January 30, 2008 by Deborah.

Hello,

It was a resplendent meeting tonight. 9 members were present. Only one role was unaccounted for at the start.

Our SAA, Keith Schroeder welcomed us and we pledged our allegiance. Paul Johnson, our acting President of this month welcomed us and introduced himself.
Claudia Brogan was our Toastmaster, and adeptly kept us interested and on time.
GE: Merrilee Morris
GR: Deborah Hill
Timer: Rui Li
Camera Person: Keith Schroeder

Our speakers:
Peter Gibson eloquently informed us about the poor state of our children’s health, due to poor diet. He used prose and stories, photographs, as well as statistics to deliver his point. And, we got to meet his adorable and useful wellness wombats.

Mike Himelstein spoke and exemplified his tips on how to be memorable when networking. Even the most experienced networkers had new information to take home.

Paul Johnson did a remarkable demonstration on the use of props, as well as give us important tips on how to title our speeches.

Think about ways to get more members and guests to visit. PR stories about us moving to the church may be helpful (”Speakers Roundtable Goes to Church” for example). Send stories and suggestions to Paul.

Again, we are each going to call the people on either side of us on the list to see why they didn’t attend. We hope to find out where people are and why they’ve been out. . . and how to bring them back.

We had several snacks tonight, and a very short break due to the time limit.

We started on time. Ended a tad late (remarkable considering the scheduled length of the speeches), and were warm (until Peter turned down the heat}. The British must be warmer than us thin skinned Americans.

See you next week.

My Best,
Deborah Hill
Secretary

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January 22, 2008 by Deborah.

Hello,

It was an enjoyable meeting tonight. 10 members were present. Only one person who had a role no-showed.

Our SAA, Keith Schroeder welcomed us and we pledged our allegiance. Paul Johnson, our acting President of this month welcomed us and introduced himself.
Peter Gibson was our Toastmaster
GE: Keith Schroeder
GR: Paul Johnson
Timer: Bill Hoskin
Camera Person: Rui Li

Our speakers:
Vicki Willard made us laugh with her tongue-in-cheek evaluation of the process control (economics, sort of) of duck hunting. We heard how it’s done by her husband (and others) and how a Dunwoody housewife goes about it. This is one case where the Dunwoody housewife actually spends less money.

Kelly Vandever gave us a preview of her upcoming speech for TLI this weekend entitled: District 14 Speakers Bureau. Kelly will give an overview of the bureau and its benefits, and several excellent suggestions for improving it.

Merrilee Morris eloquently discussed Alzheimers. She gave us shocking statistics, telling stories and several tips for how to work with people who have it.

We are each going to call the people on either side of us on the list to see why they didn’t attend. We hope to find out where people are and why they’ve been out. . . and how to bring them back.

Thanks Rui for the delicious potato pancakes, and Merrilee for the peanut butter pretzels.

We started on time. Ended a bit late, and were warm the entire time!

See you next week.

My Best,
Deborah Hill
Secretary

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January 8, 2008 by Paul Johnson.

Toastmaster: Paul Johnson

Speakers:
1) Deborah Hill
2) Rui Li
3) Keith Schroder

General Evaluator: Peter Gibson
Timer: Bill Hosken
Camera Person: Bill Kovach
Grammarian: Kelly Vandever

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January 8, 2008 by Deborah.

Hello,

It was a viable meeting tonight. Very cheery. Our 14 members were rested up and ready to go. The speeches and evaluations were superlative and . . . viable.

Our SAA, Keith Schroder had the room in order when we arrived. He welcomed us with his New Years story. BTW, has anyone seen the peach drop? We pledged our allegiance and Paul Johnson, our acting president welcomed us.

Merrilee Morris was our Toastmaster, asking us to look forward to 2008 with curiosity and interest. Who will be the person of the year? Who will win the Nobel Peace Prize? What will the Olympics be like in China? She kept things moving smoothly. The roles were:
GE: Vicki Willard
GR: Claudia Brogan
Timer: Donna Satchell
Camera Person: Rui Li stepped up to the plate

Our speakers were:
Kelly Vandever showed us through an exemplary display how we are affected by others thoughts of us. More importantly, notice how we affect others and watch what you think. Her speech had great information and was cheerfully and humorously presented.

Bill Kovach was the master of “viable” tonight, as well as a great speaker. He gave a timely speech about the importance of making worthwhile resolutions that you can keep. He followed up with a great example of how he kept his weight loss resolution from last year.

Keith Schroder gave a delightful “conversation” about two topics: His upcoming photo op in Cosmopolitan magazine, and how he’s using Toastmasters skill to promote his business this year.

Our break was well stocked with all sorts of goodies.

It was brought to my attention that Jon Schwartz has moved north. I’d like to say how delighted we are with his presence and participation at our meetings and how much we’ve learned from him about humor and speaking. I and others sincerely appreciate his efforts to still come to the meetings.

We ended on time and everyone pitched in on the clean-up.

See you next week.

My Best,
Deborah Hill
Secretary

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January 1, 2008 by Paul Johnson.

If you’d like to post a video from one of your Toastmasters presentations to this website, here are a few tips to help you get the file(s) ready to upload.

First, try to keep the file size under 7MB. I tried to upload some that were 8+ and they failed.

I chose to use the WMV file format, 320 by 240 pixels size, 256Kbps data rate. This means that 4 minutes of video will be pushing 7MB. You may have to break your presentation video into multiple clips.

I also suggest extracting a “still” photo from your video to post next to the link(s) to your video. Again, 320 by 240 pixels works well, .jpg file format preferred.

For each element to be uploaded to the website — photo or video — prepare a short Title and Description (2 separate things). Feel free to use keywords like your name or the title of your talk to make it easier for people to find them and you.

When you get ALL that done, I will be happy to help you with uploading and posting your files.

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