Well, sort of. Our meeting was more the high-spirited, energetic and playful Lion, than the roaring dominating Lion of legend. After Keith Schroder’s upbeat call to order, Steve Cohn briefly welcomed ten repeat visitors. Then it was Rui Li to the helm as Toast Master for the evening. Rui’s theme was “Management of Negativity,” based on a Saturday night presentation given by our own, Jon Schwartz. She teased us with the three F’s needed to manage negativity.
General Evaluator for the evening was Steve Cohn. Grammarian Paul Johnson introduced the word of the evening, EQUIPOISE and challenged folks to use it in a sentence right than and there. Three folks did. Keith served as both our timer and our camera person.
Enthusiastic and high-spirited Cindy Light came to the lectern with her speech, “Looking Great as Your Resume. Her purpose was to motivate. She had two wrapped boxes, one beautifully wrapped and the other rather haphazardly taped up with whatever was on hand. Unbelievable as it seems, folks make snap judgments about you in 20 seconds. You take longer to decide on a book purchase. Cindy gave us five signature tips for looking as great as the contents of our resume. Her wardrobe comments were insightful. Clothes show passion. Fit in ~ standout. Life is today! Cindy was an articulate fashion plate herself and if her speech works in reverse, she has one outstanding resume. Cindy presented a lot of useful information not only for those in the job market, but for establishing our own uniqueness in everyday living. Life is today!
Rui’s first F for managing negativity was FUN, so our next speech fit right in. “I’m Waiting for That Call” by Merrilee Morris was next on the agenda. She chose to do an icebreaker with a bit of humor. Merrilee confessed that she has been faithfully waiting for a call to appear on NPR’s Prairie Home Companion Show. She presented her resume of life events and speaking experiences, pausing between her litany of Toast Master speeches, Red Cross Training Sessions, Air Disaster training session, Women’s club talks, and children’s holiday party story telling, to pick up the phone and moon for that call from Garrison (Keillor). She told us that she wasn’t getting any younger and that if any of us knew anyone at NPR’s Prairie Home Companion, to please mention her name to them. If speaking wasn’t enough, she said, she could also dance the schottische, make great lefsa, and crochet doilies. How we prayed the phone would ring for her!
Rui delivered the second F, FOCUS, before we took a five minute break. It is nice to not only see our repeat visitors at each meeting, but to know many of them by face and name.
Toastmaster Rui had listed two table topics on our agenda. Two of our guests volunteered to speak. Wendy Y. Bailey spoke on “If you were Tiger Wood’s publicist, what would you say to his fans.” Patricia Stalworth’s topic was “The next breakthrough of technology after Internet will be…” Both did entertaining and fun off-the-cuff speeches.
FERVOR was Rui’s final F for the evening. It was evident due to the fun we had this evening, the focus on giving great feed back, and the fervor with which we approach speaking that there was not a shred of negativity at this club meeting!
Steve’s evaluation team did a thorough and enjoyable job. Paul was so enamored with his word of the day that he felt it should be re-used by a member with dual club membership. He found many unique turns of phrases and felt that tonight was the first time the word doily had ever been used in a Toastmaster Meeting. Timer Keith reported the speaking and evaluation times and then commented on his second role as camera person. Our club tri-pod is capable of mounting some personal cameras. He suggested that if you have a digital camera with a tri-pod mount on the base and would like to record your speeches with your own camera, bring it. Steve encouraged more members to take part in the verbal evaluations. We all become better speakers the more evaluations we give.
Steve donned his acting president hat and asked the non-members to adjourn to the hall. We then briefly discussed reinstating the membership of Wendy Y. Bailey. Members unanimously welcomed her back.
Come to think of it, maybe tonight’s meeting did ROAR a little!
