Enthusiasm was Omnipresent

Even though the importance of our meeting was overshadowed by the events of Inauguration Day, Paul called the meeting to order right on time. Morry lead the invocation and pledge. Out Toastmaster today is Bill.

Bill’s helpers today are: Timer: Mary; Ah Counter: Rick; Vote Counter: Jerry; Grammarian; Joe.

Our formal speeches today are:

Brent’s Ice Breaker: Just Enough to be Dangerous”

Barbara told us about “Holding Hands and Singing Kum-ba-ya.”

Stephen B. was “In Search of..”

Table Topics was lead by Chuck and included Stephen J, Marvin, and Mike.

Our General Evaluator was Marvin and he introduced Ollie, Pete and Paul.

Awards today for: Table Topics: Stephen J, Evaluator: Ollie, and Speaker: Barbara.

Control of the meeting was returned to our President and he called on our VP Education for next week’s Toastmaster and speakers. The meeting ajourned on time so we could get to work and watch the Inauguration.

One Week until the Big Change

With the inauguration of our next President of the United States one week away, our club meet to talk about Change. Marvin began the meeting on time and asked Roger to lead the Invocation and Pledge.

Our Toastmaster for the day, Stephen B, introduced his assistants: Grammarian: Roger; Ah Counter: Mike; Timer: Barb; and Vote Counter: Brent.

Our speakers were:

Sonya talking about how important it is to “Celebrate You.”

Rick showed us his iPhone and described it as the “Best $200.00 I Ever Spent.”

Morry used body language to describe the “On-Demand Revolution.”

Table Topics were lead by Bill Butcher and he called on Ollie, Chuck, and Brian.

Mary was our General Evaluator and the assigned evaluators were Jerry, Joe and Stephen J.

Awards were given for: Table Topics: Chuck; Evaluator: Stephen J: and Speaker: Sonya.

Control of the meeting was returned to Marvin. He announced the Toastmaster and Speakers for next week and passed around copies of the duty roster for dates through February 3rd. He then announced that the Club-Level International Speech Contest and Table Topics Contest will be held on February 10th. To speak in the International Speech Contest requires that 6 CC manual speeches be given. The only qualification for the Table Topics Contest is that you must be a member in good standing of a club in good standing, so all are encouraged to try out.

The meeting was ajourned on-time, no detractors.

January Officer’s Meeting

This is the first meeting of the January to June 2009 Officers for the Plano Talkers Toastmaster’s Club. Attending in order of arrival, were Paul, Chuck, Craig, Marvin, Barb and Stephen J (with his helper).  Roger and Mary, we missed you.

Paul, Our President, began the meeting by asking all attendees if Thursday at 7:00 is still an OK time to meet on the first Thursday of each month. We all agreed that it is. Paul wants us to continue our current membership drive (and perhaps enhance it) because he believes that continuing to add members is important to sustain the club. Paul mentioned that Collaboration is his leadership style and he intends to bring that style to his tenure as President.

Stephen, our Treasurer, showed us the current status of club funds. One big expense that we all agreed we needed to change is the club funds being used to pay for breakfast at these officer meetings. It was decided to move the meeting to the Corner Bakery (near the weekly meeting location) and have each Officer buy their own breakfast, if they want something. We agreed to try that for February and see how well the location works.

Chuck, our Secretary, said that the Blog continues although he is sometimes a week or more behind. He promised to work on getting this to be more timely.

Mary, our VP for Membership, is out of town today. Paul said that Mary is tracking 6 people as potential members including Rick who attended as a guest earlier in the week and will probably join in the next week or two.

The group discussed other ideas for attracting new members including:

• Improving the Guest Book, perhaps replacing it with a form that gives us more contact info.
• Guest Packets: we have a few but need more and all were encouraged to bring in any Toastmaster Magazines we had finished so they can be included.
• Members wear their name tags and use the red name cards so that guests can see who everyone is. (May help new members too.)
• New Members get TI pins and maybe some type of name tag since the TI name tag is usually given when the CC is earned.

