Newsletter for 3-24-8 Meeting

March 28, 2008 by Claudia Brogan.

Folks:
Remember the children’s fable where the character ’spun gold out of straw’? That’s a little what it felt like at our SRT meeting on Monday March 24.

Or, put another way……we were small (in number) …but we were mighty!

I stepped in at the last minute when we realized that there was no substitute Mtg TM confirmed, and I was glad to do so. Every person in the room was put to work fruitfully — if not a speaker, folks were asked to serve to either complete a manual written speech evaluation, or to serve as TR, CP or GE. We had two great speeches and a good round of spontaneous Table Topics. Seven members attended, all with something to do. Here’s how it unfolded:

After setting up the room with a bounty of Easter refreshments & some beautiful fresh strawberries from M.M., we were ready to start. I led the Pledge of Allegiance, and President Pat Schmalzreid offered her welcome and opened the meeting. Then we listened to Merrilee outline for us the great benefits of Daydreaming. Rather that wasteful ‘wool-gathering,’ this practice (as she reminded us) can lead to our dreaming up solutions to problems that stump us, can help greatly with stress relief, and can motivate us to make changes and improvements in our situations. She also talked about the power of being able to ‘imagine completing a project successfully’ with a mental rehearsal and reminded us that daydreaming can help us keep loved ones near. Whether we imagine and reflect on things in our past, or things that have not yet happened, daydreaming is not a habit to scold children to avoid, but actually is good for any of us, any age, any stage.

Our second speaker was Pat, conducting an assignment from an Advanced Manual on “Giving a Toast.” She used this time to practice a wedding toast she’ll be giving in a couple months at former-SRT member Lisa Verhoff’s wedding in the Virgin Islands. Complete with our raising our plastic champagne glasses of Ginger Ale, Pat demonstrated a good balance of sharing affectionate stories about the bride & groom with also giving a sincere, hearty wish for the couple’s best happiness and long lives together.

After a break of Easter goodies and bright red strawberries, we reconvened to conduct a spontaneous round of Table Topics, since speaker #3 was delayed up in Kennesaw for a work project. Our attendees rose to the occasion and hailed this new practice of ours, to insert TT when possible.

We adjourned two minutes early, after our time together of ’spinning gold out of straw.’ We’ll see you next time!

BONUS NEWS: Had you heard this scoop yet? Our own Kelly Vandever won the Division G event of the International Speech contest, held on March 22, and will now advance to the May 3 District Contest. She used that speech she’d presented to us (colloquially titled ‘that one where the arm lifts up’) on Visualization and Positive Beliefs. Congrats, Kelly… good luck ahead.

~~Respectfully submitted,
Claudia B

Posted in News | Print | No Comments »