April 29, 2008 by Merrilee Morris.

The First Baptist Church Sandy Springs surprised us last night, April 28, 2008, when we arrived and found the temporary wall between the two meeting rooms open and a dozen or so round tables set up with table clothes and all. Several members commented on arrival, “This is truly a Speakers Roundtable meeting.” President Pat Schmalzried called the meeting to order and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Iris Grimm was our Toast Master for the evening. Merrilee Morris was General Evaluator. Pat, our President and acting Sgt at Arms, also served as our Grammarian. Volunteering as timer was Donna Satchell and Rui Li as our camera person.

Our first speaker of the evening was Kelly Vandever rehearsing her speech for the International Speech Contest this weekend. Kelly’s speech was totally polished, laced with humor, rich with Jody’s vocal characterization, and enriched with visually strong and meaningful gestures. Kelly wanted us to draw blood with our evals, but she didn’t leave us much to scratch at. She’s searching for a more appealing title than “The Arm Exercise.” You’ve got a winner, Kelly!

Speaker number two was Bill Kovach. He’s usually so warm and friendly, but this evening he was throwing things out of a bag all over the floor. That got our attention. Bill spoke on “Taking Out the Trash.” Plastics are not biodegradable. A disposable diaper will hang around a 500 years before sunlight breaks it down to smaller and smaller pieces. He spoke of Gyres which are areas in the ocean where debris fragments accumulate. Bill referred to these gyres as cesspools we couldn’t flush. He cited research that warned us of neo-natal malformations, diabetes and even obesity if we don’t start protecting our environment and ourselves from the all the plastic we toss into our world.

We had a six minute break of cookies, chips and dip, snack mix and donuts. Yes, much of it was in plastic containers!

The evening’s last speaker was Claudia Brogan. She spoke from the “Speeches by Management Manual” The Briefing. Claudia’s briefing was on the valuable use of time. Her handout of Time Quadrants kept us in step with where her discussion was taking us. What’s urgent, what’s not urgent, what’s important, what’s not important, what’s a necessity, what’s deception, Claudia gave us examples and tools for using our time in meeting our work goals. She then fielded a good five minutes of questions. Claudia responded to the questions with appropriate and insightful answers. She is definitely a master in her communication field.

Closing reports were brief. Rui Li recorded one speech on DVD, Kelly’s. Donna Satchell informed us that Kelly’s speech was 7 minutes on the nose. Bill 15 seconds over on his trash talk and Claudia used an extra minute for her speech, “It really is all about time.” Pat found a couple of ahs and ums. She also noted that Claudia had used the word of the day, “unelectable” twice! Merrilee Morris complimented Iris on her brief, yet informative introductions. Iris ran a professional, timely and fun meeting.

President Pat Schmalzried asked members to volunteer to be on a nominating committee to put forward member names for our new officer slate. New officers assume their positions in July. The new scheduled (May and June) was emailed to members 4/28. Roles for May 5 are as follows:

Toast Master: Claudia Brogan
Speakers: Iris Grim, Keith Schroder, Pat Schmalzried
General Evaluator: Vicki Willard
Grammarian: Paul Johnson
Camera Person: Bill Kovach
Timer: Paul Poodt

Respectfully submitted:
Merrilee Morris for Deborah Hill-Flach

Posted in News | Print | No Comments »

April 22, 2008 by Merrilee Morris.

This evening’s meeting of Speakers Roundtable (4/21/2008) visited a wide variety of speech topics and speaking styles. It began with Keith Shroeder leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance and then giving President Pat Schmalzried control of the meeting. There were 12 members present and one guest. Our guest, Peter Muchtogo, is a member of the Alpharetta Toastmasters club and was invited to visit Speakers Roundtable by Kelly Vandever.

President Pat also served as our Toastmaster for the meeting so slid easily from President to the role of TM. First on the agenda, she introduced our General Evaluator for the evening, Keith Schroder. His team included Claudia Brogan, Timer; Merrilee Morris, Grammarian; and Paul Poodt, Camera Person.