Marvin, our VP Education, reviewed our President’s Distinguished Club status.

• Officer Training for Jan through June Officers: we have 2 trained and need 2 more. Barb and Mary have attended training and the others are planning to attend on Jan 22nd.
• Our April Dues List will be due but that will have to be done on schedule.
• New CCs: we need 4 total: we have one (Chuck) and both Mary and Bill B are close. Need to work on number 4.

Marvin announced the dates for the International Speech Contest (shown on the Events page of this blog) and the officers decided that February 10th is the best day for the Club-level contest.

Barb, our VP for Publicity, is looking for more Toastmaster magazines so she can put them in local businesses to encourage new guests. We discussed having some meetings that are a bit different from our normal schedule. It was decided that we should try to have an all-table-topics meeting and an evaluate-the-evaluators meeting. Such meetings would not be more than once per quarter so that members get their chance to make manual speeches.

Roger, our Sergeant-at-Arms, was not in attendance. Meeting set-up and tear-down seems to be going well with everyone pitching in to get it done. There are no know supply shortages.

Craig, our Web Master (not an elected office), stated that he had revised the Officer Page on the site and that we should review our section. He is working the issue of getting a duplicate of the duty roster email. he believes it has to do with the web site having two copies of the duty roster on-line simultaneously. He will revise the Sample Agenda to include the correct Officer List.

Paul lead an open discussion including:

• We need to vote new members in more quickly, preferable the meeting after they submit their application.
• There will be an Officer Induction for the new set of officers. Because our Area Governor lives far from where we meet, we need to contact her and arrange the schedule so we know (and can plan for) when she will be at a club meeting. We need to make sure the induction happens for the good of the Club.
• We discussed getting more recognition for members as they complete speeches and activities that show progress toward TM goals.
• There was discussion of having a newsletter. Craig said that he would put it together if others will write it.

The meeting ended on time at 8:00 am.

The Future is Now

Our new President, Paul, called the meeting to order right on time and introduced our guest: Rick. Joe lead the Invocation and Prayer.

Stephen J was our Toastmaster and he introduced his assistants: Grammarian: Joshua; Ah Counter: Carol who used a new, friendlier, noise maker; Timer: Carol; and Vote Counter: Morry.

Speakers included:

Mary using a handout with blanks to fill-in, talking about the process of going from “Will Not to Still Am”

Mike discussing “Real Change” and not the kind in your pocket.

Marvin doing one of the TM-Prepared speeches (with a typo on the slides) concerning “Preparation and Practice”

Paul lead Table Topics and called on Gene, Joe and Stephen J.

Chuck was our General Evaluator and evaluations were given by Brian (his first) and Bill B. I’ m still not sure why Marvin didn’t have an evaluator.

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

Paul reminded everyone that the Officer’s Meeting will be this Thursday at the usual place. Paul ended his first meeting right on time.

All Things Christmas

Sonya was our Toastmasrter and choose this theme because we met on Christmas Eve minus one.

Gene called the meeting to order right on time and asked Mike to lead the Invocation and Pledge.

Sonya introduced her assistants: Grammarian: Rick; Ah Counter: Brent; Timekeeper: Chuck; and Vote Counter: Joe.

Our speakers were:

Brain discussing Christmas

Ollie talking about “$73 Per Hour, Really?”

Roger with his “SMARTER ” Goals

Table Topics were lead by Gene and included: Morry, Rick, and Brent talking about Christmas past.

Our Chief Evaluator was Mike who introduced evaluations by Mary, Stephen J, and Morry.

Chuck told a story about how they were “Looking for me!”

Awards were given to Table Topics: Brent; Evaluation: Stephen; and Speaker: Roger.

Roger, our Sergeant-at-Arms, asked the restaurant manager to join us for a couple minutes. The club presented him with a pre-paid Gift Card and thanked him for allowing us to use the room.

