Meeting Nov. 8, 2007

Wow – what an amazing meeting we had last night! Before the meeting we had 9 (yes NINE!) speakers signed up for this speechathon! But due to last-minute cancellations, we ended up with three speakers.

However, they were all excellent! And we had a great meeting! The evening turned out to be a great success, illustrating what can happen when you have a team that steps up to the plate when plans go awry. Our VP of Ed Rob Schaff and Sreeni Voleti, who was serving as Toastmaster of the evening for the first time, teamed up, took all the changes in stride and guided us through a highly valuable experience !

They re-inserted Table Topics of which Rob was truly the "Table Topics Master". And the three speeches were outstanding!

Meshva gave an outstanding Ice Breaker about growing up in India and developing her interest in mechanical engineering from all things mechanical like fixing her bike. She enjoyed it so much one day she took it completely apart! This woman is certainly going to be an excellent speaker.
It was a pleasure to experience her presentation!

Rob's Speech Project #8 (his 9th speech – he'll complete his CC with # 10 soon) brought together several very interesting stories about work, gmail, being motivated by love of his family and other stuff, all of which was well integrated and highlighted by excellent visual aids – which was the objective of this project.

Rose Rita shared a wonderful lesson she learned about adjusting to unforeseen circumstances: She had to attend a meeting she was not looking forward to which turned into a wonderfully positive experience in part because she kept an open mind. This was only her third speech and her content and delivery showed that she is definitely on her way to becoming a truly Competent Communicator!

Nancy put the finishing touches on as GE and the evaluators John, Nancy, and Tom helped complete a fine meeting.

Nancy has also designed some wonderful and professional looking business cards for all Club Members to have! Nancy also volunteered to take on part of the VP Membership job! Thank you Nancy!

We also received reports on the outstanding District 53 Fall Conference November 3rd in Fishkill NY which was attended by six of our members: Fred, Eliot L., Rob, Chris, Tom, and Mark Lacatena! And we learned that the Spring Conference will be held in Holyoke on May 17th. You are urged to mark your calendars now because you don't want to miss what promises to be an exhilarating, highly educational and fun experience!

Great news! Jeff Lagasse has joined our club! Jeff so enjoyed his first visit on October 18 that he turned in his completed membership application to John last night! Jeff also served as Ah Counter and gave an excellent Table Topics speech! Welcome Jeff!

Meeting 10/25/2007

Hello Fellow Toastmasters, it was another great meeting this past Thursday!

Club Attendance:

Name, Meeting Roles, Comments
1) Tom Alvord: Evaluator # 3, Ah Counter
2) Eliot Lofman
3) Cheryl Mason: Speaker # 1
4) Kim Price: Speaker # 3, Evaluator # 1
5) Rose Rita Riccitelli: Speaker # 2, Word of the Day
6) Rob Schaff: Toastmaster, Invocation
7) Arun Sodani: Evaluator # 2, Sergeant at Arms, General Evaluator
8) Fred Swiderski: Humorist, Table Topics Master
9) Srinivas Voleti

Guests:

Name, Meeting Roles, Comments
10) Erica Mason: Timer
11) Ramesh Pravala
12) Jeff Lagasse
13) Mike Wagner: Speaker # 4, Practicing for District Humorous Speech
14) Lorraine

We were delighted to have a number of guests with us for the evening!

Rob was our (very well prepared) Toastmaster for the evening.

Tom showed off our President’s Distinguished Award ribbon and Rob helped describe the achievements of our club in order to earn this coveted award! Congratulations to everyone in the club, this is something to be very proud of!

Rob gave an invocation with an Autumn theme.

Rose Rita provided our word of the day: EPITOME
Epitome is a noun, a brief presentation, or a typical, ideal example of something.

Fred provided our humor for the evening and had us all laughing about sharks and alligators!

Table Topics: Fred led the Table Topics for the evening, with a Fall theme. This was a lot of fun!