The first speaker of the evening was Rui Li. Rui delved into her Story Telling Manual to bring us a Chinese Folk Tale. It was about an old and wise man who lived on his country’s border. Rui pulled on her imaginary beard and gave the old man’s advice in her surprisingly deep, gruff voice. The moral of the story was to be patient and wait, that good things can and do come out of bad things. Everyone was pleased with her sagacity and speaking skills.

Next, it was to stand, turn, and face the wall. At Pat’s direction, we then faced forward and sat down. She proceded to introduced our next speaker, Paul Johnson, who was no where to be seen. Apparently he had taped his Interpretive Reading which Pat pretended to start. Thus Paul began his reading of “Maud” Scene 1, by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Voice booming through the room our invisible reader led us through Maud’s stream-of-conscious thoughts on living and dying. Paul returned from behind the door to receive his glowing evaluations.

We enjoyed a scrumptious 10 minute break of dips, chips, subway sandwiches, angel cake, and other goodies.

Our third speaker for the evening was Bill Hosken. Bill’s objective for the speech, which was on China, the Giant, was to effectively deliver a non- politically correct speech on a hot political topic. He dealt with the lack of freedom in China, their pollution, the manufacture of fake products, their economic impact, the list of concerns was documented and long. Then he turned the focus to the country that had allowed and even caused the current problems in China and the world today, the U.S. Bill was not booed or stoned by his evaluators, but rather praised on his ability to present both sides of a political hot button with sagacity.

Next Pat called on Keith for his evaluation of the evening’s program. Rui Li’s speech was the only one recorded by Paul. The speakers and evaluators had their double clutches, ah’s and filler words duly noted. The Timer reported that all but one speaker fell within the requested time. Toastmaster Pat delivered excellent introductions for all three speakers and kept the meeting snug and on time.

Sliding back into her President’s role, Pat congratulated Iris Grimm on achieving her ATM Silver. She reminded us that Kelly Vandever will be competing in the International Speech Contest on May 2 & 3. Speakers Roundtable business cards, designed and created by Paul Johnson and Deborah Hill-Flach were distributed in 25 card packets to the members that were present. Members not present should contact Paul Johnson for their card packets.

The meeting was adjourned exactly on time.

Respectfully,

Merrilee Morris on behalf of Deborah Hill-Flach, secretary-treasurer.

Posted in News | Print | No Comments »

April 15, 2008 by Deborah.

Hello Fellow Speakers,

We had a remarkably fun evening tonight, with 9 members present.

Our SAA Keith Schroeder welcomed us and helped us pledge our allegiance to the flag. Our president Pat Schmalzried greeted us, then introduced Paul Johnson, our Toastmaster. All of our appointees showed, except one speaker. Our cast of characters included:
GE: Rui Li
GR: Pat Schmalzried
Timer: Kelly Vandever
Camera Person: Paul Poodt
Back-up GE: Dave Flach (you had to be there)

Our speakers:

Deb Hill spoke on information from her new book, Unlimited Life, due out in May. She told us how to create our dream life by transmuting our limiting beliefs. She also spoke to us about a common limiting belief and the cure: Living the objective life in the neutral zone.

Keith Schroder entertained us and taught us a fun way to get to know a stranger, in his speech: The Cube. Yes, you too can be characterized by how you visualize your cube on the desert horizon.

To fill in the time, Dave Flach led us in a speakers round-robin. Our job: Tell a story that involves these eight words, places and people: Chile, rain, mudslide, ukulele, Washington monument, tricycle, speedo, and Homer Simpson. Kelly gave us 2 minutes each. Each of the eight speakers continued a story using one of the words from the list. And, what fun we had. We are a VERY clever and funny group. Not to mention great speakers. Fortunately in the end Homer called Waldo (300#, tricycle riding, speedo wearing hero) who saved Paul from the Chilean embassy, pulled the bus out of the mudslide, (did we ever get to see the Wash. Monument?) and got us all safely home.

