Archive for ◊ April, 2010 ◊
Speakers Roundtable is pleased to welcome Shea Ellison, DTM and Richard Kirby to club member status. We can put them to work now that they are no longer guests.
Dawn Gartin received a unanimous vote for membership recommendation when we vote on her application at our May 3rd. meeting.
Iris Grimm, stepping in for our absent Sgt at Arms Keith Schroder, called Speakers Roundtable to order on the stroke of 6:00 p.m. She then introduced Steve Cohn who was stepping in for our President, Bill Kovach. Actually, it is more like Iris and Steve stepped up to fill these roles with little advance notice and did a professional job. Once again, we welcomed a full house of members and guests.
Our Toastmaster for the evening set a new precedent at Speakers Roundtable. Cindy Cannon had created our very first ICEBREAKER NIGHT with three guests delivering their first speeches in this club. Not only that, she tossed Table Topics at members which eased the pressure on the new presenters. Steve Cohn spoke on his first public unpaid speech, which actually turned into a song and dance on the playground at grade school. Steve still has that youthful groove.
Shea Ellison was first up with his icebreaker asking us, “What is your Passion?” What would we like to do day in and day out and never grow weary? He shared his search for his true life purpose. He told how he had wandered and drifted for 25 years, still managing to finish college in four terms, Nixon, Reagan, Carter and Bush. Shea found his passion in developing his human potential through studying hundreds of books, tapes, and attending symposiums. His passion grew to what he called the “Tipping Point.” That’s when he realized it was more about others than about him. Now his passion is sharing the keys to success and helping others to stay on purpose. Shea told us there were two great days in our lives; the day we were born, and the day we found our passion. This was an insightful presentation by a seasoned speaker (DTM). Cindy presented Shea with a pack of Icebreaker gum.
Cindy’s next Table Topic went to Deborah Hill. She was invited up to tell us about when she was first paid for public speaking. We saw a sweet little Brownie going door to door with her sales pitch selling Girl Scout Cookies.
Icebreaker Richard Kirby was next up. Richard described three aspects of his life. He’s a careerist, which means he has taken responsibility for the past, present and future direction of his career. Secondly, he practices careering. This means having a career plan, then adjusting and changing the plan as necessary. Finally, he’s an adventurist. Who do we know that has quit careers in corporate America nine times? Richard has traveled the gamut of careers. He has a degree in engineering and worked seven years as an engineer. He quit because he wanted to work with people and went into Human Resources for three years. Following that, he went into sales for 15 years. Richard confesses to being a thrill seeker and an optimist. He’s now a career coach and realizes that most of us set our goals too low. Through the words of an Eagles song chorus, he asked us what our career destination was. This was a very solid and well presented speech. Give that man a pack of Icebreaker gum, which Cindy did. We then took an eight minute break. Baaaaad timer.
Cindy’s next Table Topic went to Wendy Y Bailey. Wendy Y shared a wonderful speaking blooper. She was comparing good and bad service and put herself in the wrong category. Instead of being devastated, she enjoyed a good laugh with her entire audience.
Icebreaker Dawn Gartin introduced herself through the planning of her wedding seven years ago. She began by giving us all of her on-line names, which included her maiden name. Then we learned how she loves bargains, close-outs, clearances, and free ~ whee! Dawn was loaded with energy and excitement. She wanted a bargain wedding. She would be wearing her mother’s wedding dress so that was free. Her sister would be her only attendant, so that shouldn’t be costly. She wanted her matron’s dress to be uncomplicated, beautiful, inexpensive and plum/purple. She and her sister shopped their hearts out to no avail. Then her sister said that one magic word, e-bay! They keyed in the four dress requirements and low and behold, got one hit! The dress seemingly met their requirements and was only a whopping $10 plus shipping. Would size be a problem? Those of you who missed Dawn’s icebreaker now know better than to ever miss another meeting. Yep, Cindy gave that lady a pack of Icebreaker gum!
Rui Li was our general evaluator for the meeting. Rich Hart reported on language usage and the use of the word of the evening, quagmire. Iris Grim recorded all three speeches, detaching the camera and recording the evaluators as well. Merrilee Morris was the timer for the evening. Rui reported that Keith, our Sgt at Arms had called her when he found he couldn’t make the meeting. She was thrilled to find members and guests had the entire room in order for the meeting. She also complimented evaluators who did not hesitate to present differing opinions. Cindy Cannon’s ICEBREAKER evening had been a total success.
Visitors and guests were escorted from the meeting room while we discussed the membership applications of Shea Ellison and Richard Kirby. The members voted both gentlemen into the club. Members also voted to recommend membership for Dawn Gartin which will be officially voted on May 3, 2010.