We learned about Tom’s favorite Fall ritual at the beach, Jeff’s favorite Halloween costume, Erica’s most liked jack-o-lantern, Arun’s favorite Halloween treats to hand out, Eliot’s special hiding place for candy (as well as his howling skills!), Rob’s favorite fall color (hint has to do with the Steelers!), what Lorraine is serving for Halloween, Ramesh’s favorite fall memory, and Sreeni’s Halloween decorating strategies.

Speeches

Cheryl completed her 5th speech from the CC manual, Your Body Speaks. The topic of this speech was Dancemasters, a dance themed program like Toastmasters!

Rose Rita completed her 2nd speech from the CC manual, Organize Your Speech. This was a chance for Rose Rita to practice a speech she will be giving to employees at Yale University. The message was about OPPORTUNITY and we learned a lot about Rose Rita’s experiences at Yale!

Kim completed an advanced speech from the Speaking to Inform Manual, “Why Don’t Chipmunks Make Good Pets.” Kim’s speech provided us with some inspiring thoughts about embracing change, changing the way you think, all while he told an engaging story!

Mike Wagner is competing at the district conference and visited our club in order to practice his speech. This was a real treat for us to hear! Great job, Mike! Really enjoyed his theme “Notes to You” as well as the stories he weaved throughout the speech.

General Evaluator – Arun Sodani

Speech Evaluations

Evaluator # 1 – Kim Price
Evaluator # 2 – Arun Sodani
Evaluator # 3 – Tom Alvord
Evaluator # 4 – Open forum, provided feedback to Mike on his speech

Reports

Ah Counter – Tom
Timer – Erica
Word Master – Rose Rita

Closing - Meeting was adjourned by Tom at approx. 8:50 p.m.

See you next time!

-Cheryl

Sep. 27 Meeting

From Tom Alvord:

Hi! I'm so excited about our meeting last Thursday Night! We had 6 guests! - a record since I've been member! It made for a great meeting - lots of activity and good feedback from the guests! John Keppler was the masterful ToastMaster and Rob Schaff performed the role of GE like a pro. Screeni's speech was excellent preparation for Thursday's Area Contest. Evaluators said it was an improvement over Club Contest presentation which is exactly what we like to see.Good luck Sreeni.

And best wishes to John in the Tabletopics Contest! Since John didn't get to present his Tabletopic speech Thursday (duh!) he didn't get the royal treatment that Sreeni did - but John - we're still rooting for you! [Just in - John cannot make the contest so Arun will represent our club in the Table Topics Contest] Best wishes Arun!

Arun was an excellent Tabletopics Master - especially since he didn't know it was his job till about 5 minutes before the meeting. My understanding is that he made up the questions as we went along. It was great interesting, educational fun Arun!

Congratulations Eliot Lofman on your 2nd - another excellent speech! Isn't it great when a fairly new member gets up in front and demonstrates natural talent! How many of us wish we had a voice that projects as well as Eliot's? Rob also gave another excellent speech! How easy it is to listen to Rob! The words just seem to flow!

One of the guests - Anne Marie submited her paid application and another - Mesha had already joined on Contest night so I'm really excited that we're generating some new members! Apparently we've all been visualizing a 25 member club because we've not really done anything special to attract these new members that I know of. Now that Contest season will soon be over we'll be able to focus on membership. We have half baked plans in the hopper and we'll roll them out soon. But six guests was such great news - it gives us some momentum toward the all-important goal of having 20 members come June 30!

We're looking forward to a great contest Thursday. Remember - we want to get an early start so we've got the Library at 5:00 and we'll start the contest at 6:00.Hats off to Fred for taking over the chairmanship or the Contest. Chris Lewis just Monday night volunteered to be ContestMaster so if everyone else will show up to be judges and counters we will be in great shape!

See you tomorrow!

Tom

Contest Results

Dear fellow MxCC TM's,

The Contest Thursday night was most entertaining with Elliot Essman stepping up with a lot of enthusiasm and humor as Contest Master!

Here are the results:

Humorous Speech Contest:

Champion - Sreeni Voleti
First Runner Up - Rob Schaff

Table Topics Contest: (QUESTION: There are only 10 days left to summer, how will you make the most of them?)

Champion - John Keppler
First Runner Up - Arun Sodani

CONGRATULATIONS to these winners and to all who competed!