Meeting adjourned on time, one distractor “Missing Speech Title on the Agenda.”

Rain and Ice: What a meeting!

Only about 8 people made it to the Dec 16th meeting, and that did NOT include the restaurant manager. So we went across the street and had breakfast and talked for an hour.

I have pictures so we can prove we were there. Now I just have to find them. Look for them on our Flickr site soon.

$15 Gifts are Pertinent This Time of Year

Marvin presided at today’s meeting and we began right on time with 17 members and 1 guest, Bill. Craig lead us in the invocation and Pledge.

Mike was our Toastmaster and asked us all to talk about a great $15.00 gift for the office gift exchange. He introduced his assistants: Timer: Roger, Ah Counter: Ollie; Grammarian: Barb; Vote Counter: Morry.

Speeches were given by:

Stephen J started his CC book again with an Icebreaker entitled: “Nerdvana.”

Joshua gave his second CC speech entitled, ” Who Would Win.”

and Bill S practiced the speech he will give in Washington DC tomorrow with a discussion of Universal Design entitled, “Congratulations, but…”

Table Topics was lead by first-timer Brain with an opportunity to recite the first four lines of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” Chuck got the first two lines and Bill S got the second half. For Table Topics, Brian called on Pete, Marvin, Paul and Morry.

Bill B lead the evaluation team consisting of Chuck (Sonya slept in), Mary (Jerry slept in), and Gene.

Awards were given for Table Topics: Paul; Evaluation: Mary; and Best Speech: Stephen.

Marvin called for New Business and Gene introduced the idea of our club sponsoring Speech Craft. This idea was approved with no dissension.

The meeting ended on time with no detractors.

Officers call – Transfer of Duties

Our December Officer’s Meeting began on time with Andrew, Paul, Gene, Mary, Craig, Roger, Barb, Stephen J, Chuck and Roger attending. We almost needed a bigger table.

There was a discussion about the invocation at the start of our meetings and we just want to be sure to include all faiths so that everyone feels welcome.

Andrew began by introducing the theme of today’s meeting as being a “passing of the torch” for the outgoing-incoming officers. Paul will become President and Andrew becomes Immediate Past President. Mary will take over Paul’s duties as VP Membership. Gene will not be able to attend meetings regularly because he will be teaching on Tuesday mornings next semester. So he relinquished the seat as VP Publicity to Barb.

We began with Paul discussing Membership (and Mary taking copious notes). Paul will key in our newest member (Brent) to TI today. Stephen offered to help but Paul said he had the time planned. Paul reported that as all of our recent (within the last year) new members had found us on the web, we need to keep our site as up to date as possible. Paul discussed the Guest Book and said that it is useful but there needs to be more room for contact information as sometimes it is difficult to read because the space is so small. Paul suggested that we attempt to contact inactive and former members to get them started again. Barb mentioned that perhaps we should attempt to get some presence within the job seekers’ arena.

Gene talked about Chamber listings and joining with other Plano clubs to have a representative at Chamber meetings to publicize our meetings. Gene discussed the Detractor System and said that we continue to be within the limits we had selected. He showed us that our biggest repeat offender seems to be “missing speech titles on the agenda.” This may be a symptom of a lack of preparation by the speakers.

Craig asked how we all thought the web site could be better used to attract new members. Andrew asked that all new officers update the Officer Bio portion and the Member Bio portion of the site. Having our pictures and some of our own stories and progress may help others choose Plano Talkers. Of course, we are the only early morning club in Plano and that does help.

Stephen gave a Treasurer’s report and we seem to be on track with money. There was a suggestion made by Gene that we develop and approve a budget for each officer term so that we can be sure we don’t forget anything and stay on-track with money. We had a couple large expenses linked to the web site and the scheduler program this month. So our planned $40.00 gift card for the Spaghetti Warehouse Manager might make the budget a bit close until next renewal. Barb suggested that we ask the club membership to make a $1 or $2 donation each of the next two weeks to pay for the gift card. Stephen will announce this via email to all members.

