Meeting, March 27, 2008

March 27, 2008

We had 9 attendees at our meeting on Thursday, including a guest who joined our club – now that’s exciting! We welcome Kalyani Jeyapalan, she lives in Middletown and goes by the name "Kay." We look forward to her attending future meetings. We also heard TWO excellent Icebreaker speeches, congratulations to Jeffrey & Ann-Marie for completing their first speeches, and we look forward to hearing many more!

Our club meeting was held the same night as the Area C5 International & Tall Tales contests, therefore a number of our members were at Holy Apostles for the competition. Here’s a contest report from Nancy:

Hi fellow Middlesex members!

I’m just home from the C-5 contest, and I’m happy to say that Tom, Kim and I had a fun time representing the club tonight and, while we didn’t take first place in either contest, we did quite well!

Tom came in second out of six contestants in the International Contest, and Kim came in third! They had coached each other in advance to improve their speeches and Tom joked that Kim must have done a better job coaching than Tom did. (Remember Kim placed first at out club level and Tom was second). They both were outstanding.

In Tall Tales, I came in second (out of only two contestants but never mind!)
Arun was great as Chief Judge and Fred excelled as chair for the contest and provided the refreshments. Oh – our “rivals” the Eagles of Wallingford won both contests – Donna won Tall Tales and Claudine won International. Well there’s always next year!
Hope the meeting went well tonight, sorry we couldn’t be both places at once!

Cheers! Nancy


For anyone who has not yet renewed membership and intends to continue, please submit your dues as soon as possible, so there is no lapse in your membership. We have 15 confirmed renewals to date.

Dues: Please submit $33 no later than March 15 to John KepplerPayment can be via cash or check made out to "Middlesex County Toastmasters"

Club Meeting Attendance:

Name: Meeting Roles, Comments
1) Bob Briski: Timer, Humorist
2) Ann-Marie Cannata: Speaker # 1, Invocation, Word of the Day, Grammarian
3) Jeffrey Lagasse: Speaker # 3
4) Pat Loulakis: Evaluator # 4, Table-Topics Master
5) Cheryl Mason: Speaker # 2, Evaluator # 3
6) Rob Schaff: Toastmaster, Speaker # 4, Evaluator # 1, General Evaluator
7) Srinivas Voleti: Evaluator # 2

Guests:

8) Kalyani Jeyapalan: First-time guest, joined the club
9) Ashley Mason: Cheryl’s 10-year-old daughter

Business / News

The District 53 Conference is not far away -- sign up to attend this truly worthwhile event!

May 17, 2008 - District 53 Spring Conference
Pioneering Leadership Spirit – Explore New Possibilities
The Delaney House, 3 Country Club Rd. Holyoke, MA 01040, Phone: (413) 532-1800
http://www.district53toastmasters.org/conferences.html

Invocation – Given by Ann-Marie, uplifting thoughts of Spring, rejoicing, and being patient

Humorist: Bob told a fun story about golf and "it's the least I could do after being married for 27 years!"

Word of the Day: occidental - adj. Of or relating to western peoples or cultures
Ann-Marie provided this interesting word, and several speakers used it throughout the evening.

Table Topics

Pat provided thought provoking Table Topics. Cheryl talked about what's important in making a first impression, Rob talked about the biggest crisis in the U.S. today, Ann-Marie told us how she would share her wealth if she had wealth like Warren Buffet, Jeffrey tackled the subject of heart disease, Sreeni spoke on behalf of the FAA, and then on behalf of the airlines addressing the recent airplane groundings, Bob shared his thoughts about what to do for an inexpensive outing, and Ashley told us what she is most proud of (her family).

Speeches

# 1 – Ann-Marie completed speech # 1 Ice Breaker from the CC Manual, "Leave the Timing to the Universe." She intertwined stories about her family, her trip to Hawaii, how things change in a year, and how everything will be perfectly in its place! There was even a surprise ending (or new beginning?)

# 2 – Cheryl completed speech # 5 from The Speaking to Inform Manual, The Abstract Concept; title "Service No More." This speech addressed the changing face of customer service into self-service, and referenced Time Magazine's recent article "Top 10 Ideas that are Changing Our World." What are your thoughts about "hospitals using check-in kiosks for emergency room visits, simply touch the image of the human body where it hurts?" and no, it's not a joke!

# 3 – Jeff Lagasse completed speech # 1 Ice Breaker from the CC Manual, Three Simple Rules. We learned how Jeff became interested in Tai Chi Chaun, and the impact one of his teachers made by encouraging these three simple rules: Do Your Best, Don't Overdo, and Make a Little Progress Every day. And always with a smile!

# 4 – Rob Schaff completed speech # 2 Organize Your Speech from the CC Manual, "Selecting a Topic." Rob talked about his VPE role in encouraging speakers to sign up to give speeches toward their goals. Whether an "Eager," "Willing," or "Reluctant" speaker, remember, we're here to practice, don't worry about being perfect. Rob suggested keeping a journal of ideas provides a good way to keep topics readily available. Every day we each learn something that could be a good topic.

Evaluation portion of the meeting included feedback from each speech evaluator, the timer's report, ah counter report, grammarian report, and the overall general evaluation. Thanks to all our evaluators for all the valuable input!

Worth mentioning – Ann-Marie provided great feedback regarding awkward phrases and sentence structures she picked up on during the meeting. A suggestion was made that perhaps if everyone participated in providing round-robin feedback on grammar usage, it would help all of us improve our awareness in this area.

Our guest, Kay, said it was an enjoyable meeting (she completed the application and joined!)

