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