Travelers Noontime Toastmaster #2532
Meeting Minutes - June 26, 2008
Our Mission: The Travelers Noontime Toastmaster (TNT) Club is dedicated to helping individuals improve themselves by sharpening their speaking, listening and thinking skills, all of which are necessary for success at work and at home. We provide a supportive environment with opportunities for public speaking and leadership development.
Chairperson: Harshida Patel
Toastmaster: Kristi Bathgate
Timer: Sridhar Nissankararao
Grammarian: Prasanthi Lingamallu – Today’s word of the day was litotes (adj.) which means: understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary.
Speaker 1:
Ed Foerster, “It’s ‘Axon’ And Not Wax On” (CC #2; 5-7 min.) [Actual Time = 8m 53s]
Ed’s speech today was a very informative speech about multiple sclerosis (MS). He began by explaining to us what MS was – an auto-immune disease that affects a person’s central nervous system. He explained to us how it got the name MS (sclerosis is the type of scar left behind by the disease, of which people get many). Ed also told us some ways in which people get diagnosed with MS – including ruling out any other potential diseases, seeing if a person has 2 attacks (in different parts of the body) within a certain time period, spinal taps, blood work, etc. He explained some of the symptoms of the disease and how it is often hard to diagnose because different people will have different symptoms, and the symptoms can change from day to day. He told us that MS is most common among Caucasian women between 20-50 years of age that live in northern Europe. Also, there are 4 types of MS, and shots chemo-type drugs can be used to lessen the side effects of the disease. He ended his speech with a brief summary and provided us with some helpful resources if we want to learn more (i.e. the National MS Society).
Evaluator: Mary Serafino [Actual Time = 2m 42s]
Speaker 2:
Lora Ashcraft, “Get Back Up” (CC #10; 8-10 min.) [Actual time = 8m 25s]
Congratulations Lora on earning your Competent Communicator award J
Today Lora gave a very uplifting speech on public speaking and how to overcome your fear! She began by putting the audience in the right frame of mind by talking about some situations that could cause disappointment (baking bad cookies, losing a golf tournament, telling a bad joke). She then provided us with a very inspiring quote: ”People are not measured by how many times they fall down, but by how many times they get back up”. She used this quote to tell us about how she was afraid to give her 10th speech, but asked herself the following 4 questions and finally got the motivation to complete her first manual: Why did I join Toastmasters? What good comes from not participating? What is my speech is bad? What happens if I don’t give a speech?
Basically – the moral of the story was if you don’t participate you can’t improve! And we are all afraid to speak in public but Toastmasters is a very supportive group so we should continue to give speeches and overcome our fears!
Evaluator: Chris Rucci [Actual Time = 3m 41s]
Table Topics:
Chairperson – Austin Matulis
- Ed Foerster: [Actual Time = 1m 01s]
- Bob Kirkendall: [Actual Time = 1m 14s]
- Ian: [Actual Time = 1m 32s]
Ian told us today all about his high school car, and how he came home from college one day to find a mice nest in the exhaust. Point of the story: decaying mice smell worse than mice droppings, so don’t ignore the smell!
General Evaluator:
Bob Kirkendall
Overall today, Austin thought we had a really smooth meeting. Everything was setup appropriately, we started on time, and the evaluations were good. He likes how Austin asked challenging table topics questions and we all bring a lot of diversity to each of the meetings! Bob also reminded everyone to be courtesy of the speakers and to try and limit interruptions during their speeches (i.e. cell phones).
Quiz Master:
Jade Tran
Today, Harshida listened very intently to all of our speakers and came up with some good questions for the group. It seems like everyone listened well – we got 6 out of 6 right! Great job everyone!
Club Business:
- Sid reminded everyone of the upcoming speech contests. There will be one for humor and one for evaluations. Our contests need to be completed by the end of August to be eligible for competition outside of our group.
- Today was Sid’s last day as President of Toastmasters. A big thank you to Sid for all of his hard work this past year – and best of luck to Holly, our new President!
Next Meeting: July 3, 2008
- Chairperson: ***OPEN***
- Toastmaster: Austin Matulis
- Speaker 1: Shawn Richards
- Speaker 2: Kristi Bathgate
- Speaker 3: ***OPEN***
- Table Topics: Prasanthi Lingamallu
- General Evaluator: Lora Ashcraft
- Evaluator 1: Bob Kirkendall
- Evaluator 2: ***OPEN***
- Evaluator 3: N/A
- Timer: Richard Acosta
- Grammarian: Dan Guinan
- Quiz Master: Tracy Miranda
If you change your availability for your assigned roles, please e-mail VPE Bob Kirkendall and let him know.
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