Meeting, Thursday, September 10, 2009 - Middlesex Community College, Room 808 D, Middletown, CT Middlesex Toastmasters Club #8340

Our September 10, 2009 meeting was held in our "new room" at Middlesex Community College. Even with the bigger room we still had a full house for our Fall Speech Contest. Charnaie Gordon, Vice President of Education, was the Contest Chair. She did an excellent job organizing the event! Kay Jeyapalan was the Contest Master, for the first time and she did a superb job running a smooth meeting! Arun Sodani was the Chief Judge and he did an excellent job as well!

Members present: Tom Alvord, Ron Brunelle, Jen Cimilluca, Charnaie Gordon, Kay Jeyapalan, John Keppler, Cheryl Mason, Pam Mulready, Emily O'Brien, Michael O'Brien, Dianne Olsen, Ramesh Padavala, Pete Plotica, Kim Price, Rob Schaff, and Arun Sodani. Udaya Neelam was visiting from the Wallingford Eagles Club with his two children, Pooja and Sain. Other guests were: Chris Dubey, Alumnus of Middlesex Community College, Mike Perlman, who had previously belonged to the Groton Club, and Murugan Pachaiyappan, first time visitor.

Charnaie started the meeting with an announcement that the theme for our September 24th meeting will be "Back to School." Members are encouraged to bring their children.

October 8th Kevin Wortman of the WestConn Club will be a guest speaker to speak / teach us about improving speaker evaluations. Kevin has been a Toastmaster for 16 years, and is a member of Westconn TM Club 599 in Danbury. On Saturday, June 27th, he lead a training session about "Evaluations, Speaking of Speaking" at the Manchester TLI Officers training. He is also the D53 Spring 2009 Table Topics winner. Big thanks to Cheryl for arranging this speaker as well as this topic of "Improving speaker evaluations." This will be of great benefit to all the members of the club.

On Novemeber 5th an "extra" meeting will be held at the Russell Library.

An "extra" meeting is also being planned for December.
These "extra" meetings are to make up for lost meetings over the holidays.

Visiting guest Udaya Neelam was the Target Speaker for the Evaluation Contest. His speech was "Are you Listening." Competing Evaluators were Michael O'Brien, Tom Alvord, and John Keppler. The two contestants for the Humorous Contest were John Keppler, "Be Careful What You Wish For You Just Might Get It!" and Jen Cimilluca speech was "To Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Expected!"

The winners for the Evaluation Contest were 2nd runner-up: John Keppler; 1st runner-up: Michael O'Brien; and 1st Place Winner: Tom Alvord! Congratulations Tom and to the first 2 runner-ups. For the Humorous Contest, John Keppler came in as 1st runner-up and 1st Place went to Jen! Congratulations to both of them! Tom and Jen will be able to compete in the Fall Area Contest! In the event Tom will not be able to go, then Michael would take Tom's place and in case Jen will not be able to take part in the Humorous Contest, John will go.

Area Governor, Rob Schaff informed us that the Fall Area Contest will be held on Wednesday evening, September 30th at the Aetna, Middletown Club. They need judges, ballot counters, and support! Be come and support our Club winners and also give the Middletown Club a hand and volunteer!

Treasurer, John Keppler made the announcement that Club dues are due on October 1st. He is asking all members to get their dues in on time so that we can earn points towards our club goals. The dues are $33.00, $27.00 goes to International Headquarters and $6.00 goes towards our Club expenses. John will send everyone his address so they can mail him a check as soon as possible.

Kay, Vice President of Public Relations, graciously brought in several copies of the Chronicle so members could see the article that was written about our Club. Long time member John Keppler commented that this was "by far the biggest newspaper article ever" written about our Club.

President Cheryl Mason made closing comments. Charnaie was presented with a ribbon for completing her Competant Communication Manual. Charnaie completed all 10 speeches in just 5 months! Congratulation Charnaie, you are a super role model! Cheryl also announced that the Club was making a donation of $50.00 to Middlesex Community College for their years of allowing us to hold our meetings at the college. If any members would like to make an additional tax-free donation please notify Cheryl.

Delicious and refreshing refreshments for the contests were provided by Cheryl, Kay, Pete, Dianne and Charnaie!