Speakers Roundtable members left tonight’s meeting expressing to each other how glad they were they had come.  Our scheduled Toast Master was relaxing in Florida.  Our president was out of town on business.  Our Vice President of Education was not available.  And our Secretary-Treasurer is healing in South Carolina.  But guess what?  We had an excellent meeting.  Paul Johnson stepped up as both acting President and Toast Master.  His theme dealt with doing things at the last minute.  He contacted the three speakers and guess what?  They all three showed up and gave well prepared speeches.

Our Sgt at Arms, Kelly Vandever gaveled our meeting to order at 6:10.  We welcomed one guest, John Cargill for his 3rd visit.  Guess what? I think we have him hooked and he’d probably like to give an icebreaker speech and join us.

Rui Li served as the General Evaluator for the evening.  Her crew consisted of Donna Satchell, timer, and Kelly Vandever as grammarian.  Paul Johnson put his cell phone with video camera on a little tripod in an effort to digitally record all three speeches. Guess what?  The batteries ran out.  We appreciated Paul’s gallant effort.
Merrilee Morris came to the lectern with calculator in hand to deliver the evening’s first speech, My Poverty Portfolio.  She took us on her personal stimulus tour of how to save money and live well on a bare bones income. Her conclusion, impoverishment can bring enrichment and blessings.

Cara Iovino treated us to Ways My Father Taught Me to Say I Love You. Cara took us to Brooklyn to meet her Italian father, a man who found so many non-verbal ways to convey his love to Cara from untangling her necklace chains, to lacing up her ice skates.

Following a seven minute break with cake, cookies, strawberries and other foods, we returned to our seats for our final speaker, Keith Schroder.  His title, Speaking Tips from the Bar mitzvah DJ was just that; three helpful speaking tips with examples.  His tips were to give people (audience) a compelling reason to do something, take little steps to get them moving in that direction,  and lastly, have a give-away or handout to jog their memory after the event.

Rui Li’s Evaluation Team wrapped up the meeting.  Donna Satchell reported the actual times taken for each speech were all within the requested limits.  Evaluations also hit their mark.  Kelly Vandever used the new book Bill Kovach presented to the club for our Word of the Day.  The book is by Bob Bly (a Copywriting genius) and titled, “The Words You Should Know to Sound Smart” (1200 essential words everyone should be able to use.)  She chose Habeas Corpus! Guess what?  Three folks used it! Are we great or what?   Rui Li summarized the meeting with thoughts on how much she receives from each of the speakers and from each one of our meetings.  It’s still true, Toast Master meetings are a total success when members come away educated, entertained and enriched.

Paul Johnson closed the meeting with his final thoughts on the skill level of our speakers who could decide to speak at the last minute, step up and deliver quality speeches. Guess what?  That’s professionalism.

Here are the SRT assignments for our next meeting, June 1, 2009.

Toast Master, Claudia Brogan

Speakers:

Steve Cohn
Rui Li (switched with Bill Kovach)
Donna Satchell

General Evaluator, Paul Johnson
Timer: Keith Schroder
Camera: Iris Grimm
Grammarian: Merrilee Morris
See you June 1st!