Travelers Noontime Toastmaster #2532

Meeting Minutes – August 28, 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: Lora Ashcraft

Toastmaster: Joyce Grose

Timer: Ismat Mahmood

Grammarian: Chris Rucci – Today’s word of the day was conflate means: to fuse into one entity; merge.

Quiz Master: Bob Kirkendall

Joyce’s tip for the day was – Refocus: Our days are so busy; it’s hard to get everything done. At the end of the day, Joyce takes time to makes a list of things she wants to accomplish. This helps her refocus on things that are important to her.

Speaker 1:

Stephen Peterson, “Thinking Big” (CC #2, Organize Your Speech; 5-7 min.) [Actual Time = 6m 10s]

Today Stephen gave his second speech discussing the book “Thinking BIG” by David Schwartz. This book was written in 1957 and republished in 1965. Stephen expressed how Schwartz describes the mind as a busy thought factory; a factory that has two foremen, i.e. triumph, and defeat. Triumph is the positive foreman, defeat the negative foreman. The more work you give to the foreman, the more resources they add. So if you think negatively, you will get more negative resources working for you and thus negative results. So if you think positively, you will get more of triumph’s resources working for you and thus positive results. Stephen’s advice is to fire Mr. Defeat and work solely with Mr. Triumph

Evaluator: Bob Kirkendall [Actual Time = 3m 10s]

Speaker 2:

Ian Neveu, “Dive Right In!” (CC #1, Ice Breaker, 4-6 min.) [Actual time = 6m 50s]

This was Ian’s ice breaker speech – and boy you would not know it was his first speech. He gave us some insight into his life by talking about his swimming career. When he was 9 or 10 he went to summer camp. After taking a swimming test he was put in with the minnow swimmers, those children who could not swim and had to stay in waste high water. A few years later in High School his friends were going out for the swim team. Although he still was not a good swimmer his friends told him it was fun, not a high pressure sport and convinced him to join. He did have fun and became a good swimmer. Than, a new female coach, Carla came on board. Carla talked about working hard and bringing the team to the state championship. Well she wasn’t kidding, swimming became a grueling 5 day workout, and although Ian thought of quitting, he didn’t. He learned a lot from Coach Carla, e.g. meeting goals, strength, internal virtues and hopes his children have such a wonderful experience.

Evaluator: Kristi Bathgate [Actual Time = 3m 10s]

Speaker 3:

Prasanthi Lingamallu, “Can numbers be interesting” (CC #2, Organize Your Speech; 5-7 min.) [Actual time = 7m 9s]

Today Prasanthi gave her second speech using a unique concept of numbers. Prasanthi’s job involves working with numbers, lots of spreadsheets and sometimes you can lose your focus when reviewing these all day. Thinking about numbers and how she came to enjoy working with them she shared with us how numbers can be exciting. Prasanthi described the Hindu meaning of some numbers. She started with number 10 and worked down to number 1 as follows:

10 Incarnation

9 planets

8 guardian of direction

7 musical notes

6 tastes

5 elements

4 holy scriptures

3 trinity

2 duality or complementary forces

1 universal power

Prasanthi certainly described how number can be interesting and shared a little bit about her Hindu culture which is exciting and very interesting.

Evaluator: Lisa Lew [Actual Time = 2m 5s]

Table Topics:

Chairperson – LaTasha Smith: For today’s table topics, LaTasha brought a memory bag full of summer items. Each volunteer selected an item and spoke about a (summer) experience the item reminded them of.

1. Bob Kirkendall: Bob picked a Hawaii beach towel which reminded him of his new 8 month old English Pointer puppy. The dog is young and hyper so Bob spent a few dollars on a pad for his cage. The dog destroyed this padding. Now Bob just uses olds blankets and towels instead of padding and doesn’t care if they are ruined. [Actual Time = 1m 32s]
   

2. Michael O’Brien: Michael picked suntan lotion which reminded him of back when he was about 8 years old. He and his friends played baseball almost everyday; since they were out in the sun, they all used suntan lotion. Besides playing baseball, they ran a lot and probably used just as much bug spray to keep from getting bit. [Actual Time = 1m 4s]

General Evaluator:

Edmund Foerster

Ed felt that the meeting went well. Everything was setup and the meeting started on time. We accomplished a lot within the time frame. Three speeches, table topics and evaluations is a lot to get through in 1 hour.

Club Business:

• We are hosting the The Humorous and Speech Evaluation Contest ion Wednesday September 10^th. It will be held at 300 Windsor Street location. A brochure will be distributed next week.

• We are also hosting an “information Booth”, 11:30 – 1:30 on Wednesday, September 10^th on the bottom level of the Plaza Building.

Next Meeting: September 4, 2008

1. Chairperson: Lisa Lew

2. Toastmaster: Greg Donovan

3. Speaker 1:

4. Speaker 2:

5. Speaker 3:

6. Table Topics: Richard Acosta

7. General Evaluator: Patrick McDermott

8. Evaluator 1: Ed Foerster

9. Evaluator 2: Garen Mirzoian

10. Evaluator 3: LaTasha

11. Timer: Mary Cady

12. Grammarian: Moya Mendes

13. Quiz Master: Helen Talbott

If you change your availability for your assigned roles, please e-mail VPE Bob Kirkendall and let him know.