Rob presented Ice Breaker Mints to our two Ice Breaker Speakers!

Closing - Meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m.

Contest Winners

Congratulations to the winners of our Spring Speech Contest!

International Speech
First: Kim Price
Second: Tom Alvord

Tall Tales
First: Nancy Green

The winners will represent our club at the Area C5 contest on March 27.

Middlesex Captures Traveling Gavel

Middlesex County TM Club 8340 Invades Cigna Lunchtime Club 9617 for Gavel Capture!

On March 4, four members from the Middlesex County Toastmasters Club traveled to Bloomfield to capture the Division E Gavel from Cigna Lunchtime Toastmasters: Tom Alvord, Cheryl Mason, Rob Schaff, and Nancy Green.

The Cigna Toastmasters are a warm and welcoming group, with a lot of spirit! While we were there, we got to participate in their Tall Tales contest, serving as judges and timers.

We are very happy to have captured a Traveling Gavel, and we look forward to welcoming any gavel-seeking visitors!

Meeting February 28, 2008

We had 12 attendees at our meeting this past Thursday. The meeting was very well organized, and our environment was warm and friendly -- that's exactly what our guests told us! We were happy to have FOUR guests at our meeting. Thanks to all that helped make the meeting such a success.

Dues: Please submit $33 no later than March 15 to John KepplerPayment can be via cash or check made out to "Middlesex County Toastmasters"

$27.00 goes to International for dues April 1 through September 30th. The other $6.00 is used for club activities. You may forward $66.00 and that will pay for the period April 1, 2008, through March 31, 2009.For further information, contact John via e-mail: John.Keppler@milfordhospital.org or phone: (860) 841-9323 Mail payment to: John Keppler, 194 Avery Avenue, Meriden, CT 06460


Club Attendance:

1) Tom Alvord - Toastmaster
2) Nancy Green - Table Topics Master
3) Chris Lewis - Speaker #3, Timer
4) Cheryl Mason - Speaker #1, Word Master
5) Kim Price - Ah Counter, Evaluator #2
6) Rob Schaff - Speaker #2, Sergeant at Arms
7) Fred Swiderski - Humorist
8) Srinivas Voleti - Evaluator #1, General Evaluator

Guests:
9) Bob Brisky - Grammarian, Bob is a returning visitor
10) Mark - Mark works with Bob
11) Shelby Smith - Shelby is from Wallingford, she relocated from Kentucky
12) Erik Jarboe - Erik is from Haddam

News

March 13 – Tall Tales & International Speech Club Contest (MCC regular meeting location)
Volunteers are needed to bring snacks – please let Rob know what you are able to bring.

March 27 - Area Contest at Holy Apostles, Cromwell, doors open at 6:45 p.m.
May 17, 2008 - District 53 Spring Conference
Pioneering Leadership Spirit – Explore New Possibilities
The Delaney House, 3 Country Club Rd. Holyoke, MA 01040, Phone: (413) 532-1800
http://www.district53toastmasters.org/conferences.html

Tom reminded us that it's everyone's responsibility to keep our club healthy, and to ensure we continue to have plenty of members. Visualize 20! We need a minimum of 20 members in the club – and need to anticipate members that might not renew, so we all need to do what we can to help increase membership!

Fred Swiderski, our Area C5 Governor, updated us on the upcoming contests and conferences. He also conducted a club progress meeting, which is required twice a year.

Humorist: Fred shared a couple of jokes that had us all laughing (or groaning!)

Word of the Day: Vice versa
Definition: in reverse order, the other way around (ex. dogs often chase cats, but not usually vice versa). Cheryl mentioned that she has seen these words misspelled.

Table Topics

Nancy challenged us with a very creative theme for Table Topics. We practiced introductions by providing background information as we introduced our table topic, each was selected from the bottom of a large shopping bag.

Kim did a fine job introducing Madam Flashlight, Chris gave a warm welcome to Mr. Static Guard, Tom had some friendly comments about Mr. Plastic Bottle, Fred talked up a "storm" about Mr. (squishy blue) Sponge, Bob introduced "Mr. Book," Sreeni had the "honor" of introducing President Bulb, Cheryl introduced a young Miss Nature Made, and Rob was happy to welcome Mr. Paper Clip, who we don't get to hear speak very often!

Speeches

# 1 – Cheryl completed speech # 8 from the CC manual, Get Comfortable with Visual Aids, title "Toastmasters and the Family Tree." She shared information she learned about the organizational hierarchy within Toastmasters. She provided a handout she put together regarding the TM organization and some interesting trivia that she learned from researching the websites as well as information she received from Karin Von Känel, ACB,ALS, Lt. Governor Education & Training.

# 2 – Rob completed speech # 2 from The Entertaining Speaker manual, Resources for Entertainment; title "Cold Storage." This was an interesting speech that touched on the War in Iraq along with themes about patterns and correlations. We also heard the anecdotal story about Uncle Toby and the story about Awakenings.

# 3 – Chris conducted the presentation, "How to Conduct Productive Meetings," from the Success Leadership program. Chris shared some of her own experiences and kept the material interesting, involving members from the audience as she spoke. This was a formal presentation that had a lot of useful information that we all could relate to!

Evaluation portion of the meeting included round robin feedback from the audience for Chris, feedback from each speech evaluator, the timer's report, ah counter report, grammarian report, and the overall general evaluation. Thanks to all our evaluators for all the valuable input!

Tom presented Rob with his CC certificate, for completion of 10 speeches in the CC manual. Way to go, Rob!

We had some great feedback from Fred, Area C5 Governor, regarding our meeting and our club.

Closing - Meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m.