had the Toastmaster slot and immediately welcomed our returning guests Joe and Sonya. They said that they had visited a couple other clubs and found our to be the best. They submitted applications and paid their dues today.

Pete brought the Word of the Day and challenged us not to be cantankerous.

Today’s speakers:

Chuck talked about “Social Networking, the First Five Steps” and nearly ran out of time.

Mary got us all thinking about hot it really is in Texas with her description of “A Crested Butte Getaway.”

Marvin had us guessing what was in the bag until the very end of his tale: “Fitting Final Fallout.”

Roger introduced Table Topics centered around Salesmanship. We heard from Craig, Gene and Rick. Gene’s description of his wife as cantankerous got us thinking that perhaps he’s not the best salesman in the room.

About this time, Paul had to leave and he entrusted his Toastmaster duties to Jerry. We also welcomed a new visitor, Wagas.

Awards were given to: Speaker: Mary; Table Topics: Gene; and Evaluator: Bill S.

Before we adjourned, Chuck reminded everyone that next week is the Humorous and Tall Tales speech contest. Marvin asked that we all be a bit early so we can be sure to end on time next week.

Looks like another week with no detractors. Let’s keep talking!