Our two champions will go on to compete at the area level on Thursday night October 4th, with a home-town advantage right back in the Russell Library "Hubbard Room", and we will have the opportunity at our next meeting 9/27 to coach Sreeni on his Lion King/Uncle Scar speech to prepare him to take the Area Contest by storm.

John will have to wing it at the contest since we have no idea what the next Table Topics Question will be! But we can count on John, he will not run out of things to say because he can always add a political or historical twist to any question no matter what card he is dealt. With any luck the curveball he throws will knock the judges off balance and he will move on to the next level. (sorry about the sports and card imagery there, couldn't stop myself)

In addition, I'm happy to report that one of our three guests, Meshva Patel, became our newest member! Please be sure Meshva's e-mail address gets to Rob Schaff so he can update the website and she will start receiving our club info.

Thank you to all who served in contest roles, brought refreshments, and most of all entertained us by joining in as competitors. It was a great evening.

Regards,

Nancy VP-PR Club 8340, grateful Chief Judge for our club contest.

July 26 Meeting

Hello Fellow Toastmasters,

NOTE: Our next two meetings in August will be held at the Russell Library, 123 Broad St., Middletown. http://www.russelllibrary.org/

Another great meeting this past Thursday!

A Quote to Share from the Meeting:

"What a wonderful place to be on a Thursday night! We're learning to communicate better and becoming better leaders." (Tom Alvord)

Club Attendance:

1) Tom Alvord: Toastmaster
2) Elliot Essman: Evaluator for Speech # 1
3) Nancy Green: Table Topics Master
4) John Keppler: Timer, General Evaluator
5) Chris Lewis: Ah Counter, Grammarian
6) Eliot Lofman: Wordmaster, Humorist
7) Cheryl Mason
8) Kim Price
9) Rob Schaff: Invocation, Speaker

Guests:
10) Amy Alvord: Tom's daughter, visiting here from Germany!

We were delighted to have Amy Alvord join us for the evening! She is interested in the Toastmasters organization and learning more about it.

Sergeant at Arms

Filling in for vacationing Arun was Elliott E. Have you ever noticed the details on a $1 bill? Do you have any idea what the Latin phrases mean? Maybe next time we'll be able to answer some of Elliot's interesting trivia questions!

Invocation

Rob shared interesting excerpts from "Language of the Night," a collection of essays by Ursula K. LeGuin. It had to do with the power of stories and the impact that they have on emotional and spiritual depths . . . "For the story – from Rumpelstiltskin to War and Peace – is one of the basic tools invented by the mind of man, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories."

Club News

Tom introduced our Area C5 Governor, Nancy, who provided some exciting information about the upcoming speech contests.

Thursday, Sept. 13 will be the Club Contest at our regular meeting time.
The meeting will be held at the Hubbard Room in the Russell Library, 123 Broad St., Middletown
http://www.russelllibrary.org/

Thursday, October 4 will be the Area Contest, at the same location.

Mark those dates! If you haven't already, please consider competing in the contests or volunteering to help with them. It really is a fun and rewarding experience!

Club Speech Coach: Elliot E. has offered to be our club speech coach. He is willing to answer any questions about our meetings, roles and responsibilities, how to challenge yourself further, etc. He has 22 years of experience with Toastmasters and has professional speech coaching experience as well. Whether it's help or feedback with speeches, or simply some mentoring with taking on a new role such as Toastmaster of a meeting, Elliot is here for all of us regardless of our experience level!

Toastmaster

Tom was our Toastmaster for the evening, bridging these next portions of the meeting:

WordMaster / Humorist

Eliot L provided this interesting word for us:

Accourt – to entertain, amuse, put on a show

Also, he provided some light humor for the group "A Night at the Improv," sharing a story relating to Murphy's Law, and an inevitable, what-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong experience of his!

Table Topics

Nancy led the Table Topics for the evening, where each of us had to answer job interview questions that showcased our behavioral styles and unique talents. This was lots of fun, and there were several of us who definitely will not be getting hired! Some of the interviewees didn't want to work at all, were only interested in keeping the office staff entertained, offered to bake to woo customers, or had no interest in the job being offered! Boy, Nancy, hope you don't have to deal with too many interviews like that at work!

