Archive for August 4th, 2009
The SRT Visitor Guest book has disappeared. Hopefully someone has it safely in their possession. Just let the VP of Membership (Kelly or Steve) know where it is.
Bill Bryson’s book, “Troublesome Words” is missing. If you find it, please return it to the black SRT storage suitcase.
The gavel struck at 6:02 and Sergeant of Arms, Keith Schroder led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. President Bill Kovach called his first meeting of this new Toast Master Year to order. Eleven members were present. Knowing we had a full program for the evening, he immediately brought up our Toastmaster, Paul Johnson. Iris Grimm, our General Evaluator, introduced her Timer, John Cargile, Camera Person, Rui Li, and Grammarian, Claudia Brogan. Claudia’s word of the evening was augur and yes, five or six folks actually worked it into their speeches and evaluations. Paul set the metronome on his phone thingy and then sped it up to let us know there would be no dilly-dallying during the evening. That we would all stay on beat!
Paul introduced a club favorite, Jon Schwartz, as our first speaker. Jon re-introduced us to Groucho Marx through a Monodrama. He also gave us some historical background comparing two recent deaths, that of Farrah Fawcett on June 25 followed six days later by the death of Michael Jackson, and that Groucho’s death preceded that of Elvis by three days. Jon, in grease paint eyebrows and mustache, jungle hat and tux, did a wonderful monodrama of lines from the 1920’s Marx Broadway Show, “Animal Crackers.” It was comedic, even silly, an introduction of Groucho to some members, and a wonderful memory lane trip for others.
We next welcomed Deborah Hill Flach back as she gave us her speech, “How Time Really Works.” She used wonderful power point visuals to help us understand that time is not lineal, but three dimensional. We visualized ourselves in a bubble, floating in time. That it is our thoughts that move our bubble through time. That Time is infinite and we have all the time we need is a large concept to grasp. Deborah’s speech is the introduction to her three hour work shop on understanding time and how it works for you. There’s also a good chapter in her book on this subject.
After the proscribed 6 minute and 37 second break at the heaping SRT buffet, we moved on to the 3rd speaker. This was none other than Merrilee Morris of icebreaker fame from our last meeting, practicing her humorous contest speech. She walked on her laughs, she almost ran over her time allotment, she could use more vocal characterizations, etc., but with help from Jon and these strong SRT evaluations, she may not create a messy black mark on our clubs reputation. She’s still pushing vintage, you know.
Speech number four was “Everything I ever needed to know about success I learned at the movie theater.” Keith Schroder took us on a fun trip back to 1995 when grunge was the scene and he got hired to work in a movie theater for a whopping $4.25 per hour. He learned three things: it’s how you view the job that determines your attitude; that action overcomes fear; and that calling in sick due to alcohol allergies can get you fired 100% of the time. Keith should definitely sign up for the humorous speech contests!
Iris Grim called on her team for their reports. John reported that only one speaker had run over. Rui Li confirmed that she had recorded three of the evening speeches and that the last one was currently formatting. Claudia heard a few ums and ahs, mainly during the evaluations. Iris closed noting that we’d had a full slate of speakers, but that our Toastmaster Paul had the program almost on schedule, trimming minutes from evaluations, both written and oral, and limiting the break. We all agree that Paul has the talent to make the Toastmaster job look easy and fun.
President Bill Kovach took control of the meeting, complimenting our Toastmaster Paul Johnson for an exceptionally well done job. He then asked our visitor, Robyn Cooper, who had arrived just before the first speaker was introduced, to let us know what she liked best about the meeting. Robyn is VP of Membership at Dunwoody Toastmasters. Rui Li had given her the SRT Business Card and she had called for information.
The SRT Schedule, including the August 17th meeting, will be e-mailed to you by Friday. The schedule will also be uploaded to our web site, www.toastmasteratlanta.com Please check your e-mails and your phone messages to learn what your roles will be for our up-coming meetings. This is going to be an exciting year!