Roger reported that supply levels seem to be ok and he gets lots of help in both setup and tear down each week.

Chuck talked about the Bog and there were some questions about getting pictures on the site. Chuck mentioned that we have a flickr.com site but no pictures are posted.

Mary asked about making welcoming phone calls after attending a meeting. She said that the calls she had received had been a big influence in her joining the group. She will begin these calls as soon as possible.

New Business: Gene mentioned that he has been asked by the University to be a part of a club called SIFE and help to coordinate a speech practice for the group. He mentioned Speech Craft, the Toastmasters program for students. It was decided that he would introduce this idea at the next club meeting and see if the club will sponsor the Speech Craft. Our obligations would be only time by individuals to make speeches to SIFE meetings. Usually one per week beginning in February.

The Mentor program was discussed and the VPs of Education and Membership will work together to assign mentors as soon as new members join the club. We need a mentor for Brent.

There was a discussion about scheduling a quarterly club meeting to be 15 minutes longer than usual to accommodate club business. This needs to be raised at the club level.

We almost didn’t get breakfast but squeezed it in at the last minute. The meeting ended right on time.

A Cold Start to the Christmas Season

We started December on a cold morning as Andrew called us to order right on time. We had 15 members on hand including Brent who submitted his application last week. Gene lead our Invocation and Pledge.

Roger was our Toastmaster and he introduced his assistants: Stephen J as Timer; Joe as Ah Counter; Chuck as Vote Counter; and Mike as Grammarian.

Our three speeches today were:

Morry discussing the requests he gets for help buying/building a computer with a speech entitled, “Buy a Dell.”

Mary persuading us to “Get Your Merry On,” a theme repeated in the napkins she brought for the occasion.

Pete gave us some ideas about marketing in this down economy with a speech entitled, “Marketing for Today’s Business.”

Barb lead Table Topics and called on Gene, Brent, Bill S. and Mike.

Carol lead our evaluation team which consisted of Steve B, Rick, and Andrew.

Bill S was the Jokemaster.

Awards were given to: Gene for Table Topics; Andrew for Evaluation; and Pete for Best Speaker.

Mike, acting in his capacity as Past-President, introduced the slate of officers for the January 2009 to June 2009 term. After a miscommunication by Chuck was corrected by Andrew and everyone got to practice Robert’s Rules (Thank you Gene), the slate of Officers nominated and elected are:

President: Paul

VP Education: Marvin

VP Membership: Mary

VP Publicity: Barb

Treasurer: Stephen J.

Secretary: Chuck

Sergeant-at-Arms: Roger

Also, not an elected office but worth mentioning: Webmaster: Craig

The membership elected the officers by acclimation. The first Officer Training Session is December 6th.

We also voted to allow Brent to join the club. Welcome to Plano Talkers!

Regardless of the elections, we were dismissed on-time. What an efficient meeting.

Thanksgiving – No Capitulation

Andrew called us to order right on time with 19 members and 2 guests, Brent and Scott. Pete lead us in the Invocation.

Joe was our first-time Toastmaster and he introduced his assistants: Bill S as Timer; Roger as Ah Counter; Rick as Vote Counter; and Brian as Grammarian.

Our speakers were:

Gene with a brief discussion on Robert’s Rules of Order.

Marvin elaborated on “Effective Communication is Key to Success.”

Mike talked about Bob Hope and titled his speech, “I Thank You for the Memories.”

Table Topics lead by Sonya followed the Thanksgiving Theme. Speakers included Barb, and a couple others whom I forgot to write down.

Mary lead the evaluation team which consisted of Chuck, Andrew and Paul.

Craig was the Jokemaster.

Awards were given to: Table Topics: Barb; Evaluation: Paul; and Best Speaker: Mike.

We adjurned on time; no detractors today.