There was feedback later on that this would be a good Table Topics theme to repeat again as it's great practice for real life skills!

Speeches

Rob Schaff completed his 6th speech from the CC manual, Vocal Variety. Rob told an Ashanti folk tale about Anansi the Spider. What an interesting, engaging speech this was!

In lieu of any other scheduled speeches, Tom asked for input from our attendees about some of the benefits they have realized with being a member of Toastmasters.

Here are some of the many benefits that Toastmasters has provided to our members over the years:

· comfort in front of a group
· speaking more deliberately
· met wonderful people
· networking with others
· increased confidence level
· cheerful, enthusiastic people
· taught me how to listen
· it's becomes less about yourself and more about the others around you
· you learn more and more from the experiences of others

Evaluations

Evaluation for Rob was given by Elliot E., and included insightful comments about how the story was a difficult one to tell, but was an excellent topic selection that facilitated vocal variety.

Grammarian – Chris provided useful feedback that we should be more aware of (and try to avoid) use of run-on sentences . . . where we continue with filler words in between ( e.g. . . . . so . . . ., . . . . but . . . .., etc.)

General Evaluator – John Keppler noted that we were pleased to have Amy as our guest, the meeting started on time, and Table Topics was very interesting!

Word Master – Eliot reported 7 uses of the word-of-the-day, "accourt," by Tom, Elliot E., and Cheryl

Closing - Meeting was adjourned by Tom at approx. 8:30 p.m.

See you next time!

-Cheryl

July 12 2007 Meeting

Hello Fellow Toastmasters

We had another great meeting this past Thursday, 7/12/2006.

In attendance:

	Name	Meeting Role(s)
1	Tom Alvord	Evaluator # 1, Timer
2	Janet Argenta	Speaker # 4
3	Ute Brinkmann	Speaker # 2
4	Elliot Essman	Toastmaster
5	Nancy Green	Table Topics Master
6	John Keppler	Invocation, Evaluator # 2
7	Chris Lewis	Evaluator # 3
8	Eliot Lofman	Humorist
9	Ashley Mason	Guest
10	Cheryl Mason	Speaker # 1
11	Rose Rita Riccitelli	Word of the Day, Grammarian
12	Rob Schaff	General Evaluator
13	Fred Swiderski
14	Sreenivas Voleti	Speaker # 3

We had one guest, Ashley Mason, who is Cheryl's 9 year old daughter. She was happy to lead the pledge of allegiance (and thanks to John for asking her to!)

Tom started off the meeting by recognizing last year's officers and thanking them for their contributions. Noting this is the first club meeting of the new TM year, he also introduced this year's officers and asked for short reports from each of them.

Nancy (VP PR) is asking for all TMs to bring in any local newspapers they have so she can get the contact info. She is working on business cards that we can use to hand out for the Middlesex Club. She welcomes any comments and ideas from each of us.

Janet (VP Membership) is ready to welcome new members and is looking forward to her officer role.

Rob (VP Ed) provided a handout of goals for us to work toward for the Distinguished Club Program.

Cheryl (Secretary) will keep minutes of officer meetings and club meetings, including membership and attendance. Any ideas, feedback always welcome.

John (Treasurer) will continue managing the club funds and collecting membership dues.

Tom (President) is off to a great start leading our club, and we look forward to supporting him throughout the coming year.

John led our invocation by providing a hand out:

Words to Live By

Keep your thoughts positive . . . because your thoughts become your words

Keep your words positive . . . because your words become your actions

Keep your actions positive . . . because your actions become your habits

Keep your habits positive . . . because your habits become your values

Keep your values positive . . . because your values become your destiny

Thanks, John!

As Toastmaster, Elliot E. kept the meeting running smoothly and fun throughout! It was great to hear all those candid reviews of new snack foods from 7^th and 8^th graders as published in the Food Processing magazine. They were hysterical!

Rose Rita provided our word of the day:

alacrity, noun,

cheerful readiness, promptness, or willingness: We accepted the invitation with alacrity.