We ate cheese crackers during our 10 minute, jovial break.

New business: We’re all paid up!!!
Please bring a guest to the next two meetings. Pat is encouraging us to bring ‘em in as we need some new members.

Paul ran an easy going, yet orderly and timely meeting. We started a little late and ended on time.

See you in three weeks. Merrilee will be filling in for me.

My Best,
Deborah Hill
Secretary

Posted in News | Print | No Comments »

April 11, 2008 by Paul Johnson.

Toastmaster: Paul Johnson

Speakers:
1) Bill Hosken
2) Deborah Hill
3) Keith Schroder

General Evaluator: Rui Li
Timer: Kelly Vandever
Camera Person: Paul Poodt
Grammarian: Pat Schmalzried

Posted in Agenda | Print | No Comments »

April 11, 2008 by Keith Schroder.

Hi Toastmasters,

I’m composing from my treo so please bear with my abbrevs. At the very
least ul get on board with the latest txting jargon out there. (see C.
Brogan for more on this!)

Mtg started on time courtesy of our awesme TM Vicki! Througout the meeting
she dazzled us with intrstg tidbits bout being first born, mddle, youngest
or only child.

Rui had us rolling in the aisles with her funny speech about softball.

Iris dazzled us with powerful information regarding leadership parallels bw
pple and dogs.

Donna had us getting serious while being seriously enthralled with her
speech. She is competing in contest with it and we wish her the best!

We had a guest Gong who did not speak much English. Since 85 percent of
communication is non verbal I know he had a grand time. Well I’m 85
percent sure.

The Club is a benefit to you. It a resource to help u grow in ways u
otherwise would not. The way I see it the club is a plant. A marvelous
plant to provide u with sustinence for your personal and profssnl growth.
The club like a plant needs to be watered. Ur attendance is the water for
this marvelous plant. If u want to pull fruit from the plant when ur
hungry but don’t water it enough, soon there will be no fruit. Plus the
more we water this plant the more it thrives! I look forward to seeing u
all at our next plant watering session on Monday!

Sincerely,

Keith Schroder
HorizonDJ
678.592.0285
www.HorizonDJ.com

Posted in News | Print | No Comments »

April 2, 2008 by Deborah.

Hello Fellow Speakers,

We had a full evening of powerful speeches tonight, with 11 members and 1 guest present.

Our SAA Keith Schroder welcomed us and helped us pledge our allegiance to the flag. Our president Pat Schmalzried greeted us, then introduced Deborah Hill, our Toastmaster. All of the following roles were fill-ins, especially when one person no-showed.
GE: Dave Flach
GR: Kelly Vandever
Timer: Bill Hosken
Camera Person: Paul Johnson

Our speakers:
Keith Schroder gave a fun and fascinating speech about the differences in how men and women communicate. Notice how we sit when we communicate. His speech was entitled, “Men, Women and the NY Knicks.”

Claudia Brogan eloquently showed us how to take advantage of life’s lessons in her speech: “Life is the School, I-85 is the teacher.” She taught us 6 important lessons that can be learned on the freeway.

Cindy Light gave her farewell speech tonight. She’s moving to Sausalito, CA next week. We’ll miss her. Cindy gave a fascinating speech on information from her upcoming book. Her speech was titled “The Secret Inside the Chinese Box.” She gave us tips on understanding the Chinese culture and how to relate appropriately to Chinese people in business situations.

A variety of yummy, healthy foods was presented during our 5 minute break.

Once I receive Antoinette’s check we’ll be finished with this round of dues. We now have 19 active and 3 inactive members. Our kitty is full and we’re humming along.

Our meeting started 3 minutes late (sorry) and ended on time (Yes!).

See you in two weeks. I need a volunteer to take minutes next week, please.

My Best,
Deborah Hill
Secretary

Posted in News | Print | No Comments »