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.