Eliot L. provided some humor for the evening with what happens when you fall in love with . . .

Nancy led Table Topics with a unique theme that also helped us learn how to graciously accept an award using TCUT

T: Thanks. Give thanks for the award

C: Credit. Give credit to anyone that helped you.

U: Use. Describe how you will use the award / $

T: Thanks. End by thanking again.

Each of us were called up to accept recognition for a specific award. Using the TCUT structure, we accepted the "trophy" given as well as the $10K cash award. Awards were given out for best underwater basket weaving, best floral arrangement without flowers, doctoral work for the conversion of buffalo chips to energy for a lawn mower, winning the baked bean eating contest, best mechanical bull rider, and best bubble wrap popper, to name just a few! This was lots of fun, plus we all learned from it!

Speakers for the evening:

Cheryl - Against the Grain, CC speech # 3 which informed the audience about Celiac Disease.

Ute - Conversing with Ease, Advanced speech which covered various levels of communication and included an unrehearsed role play with Rose Rita from the audience.

Sreenivas - CC speech # 2 which was very devilish in nature and included lots of humor to keep
the audience entertained!

Janet - Effectively Not Speaking my Mind, CC speech topic that had some great content about talking to fill space and unspoken moments.

Evaluations were given by Tom, John, Chris & Nancy. Timing was provided by Tom, and Rose Rita provided insightful feedback as grammarian. Rob provided general evaluation for the meeting.

Closing discussion was about the Fall area contested, to be hosted by our own Middlesex Club. Tentative date/location being considered: October 11^th at Russell Library in Middletown. More info to follow.

Also, officer training is required for all officers and all members are welcome to attend, dates are listed on the District 53 calendar link (available on our club website page).

See you next time!

-Cheryl

Thu 6/28/2007 Meeting

Hello Fellow Toastmasters!

We had a great meeting last night. Thanks to all that attended, and for those that couldn’t make it, we hope to see you next time!

Nancy kicked off the meeting, informing us of some VERY exciting news that our club is earning the President’s Distinguished Club award. This is a very prestigious award and showcases what an active, committed club we are. We should all be very proud of this achievement!

A few other noteworthy items: Chris Lewis is the outgoing Area C5 Governor, and we thank Chris for a great year! The Area C5 Governor serves the clubs in Cromwell, Middletown, North Haven, and Wallingford. Chris is passing the baton to our very own Nancy Green, as the incoming Area C5 Governor for the new term. Officer training dates are listed on the District 53 website – all officers should be sure to register / attend one of the upcoming sessions.

In attendance:

Tom A. Janet A., Ute B., Elliot E., Nancy G., John K., Pat L., Chris L., Eliot L., Cheryl M.,

Rose Rita R., Rob S., Sreenivas V.

Chris was our very well prepared Toastmaster for the evening.

Our word of the day, moot, was presented by Sreenivas, who provided us with a very interesting, thorough, and fact filled history of the word and its usage. Who knew it had two different meanings and that there was such a thing as a moot court. ???

Our very thought-provoking invocation was given by Rob S., a passage from the book, Tao Te Ching. It had to do with the space in between things . . . and it's importance.

Eliot L. provided us with some light humor about past jobs, and now we know why he isn’t a Historian -- there was no future in it!

Cheryl provided Toastmaster topics tied to a Reader’s Digest theme, and everyone gave great talks on the topics they were given. Especially interesting were the memories that were shared about specifc RD stories read a long time ago that left a lasting impression!

The speeches given were GREAT, what a treat to be in the audience for these:

· Chris L. gave a special occasion speech, a roast, from the advanced manual
What a funny, warm hearted talk about her brother; we all felt like we knew him!
In fact, we wondered if we might be able to meet him sometime!

· Rob S. gave his 5^th speech from the CC manual, your body speaks, “The Other Instrument” This speech had such clever body gestures and was lots of fun to listen to!

· John K. gave an awesome Ice Breaker speech that was very family oriented and had us all thinking about our parents.

