March 26 Meeting

Last night our meeting was a full house once again! There was some talk we may need to relocate to a bigger room to accommodate our large, successful meetings! We have been averaging at least two new members a meeting, for the last few meetings. Last night was no exception! We welcome three new members to our club: Jennifer Cimilluca, Greg Fresher, and Tawana Bourne. Congratulations to you all for joining and participating so quickly in Table Topics!

We had a total of 18 members in attendance, including the three new members! Tom Alvord was outstanding as Toastmaster, leading the group with scintillating energy! As TableTopics Master, Arun did a fantastic job raising it to another level. Speeches were given by: Beth Legnani, Rob Schaff, Erik Jarboe, and Dianne Olsen. Evaluators were: General Evaluator: John Keppler, Kay Jeyapalan, Cheryl Mason, Mike O’Brien, and Anne-Marie Cammarata. The speeches and evaluations were all enjoyed by the audience!

Tom Alvord and Dianne Olsen have been working together the last two months to give our mentoring program a little more structure. They introduced the new program last night as one of the presentations. Our club is growing by leaps and bounds! With the growing pace of new members, if we are to continue the level of excellence the club has today, we can no longer rely on the same few people to do all the mentoring for new members.

All of us want to continued to be mentored as we reach different levels in Toastmasters, yet, we need to do a better job of involving more club members as mentors for new members. Members who have been in the club for 6 months and more can qualify to mentor new incoming members. Tom and Dianne will be personally contacting qualified members to consider mentoring a new member. That way, we will be able to use our “more advanced” members to mentor our “intermediate” members and allow our club to continue to grow in numbers and successes.

Reminders:

Come out and support Anne-Marie Commarata on April 2nd, for the Division Contest in Newington. Tom Alvord has forwarded directions.

April 25th, District Conference, Norwich

Our own club Speech-A-Thon will be May 7th at the Village at South Farms (we will not be meeting at MXCC that week).

Respectfully,

Dianne Olsen
Secretary, Middlesex County Toastmasters

Anne-Marie Sweeps Area Contest

The Middlesex County Toastmasters Club was a great hit last night at the Area C5 Contest in Wallingford. Eleven of our members went and supported Anne-Marie Cannata as she competed in both the Table Topics and International Speech Contests. She was amazing in both her speeches and it was no surprise when she won First Place, again, in both contests! Anne-Marie’s father was in the audience, too, beaming with pride.

Anne-Marie is eligible to compete in the Division Contest which will be held April 2nd in Newington. The winner of that contest will compete at the Spring Conference in Norwich on April 25th. The winner from the conference will compete in the Region 6 Contest on June 6th in Canada. All Regional finalists will be eligible for the International Conference at Foxwoods Resort & Casino, August 12th – 15th.

Thank you to all the members who were able to attend last night’s event. Congratulations Anne-Marie!

Respectfully,

Dianne Olsen

March 12 Meeting

We had another terrific meeting, with 20 participants - 14 members and 6 guests.

Three guests were back for a second visit: Michael O'Brien, Emily O'Brien, and Jennifer Cimilluca. Mike and Emily joined our club at the end of the meeting, and Jennifer indicated that she planned to join at the next meeting.

Our first time visitors were Barry Gordon, Brian Pollard, and Rita Allaire.

Arun Sodani was our Toastmaster, and Tom Alvord was the General Evaluator. Deborah Nason took her first turn as Table Topics master, and her questions on the theme of Community evoked some great personal anecdotes from our participants.

We heard 4 prepared speeches, from Charnaie Gordon, Kay Jeyapalan, Kim Price, and Anne Marie Cannata. Charnaie wowed us with a powerful Ice Breaker. Anne Marie got in one last practice before the Area Contest on Monday, 3/16, in Wallingford.

Thanks for everyone for signing up for speaking slots in advance. We now have so much demand for speaking slots, we are looking to add a special Speechathon meeting on May 7. More details to come, once we confirm the location.