Meeting, Thursday, April 22, 2010 - Middlesex Community College, Room 808 D, Middletown, CT Middlesex Toastmasters Club #8340



Members present: Tom Alvord, Anne-Marie Cannata, Jennifer Cimilluca, Charnaie Gordon, Lawrence Gore, Kay Jeyapalan, Jonathan Martin, Cheryl Mason, Erin Mulhern, Deb Nason, Emily O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, Ramesh Padavala, Murali Pemmaraju, Kim Price, Pete Plotica, Eric Roise, and Rob Schaff.

Guest: Siva Digavalli

Our Sergeant-at-Arms, Peter Plotica called the meeting to order with a Pledge of Allegiance.

President Cheryl Mason started the meeting with the announcement of Tom Alvord and Charnaie Gordon competing in the Division C Contest held on April 20, 2010 in Marlborough, CT, and CONGRATULATING both participants

Cheryl presented Charnaie with flowers for winning the second place in the International Contest.

Cheryl brought a homemade cake (so delicious!) and other refreshments to celebrate Tom’s and Charnaie’s participation in the Division C contest and Charnaie’s accomplishment of winning the second place. A “GREAT BIG THANKS” to Cheryl.


Our Toastmaster for the evening was Anne-Marie Cannata. This was her first time being the Toastmaster of the club and she did an excellent job with a touch of humor.


Charnaie Gordon was the Table Topics Master with a theme fitting the anniversary of Earth Day. She read the topics first and asked the audience to volunteer. Deborah, Ramesh, Emily, Jen, Siva (our guest), Pete and Kim took the challenge and did a great job of impromptu speaking.

Speeches
Five wonderful speeches were given as follows:

#1 – Erin Mulhern, “Ice Breaker” evaluated by Rob Schaff.
#2 – Jonathan Martin, “Ice Breaker” evaluated by Charnaie Gordon.
#3 – Lawrence Gore, “Ice Breaker” evaluated by Deborah Nason.
#4 – Murali Krishna Pemmaraju, Speech # 5 of CC, “Climbing up to the Crown of Statue of Liberty” evaluated by Kay Jeyapalan.
#5 – Rob Schaff, Speech # 3 of CC (second round), “Toastmasters Club Officers” evaluated by Ann-Marie Cannata.


All the speeches and evaluations were fabulous. The speeches were either informative or informative and humorous. Our Past President, Rob Schaff, did a great job of educating everyone about the roles each officer plays and pepped up all to volunteer for next year.

Murali has now completed five speeches in the Competent Communications Manual to be entitled for his half CC certificate.


Our General Evaluator for the night was Tom Alvord.

Other Roles:
Invocation: Ramesh Padavala
Humorist: Eric Roise
Word Master: Peter Plotica. Word of the Day, “Wastrel” (it is a noun) idler, good for nothing, or spendthrift
Grammarian: Erin Mulhern
Ah-counter: Deborah Nason
Timer: Pete Plotica

Charnaie Gordon, VPE, recognized Erin, Jonathan, and Lawrence for breaking the ice by presenting the mints.

Other announcements:

· 5/13 - Our next meeting will be held at MXCC, Room 630
· 5/27 - Election of Officers for the upcoming year
· 6/10 - Regular Meeting
· 6/24 - Last meeting of the Toastmaster Year 2009-2010
· 5/2 - Jennifer announced that the Food share 27th Annual Walk will go on in spite of the fact that she will not be able to attend
Contributions can be made online www.foodshare.org
· 6/2 - Charnaie announced that the picnic will be at the Wadsworth Park, more details to follow
· 5/22 - District 53 Spring Conference, International & Tall Tales Contest, St. Thomas Seminary, Bloomfield

Anne-Marie asked our guest, Siva, to speak of his opinion about our club. Siva said that this is the best club of all the ones he has attended to date and his scouting search is over.

Anne-Marie Cannata thanked all who stepped up at the last minute to fill in the roles: Eric, Ramesh, Charnaie, Deborah, Pete, Tom, and Kay.
She ended the meeting at 8:55 p.m.

Great job Anne-Marie with all the 11th minute changes.

Kay Jeyapalan, VPPR