Barbara Faison, a previous member of Speakers Roundtable, surprised us with a visit this evening. She’s looking great, but too busy and far away to do more than just visit for now. It was wonderful to see you, Barb.
What an overflowing evening of Toastmastering!
Please greet and make our newest club member, BEATRICE SCHERER feel totally at home in Speakers Roundtable. If you missed our 4/5 meeting, you missed Bea’s great icebreaker speech. Go to the meeting recap for the details.
Toastmaster: Cindy Cannon
Speakers: 3-4 Icebreaker speeches
General Evaluator: Rui Li
This is an important meeting since the icebreaker speech is a part of the criteria necessary for club membership. Come and hear our guest speakers!
Speakers Roundtable is truly appropriately named for tonight we came away nourished by a menu of great speeches. From the moment Keith Schroeder gaveled the meeting to order till he stepped into the Toastmaster role we knew a feast was in store for us. Networking was the theme and NEXUS was the word of the evening. Keith served up little appetizers called quips before each speech and invited the audience to respond table topic style. The first appetizer quip was “Never eat alone ~ invisibility is a fate worse than failure.” (Never Eat Alone is the title of a book Keith highly recommends.) Bill Kovach met this challenge.
The first course for the evening was Rich Hart. In his speech titled, “Great Intentions . . . Execution of a Dream.” Rich had us close our eyes and remember a dream we’d had. He next asked us why we missed fulfilling that dream. Most of us have such great intentions, but somehow we fail in the execution of our dreams. Rich shared his 2001 dream about fitness and competitive body building. We winced when he told us of his shoulder injury, how he was making a come back and then experienced the pain of damaging his other shoulder. He’d abandoned his dream until a trainer asked Rich when he was going to get back into body building. Rich realized he still wanted to execute his dream. He took the initiative, lost weight and began training. He surprised us with a final power point of himself as he took 5th place in the Novice Division and 3rd place in his Class of competitive body building. You too can take the initiative, look for opportunities, change your environment and differentiate yourself thereby executing you dream. Thanks for an inspirational and motivating message, Rich.
Kelly Vandever volunteered to savor the next appetizer quip, “Build it before you need it.” Kelly spoke from first hand experience about the importance of having everything in place when starting out with a new business. Our second course for the evening could easily have been dessert. Beatrice Scherer’s icebreaker speech was light, sweet, fun, and enjoyable. Bea has been married for 48 years, has two sons in their 40’s and just recently became a grandmother at 71 years of age. She and hubby retired to Vegas in 1999. We savored the humor she sprinkled throughout her talk and could only imagine her Vegas home filled with books, a Kindle, and a theater organ. She was called out of retirement to become CEO of her company when it relocated to Atlanta in 2003. She closed by telling us what she loves best about her life. It was the joy of realizing her dream of becoming a grandmother! Bea’s icebreaker was totally refreshing and well done.
Thanks to Claudia Brogan, we had some light snacks to visit over during break time.
Wendy Y Bailey, our third course for the evening, spoke on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and its application in group coaching and communication. Wendy Y introduced NLP to us through her little 18 month old cousin describing her joy at using her senses to experience the world around her. From flooring, to food, from clapping to dancing; Salena was a sensory sponge to her environment. Wendy Y defined neuro linguistic programming and listed the five senses; visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory. She reinforced these senses with simple drawings and examples, recalling Salena’s pleasure in using her senses. Then it was audience participation time as she called on us to identify sensory words that would amplify our communication goals. Welcome back Wendy Y, you were missed!
Cindy Cannon evaluated our feast of speeches and the TM chef. The meeting was enjoyable and she commended Keith for having woven table topics into the agenda (menu). Keith made the evening exciting and entertaining. We gave him a round of applause. She reminded members to stand when they give reports. She recommended that we use name tags or prepare tent cards so we all become more familiar with the names of members and guests. Cindy also suggested that we assign a Snackmaster or Breakmaster for each meeting who would be responsible for providing meeting goodies once or twice a year. She reminded members to invite guests. She also called for a second round of applause for Beatrice, our icebreaker speaker of the evening.
President Kovach had our Sgt at Arms escort our guests out of the room while we put forth Beatrice Scherer’s application for club membership for discussion and a vote. She was unanimously voted into membership. President Kovach welcomed Bea into Speakers Roundtable. Cindy Cannon is Toastmaster on April 19th. She is scheduling three or four individuals who have met all the requirements for club membership with the exception of their icebreaker speech. Everyone is encouraged to attend, evaluate and savor the strengths and gifts these applicants for membership bring to Speakers Roundtable. It will be an icebreaker mania evening!
Bon Appetite, ya’ll.