· Tom A. gave his TENTH speech from the CC manual, Inspiring Your Audience, and he sure met the objectives of this speech! He shared some very heartwarming stories and experiences he’s had with special, unique individuals living in nursing homes. Congratulations, Tom, on earning your CC award!

Our evaluators for the evening all did a great job providing feedback to the speakers: Elliot E., Nancy, Janet and Pat L., with Nancy also serving as general evaluator. Timer report was provided by Sreenivas, Ah Counter report provided by Pat L., and our Grammarian was Rose Rita.

Have you seen our club's website lately? There are some great updates there, including the list of incoming club officers, updated member pictures, etc. Check it out!

Our next meeting is July 12.

See you then,

Cheryl

Executive Commitee Meeting

Executive Committee which met at Russell Library 6/21/2007 at 6:30 p.m.

Members in attendance: John Keppler, Janet Argenta, Nancy Green, Rob Schaff, Elliot Essman, Tom Alvord, Eliot Lofman, Cheryl Mason

Presiding Chairman: Tom Alvord

1. Tom called the meeting to order

2. Outgoing officers provided a brief year end report:
- VP Ed/Nancy reported the club is on track for earning the President’s Distinguished award
- Treasurer/John reported financial activity for the last year, ending balance $469.62
- VP Membership/Tom reported 17 members as of July 2006, 20 members as of June 2007: 18 active and 2 “paper members”. Tom also provided a number of interesting membership statistics, including: 43% of prospects who showed interest became members, 56% of guests became members, over the last year 23 people showed interest in our club, 18 of these prospects because guests, and 10 guests became members. Elliot Essman thought these retention rates are somewhat above average.

3. Tom welcomed each of the new officers for the coming year:
President: Tom Alvord
Vice President Education: Rob Schaff
Vice President Membership: Janet Argenta
Vice President Public Relations: Nancy Green
Secretary: Cheryl Mason
Treasurer: John Keppler
Sergeant at Arms: Arun Sodani

4. New officers described their roles:

Tom:
- Keep an eye on over all progress of the Club
- Support officers in their goals
- Help connect officers with resources
- Call on officers to report regularly at Club meetings
- Try to help continue the excellent Club meetings we’ve been having
- Take an active role in a mentor program which might better be called a “contact person” program.
- Pay close attention to Membership recruitment and retention: Shoot for a goal of 25 so at the end of the year we won’t have to scramble to have 20 members.

Rob:
- Likes the self-paced nature of Toastmasters
- Continue to keep track of Members progress via the speech and leadership manuals.
- Contact each member to see where they are with their goals/plans
- Continue to upgrade and maintain the website with the aim of having someone else take over the task after about 6 months.

Janet:
- Said she’s so new she’s just getting some idea of what the job is and why didn’t we tell her it was this complicated!
- She expressed a desire to do what she can.
- She likes the idea of making new people feel welcome and thinks she can do that.
- She is very interested in working with us and learning as much as she can.

Nancy
- Plans to advertise our club through newspapers, notices in public places
- Have a Club business card each member can carry for distribution.
- Have our web address on the card.

John
- Keep doing what he’s been doing for the past 5 years
- All agreed he’s doing a tremendous and invaluable job

Cheryl
- Asked what she should be doing (she decided just at the beginning of this meeting to volunteer for this job)
- Nancy gave her the secretary’s manual
- Will take minutes of meetings and report them on the web to members.
- Some others mentioned what a valuable service it is to read the summaries of regular Club meetings.

5. Meetings:
· Suggestion by Elliot E. to add a short new segment into the meeting sequence: Each speech evaluator (from their own seat) describes the objectives of the prepared speaker’s speech BEFORE the Toastmaster introduces the speaker. That way the audience will know what the goals of the speech are and can provide constructive feedback accordingly.
· Suggestion by Tom to have officers periodically provide activity reports to the club for their prospective areas of responsibility
· Suggestion by Nancy to continue with the business meeting portion of the meeting for officer reports as well as any announcements

6. Other Discussion: Elliot E. volunteered to be a club coach – available to answer member questions, help with speeches, etc.

The meeting adjourned at approximately 8:00 pm.