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Travelers Noontime Toastmaster #2532

Meeting Minutes – September 25, 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: Mary Semeraro

Toastmaster: Chris Rucci

Timer: Jade Tran

Grammarian: Stephen Peterson – Today’s word of the day was medacity which means: the quality/state of being medacious.

Quiz Master: Roger Arnold

Chris’s tip for the day was – Step up to the mic: It’s up to each one of us to accept opportunities to speak. Table topics in particular are a great way to practice speaking in public, especially in a group as support as TNT.

Nominations for President:

Unfortunately, Holly Gaspar had to step down as our club’s President. As such, today we held nominations for our next President. Chris opened up the nominations to the group. Bob Kirkendall nominated Michael O’Brien, a motion which was seconded by a number of members within the club. No other nominations were given. Michael accepted the position and gave a brief speech to the club. Congratulations Michael!

Speaker 1:

Michael O’Brien, TBD (AC Gold #1 – Speaking off the Cuff; 5-7 min.) [Actual Time = 7m 30s]

Today Michael had to give a speech, off the cuff, on a topic chosen by his evaluator during the meeting. The topic chosen was “Johann Sebastian Bach and the Mystery of The Art of Fugue”.

Michael began his speech by telling us that his inspiration for this speech came about while he was doing research for another speech on formal music. He then went on to explain that a fugue is basically a musical counterpoint. It occurs when a subject theme is introduced and then extended and developed through some number of successive imitations. In Michael’s opinion – Bach was the master of the fugue. The Art of Fugue, arguably Bach’s most famous work, was written in D-minor, had 18 major variations of the main theme, and 100 minor variations! Michael explained that the music was so touching – when he listened to it, it was almost as if he could feel the synapses in his brain responding to the sounds.

Bach’s The Art of Fugue was written towards the end of his life in open score, and no one really knows what instrument it was written for, or if it was even meant to be played at all. There is even a piece within the work that cannot be played by a single person and would require 2 people to play it. The most intriguing piece of this particular work is that it doesn’t appear to be finished. Although it was 837 measures long, it stops right in the middle of a bar! Some people say that Bach might have even died while writing it. Other people think that Bach could have written it for a group that he was a part of – where people would go and fugue against one another. He may have deliberately stopped at this point for someone at the group to pick up where he left off and continue playing.

Another interesting thing about this work is that the notes in the 3^rd section actually spell his name. Some people say that he did that as a way to ‘sign his name to the work that summed up his life’.

Evaluator: Bob Kirkendall [Actual Time = 3m 16s]

Speaker 2:

Tracy Miranda, “Achieve Your Goal No Matter What?” (CC #1, Ice Breaker, 4-6 min.) [Actual time = 4m 31s]

Tracy began her speech by telling us why she first joined TNT. She said that during High School she would often stutter, mumble, or repeat words when speaking in public – but that she was determined to conquer her fear. She even joined an acting class to help her gain the confidence she needed to speak in public. She said that the acting class helped because she could pretend to be someone else when she was speaking. However, she wanted to further conquer her fear and improve upon her communication skills.

Tracy is known by her friends for her ambition. She is a self-proclaimed workaholic, and sometimes she feels like Elle Woods from the movie Legally Blond because she is so self-driven. She wants to focus on her accomplishments in life, and doesn’t ever want to regret not conquering her fear of public speaking.

In college, Tracy failed a course because of her fear, and she began to really question herself. She met with her guidance counselor who inspired her to re-take the course, and the 2^nd time around she passed! This helped her regain her confidence and convinced her that she could someday conquer her fear.

Evaluator: Austin Matulis [Actual Time = 1m 25s]

Table Topics:

Chairperson – Prasanthi Lingamallu: For today’s table topics, Prasanthi brought in a key and asked everyone to give a 1-2 presentation on what that key meant to them.

Debbie Sala: This key reminded Debbie of her sorority symbol – which was a key. Debbie explained that back in college she joined Kapa Kapa Gamma because of her mother – who was also a sorority member when she was in school. Debbie joined a different sorority though, so at times it felt like she was actually competing with her mother! [Actual Time = 1m 13s]

Ian Neveu: The key reminded Ian of the sub-prime mortgage mess. He said that the public officials probably needed the key to fix the problem. But he also reminded us all – that we need to watch where our money is going. [Actual Time = 1m 47s]

Vangar: This key reminded him that if you do what you are supposed to do, and what you know works, you can be successful. He told us that back in school he used to study at night, but it wasn’t very successful. So, he started studying in the morning and saw an improvement in his grades. When he went to grad school, he started to study at night again, and saw them slip back down! So, he switched back to what he knew worked and was successful! [Actual Time = 2m 05s]

Quiz Master:

Today Roger asked us 6 questions from the speeches and table topics. We all must have done a great job listening because we got all 6 right!

General Evaluator:

Kristi Bathgate

Kristi thought that the meeting went well; however going forward the Toastmaster should also put the newer speakers first on the agenda. She thought we all gave great explanations of the technician roles, and she loved the table topics theme. She also enjoyed how the evaluators re-states the purposes of the speech before getting into their comments.

Next Meeting: October 2, 2008

Chairperson: LaTasha Smith
Toastmaster: Lora Ashcraft
Speaker 1: Ranga Dasari
Speaker 2: Stephen Peterson
Speaker 3: Michael O'Brien
Table Topics: Debbie Sala
General Evaluator: Roger Arnold
Evaluator 1: Bob Kirkendall
Evaluator 2: Ed Foerster
Evaluator 3: Joyce Grose
Timer: Tracy Miranda
Grammarian: Prasanthi Lingamallu
Quiz Master: Richard Acosta

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