Toast to the This time in Toastmasters

1. a. An Elevator
2. b. A Bagel
3. c. A Banana
4. d. A Pancake
5. e. ?

Some old faces appeared today (along with their bodies) Sam, Maurice and Marv. Good to see you!

We had two guests, Bill and R? (It began with an R). Both were impressed with the fun atmosphere, our informative/constructive evals and of course, our website.

Diva presented her Icebreaker speech “A Small Slice of My Life” followed by Jackie with “Know Before You Go” for Speech #2.

The first session of “10 Minutes for New Members” conducted by Tom went very well. We had 4 new members attend and 2 guests for about a 20 minutes. As expected, most questions centered around meeting roles and the some of the differences between how TT does things and what is contained in official literature.

Note: Ummer’s and Ahher’s at the meeting were treated to a new, improved Squawking Device that looked a lot like this:

Next week:

• Toastmaster/Katrina
• Eric W./Speaker
• Sonja/Speaker
• Stephanie/Speaker
• Mike/Eval
• Eric D./Eval
• ?????/Eval

Cheers,

Marc

With a theme of “Improv” Eric started us out with no agenda and promised to tell us WHY at the end of the meeting. Would it be to improve our improv? Prove our proverbs?….

Julie told us her story about the ever-changing the color of her house while her husband was away on assignment for the military. His perennial question prior to his deployment home was always “What Color is My House?”.  The latest version:

Hannes then told us about the original social networking – actually talking to people face to face and some useful techniques for doing so!

And our last speaker was Debra who demonstrated very effectively how world leaders could wage a bloodless war by merely texting one another on what they were going to do to each other. General Petraeus and an Unknown Taliban Leader were funnily portrayed on the TT stage with animated texting.

Wrapping up the meeting was the award for Best Table Topics Speaker which went to Stephen for eloquently discussing his plans for a Lady GaGa themed Halloween. In the spirit of the theme the meeting (Improv), he was presented with a signed photograph of our very own Tom Carey.

Stay tuned for next weeks meeting theme. (Hint: Nothing to do with politics) We’ve had enough of that on the tube.

Cheers,

Marc

Lots of numbers today as we had 6 guests, 3 (count ‘em three) icebreakers and 8 new members since August 1, 2010. The surge in members gave our club the “Smedley” Award for the most Smeds signed up! See the article!

Toastmaster Stephanie’s baseball-themed meeting brought out everyone’s inner Kevin Costner and WOD the day “Home Run” was used profusely throughout the meeting.

On the Icebreaker front, Sonja, Terree and Jackie all gave inspirational, informative and different 1st time speeches while Evaluators Tom, Eric and Katrina all gave informative, educational and perceptive feedback. Great speech introductions for the Toastmaster were supplied by all the speakers! (My soul is so happy. More info on good intros here
Next week:

Toastmaster/Eric

Speaker/Debra

Speaker/Hannes

Speaker/Julie

Eval/Marc

Eval/Sonja

Eval/Stephen

Cheers,

Marc

Lots of guests today…five total was the final tally. Brought in by the website and serenaded by Mr. Winger, just keeps them coming.

Rebecca took her first turn as Toastmaster and brought the meeting in on schedule and under budget! The theme was “Embracing Autumn”. Hard to do for those of us who are still in the “Pining for Summer” meeting. (Summer? We had a summer?)

Sonja was grammarian for the first time and gave us the the delicious “Ambrosial”.

Eric D. gave us another incisive look at where are money is disappearing with “How the tax code drives people to make poor economic choices and how to fix it”. Very interesting correlations between consumption, taxes and more.

Eric W. decided to apply for 4 different merit badges based on his experiences with peeing, vomiting and screaming campers in “An Application for Merit Badges”.

I had to put one of these pictures in here. Had to. Sorry.

Next week:

Debra/Toastmaster

Karen/Speaker

Stephen/Speaker

Eric D./Evaluator

Katrina/Evaluator

Cheers,

Marc

No post last week as I wanted to let Leissa do the honors of the meeting/contest recap and announce our winner, Mr. Eric “My Middle Name is Theatre” Winger! If you missed his Iowa farmer costume and imitation, I’m sure we can persuade him to bring both out for Halloween.

Eric Davis, our Toastmaster for Tuesday gave us the scrumptious theme of “Chocolate Chip Cookies”. Not content to just let us think about CCC, he actually brought a plate of them in!

Hannes altruistically gave us the Word of the Day, altruistically which was used fairly frequently by the cookie munching public.

Rebecca as Speaker #1 gave us a lovely, organized and well-thought out speech entitled “45 Words” focusing on our First Amendment Rights.

The next Speaker, who shall remain nameless, told a strange tale of happenings in a small town in isolated Yamhill County.

One of our guests (whose name escapes me), took home the new white “Best Table Topics” riboon award.

Eric W. reported that we had 3 new folks join at that meeting. Is is something he is wearing?

Next week is the Table Topics (aka Terror Topics Contest)! If you would like to compete, let Contest Chair Eric W. know.

