Meeting Notes - February 24

Twenty members and guests enjoyed a workshop with the Sea-Tea Improv troupe, plus a fun club meeting, on Thursday, February 24th.

Members Present: Tom Alvord, Jennifer Cimilluca, Siva Digavalli, Margarita Giraldo, Charnaie Gordon, Jonathan Herron, Kay Jeyapalan, Jackie Kirwan, Yolanda Lowe, Cheryl Mason, Michael Nicastre, Sally Nicastre, Ramesh Padavala, Murali Pemmaraju, Rob Schaff, Arun Sodani.

Guests Present: Mallika Digavalli, Kevin Finn (Cedar Hill Toastmasters), Abhijit Mhetre (Nathan Hale Toastmasters), Michele Rousseau (Michele joined the club after the meeting).

The meeting was opened at 7pm by our Sergeant-at-Arms, Ramesh. He turned the meeting over to Greg, Julia, and Dan from the Sea-Tea Improv troupe, who used a series of games to teach us and let us practice the “rules” of improv: “Make your partner look good”; “Yes, and…” (Listen, acknowledge, and add to whatever information you are given); “Make honest choices” (Don’t overthink and edit yourself”).

We learned and practicing thinking on our feet with compound word games, three line scenes, creating continuous stories, and more. The hour flew by, but there are plenty of opportunities to see Sea Tea in action (see seateaimprov.com for more information).

Following the workshop, the regular club meeting began.

Our Word of the Day was presented by Charnaie: “persnickety”, meaning over particular, fussy, snobbish, requiring painstaking care.

Our Invocator, Jonathan, shared three ideas from Steven Covey’s book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”: Habit 1: Be Proactive--Taking responsibility for your choices and the consequences of them. Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind--Figure out what's important to you and pursue that. Whatever you can conceive and believe, you can achieve. Habit 3: Put First Things First--Prioritize. Do what must be done before why you want to do.

We had two prepared speeches:

Kay also used examples from Steven Covey’s book in her speech, “The Law of Subtleness of Mind”. Her speech was #5 from the Speaking to Inform Manual (The Abstract Concept), and was evaluated by Rob.

Kevin Finn presented Speech #4 from the Storytelling Manual (The Touching Story). His speech, “And The Winner is Dave” was at times humorous, and touched our hearts. Siva evaluated Kevin’s speech.

Yolanda, a first-time Table Topics Master, asked several of us to devise commercials for the products she brought, and for ourselves as potential hires for an advertising team. Michele, Jen, Jonathan, and Jackie took turns pitching Jif peanut butter, Olde Cape Cod salad dressing, jam, and chocolate covered butter cookies, and themselves.

Michael Nicastre was our General Evaluator, assisted by Sally performing the dual roles of Ah Counter and Grammarian, and our timer, Tom.

Charnaie presented Margarita with a new member pin to officially welcome her to Middlesex County Toastmasters. She also announced that Michele has joined the club.

Our club will be hosting the Area C5 contests on Sunday, April 3rd, at the Village of South Farms.

We are now a “President’s Distinguished Club” with nine points in the Distinguished Club Program – the first club in the district to earn that distinction!

The meeting closed promptly at 9:00pm.
Please advise any errors or omissions. Thank you.

Respectfully submitted,
Jennifer Cimilluca, Secretary
Middlesex County Toastmasters Club