Cheers,

Marc, VP of PR (and VP of Whitespace)

Yes, it was a sad, sad, sad day at Timbertalkers as a crowd of tearful mourners bemoaned the early, pointless and premature death of our dear friend Summer. Accompanied by suitable music, the group wept communally throughout the meeting. As cruel as Mother Nature can be, she was even a degree crueler that day by making Tuesday the day of the wettest hour EVER recorded in the history of Portland. Don’t believe it?

Portland Breaks 1 Hour Rainfall Record!

The music:

THE MEETING

Kathleen gave us a new twist on Word of The Day and requested that we try to work in some Tom Swifty’s. Things like:

• “I haven’t developed my photographs yet,” said Tom negatively.
• “This decay wasn’t there before,” said Tom neurotically.
• “That just doesn’t add up,” said Tom, nonplussed.
• “Can you read music?” the bandleader asked notably.
• “What’s the value of a dollar bill?” asked Tom noteworthily.

Speeches

Ken lead us off with the greeting and introduction of a speech that “Maximizing Your Profit” that he is going to be giving to about 80 auto parts shop owners and other bigwigs in Las Vegas next week. The actual presentation is going to be very unToastmaster-like as there are no speech intros for the speakers, no MC and no Toastmaster. According to Ken, NAPA conferences are fairly backwards in that regard. He used this opportunity to practice his speech and have the audience pretend to be the store owners.

Katrina was Speaker #2 with her speech “When the Serenity Prayer Just Isn’t Enough – How to Deal With Challenging Kids“.  During this informative speech, she gave the audience discipline tips learned during her 15 years as a school teacher through a creatively presented PowerPoint show. Some suggested these same techniques could be used on difficult adults! Sample slide below:

Speech Contest Tuesday!

Join E² and K² (Eric D.,Eric W. Karen and Katrina) as they battle it out for funnyperson supremacy in the club humorous speech contest!

Judges Tom, Marc, Stephen and Debra (shown below) will be on duty to ensure the speakers are cunningly evaluated, properly scored and exactingly noted.

Cheers,

Marc

“Pregnant with Possibilities”.   If you were at our BBQ on Saturday, you probably know why this is my theme!”

Our word of the day was Conceive, and clearly the race was on.

Our first speaker was Kathleen, who gave us a great demonstration on cooking Halibut, along with a couple of stories not only about how to prepare it, but also to catch it, and all the fun and pageantry that involves.

Our second speaker, Eric Davis gave a great talk about riding his bike (he brought it too…sort of a show-and-tell type of day) from the East Side Esplanade to Mt. Tabor. Again, good use of props, uniform, and appropriate safety equipment.

Table Topics was ushered in by Karen, and we all had a great time in trying to convince Jen that whatever Karen handed us from her bag of “Grandma Stuff” was just the best for her.

Eric Wringer and Katrina did their evaluations with grace, humor and valuable feedback for our speakers.

We ended our meeting with Tom asking for an all club “ya sure” in voting in new members Diva and Terree.

Cheers,

Marc

Following the chef introduction, we had two speeches. First Stephanie gave Speech #4 from the Competent Communicator Manual entitled “Catalina Island – The Vision” which was a fascinating brief history of how gum magnate William Wrigley was responsible for its present day charm. Accompanying her speech was a wonderful and colorful artist’s rendering of the town of Avalon. Just searching online for pics, it looks incredible.

Next up was Katrina with her catchily titled speech “Conflict is Inevitable, but Combat is Optional”.

This slide from her Powerpoint presentation sums all up:

Next week:

Toastmaster     Sam

Speaker 1          Kathleen

Speaker 2          Marc

Eval 1                  Eric W.

Eval 2                 Katrina

TT                       Karen

Cheers,

Marc

Two of the the guests joined on the spot due to Eric. W’s. Svengali membership powers: Terree Rodakowski and J’lee Worsley.

The theme of the meeting was “Do something different. Push Your Comfort Zone”.  To illustrate this simple concept, the “hide behind the table” table @ the front of the room was removed to “Do something different”

Serendipitously falling in step with the meeting theme, Eric D. was all set to use the project for his speech, but discovered you need to let Rebecca know in advance so it can be there. His speech “ In-n-Out Burger:  The history, the food, the secret menu” was a comprehensive overview of In-n-Out from a real insider. Even though he did not have the visuals as planned, he pulled off the speech without a hitch. If there is anything you want to know about In-n-Out Burger”,  Eric is the man(burger) to see. The object of Eric’s adoration:

Karen once again spellbound us  with her speech “The Year of the Dragon.” from the Storytelling Manual.

In the spirit of “Doing Something Different”, Table Topics participants presented from the conspicuously spacious front of the room. New member Julie braved the Circle as did Area Gov Phyllis and Mike.

Timber Talkers BBQ at Eric Wingers house next Saturday, August 28th!

Next Week:

Toastmaster           Eric

Speaker 1                 Stephanie

Speaker 2                 Katrina

Eval 1                        Marc

Eval 2                        Kathleen

TT                              Eric D.

Cheers,

Marc