Monday, August 2, 2010, promises to be an exciting and fun evening.  Speakers Roundtable will be holding two speech contests, EVALUATION and HUMOROUS.  Come, bring a friend, volunteer to speak, to evaluate, or to be a part of the contest judging team!  It’s easy, just check in with Dawn Gartin.

Monday, August 2,2010  EVALUATION CONTEST & HUMOROUS SPEECH CONTEST!

What an ineluctable evening we experienced.  Keith Schroder put the room in order, and then gaveled us to order one last time.  President Cindy Cannon covered the high points of the SRT executive board meeting.  She will follow her announcements up with an e-mail to all club members.  Cindy introduced our Toastmaster for the evening, Paul Johnson.  Paul immediately took care of some light housekeeping and a wonderful evening of speeches ensued!

Tom Nixon gave his first speech to the club, “Presentation Rules:  Power Point Techniques for Speakers that Work!” Tom’s use of two tools, words and image, let us know immediately what a skilled graphic designer he is.  His effective use of photos, words in yellow and lime, visually demonstrated the message he was delivering.  Don’t be afraid of contrast, use color as gestures.  Use handouts for detail.  Avoid the dreaded long bulleted list!   Tom left us with four major presentation rules; 1) You are the main event, not your power point.  2) Forget Gizmos, leave the animation to Disney.  3)  Simplify, simplify, simplify.  This goes to the essence of your message.  4)  Rehearse like a pro.  All of us, pros and non-pros alike, found Tom’s talk not only well presented, but overflowing with valuable information.

Paul Johnson introduced Merrilee Morris as our second speaker of the evening.  Her speech, “Seeking Answers” was from the Specialty Speeches Manual, “The Written Speech.”  Merrilee began by stressing how we all need information when we receive tragic news.  By seeking and receiving answers we can process the bad news.  She took us back to 1939 and the German and Soviet invasion of Poland.  Sadly, in the spring of 1940, the Russians systematically murdered thousands of these interned Polish Citizens.  This slaughter became known as the Katyn Forest Massacre.  In 1943 the Germans discovered these mass graves at Katyn and with Poland sought a fair and balanced investigation into the massacre by the International Red Cross.  The USSR vetoed the request.  Fast forward 70 years and the Polish people are still seeking answers to Katyn.  Then, on April 10, 2010, the Polish President’s plane crashed on landing at Smolensk.  All were on their way to the joint 70^th anniversary memorial of Katyn.  Merrilee pleaded with us not let the Polish people spend the next 70 years seeking answers to what happened to their President’s plane and the 96 souls who perished that April 10, 2010.  She gave each of us a copy of U.S. House Bill H.RES.1489, calling for an independent international investigation into this plane crash.  Let your voice be heard!

Toastmaster Paul cut our break time in half, noting that there wasn’t any food!  Our BreakMaster starts with our August 2^nd meeting.

Our final speaker was none other than Steve Cohn talking on “The Demise of the Two-party System.”  He introduced us to California’s Proposition 14 which introduces non-partisan primaries.  Anybody can qualify and jump on the primary ballot.  The top two vote getters meet in the General Election.  He explained how the two party system has lost it standing, lost its way, and was no longer doing what it was meant to do.  He spoke of how polarized we’ve become as a nation.  He used two excellent analogies to make his point; his playground pizza party and two unsatisfactory ad agencies.  He also gave us a bit of history of how parties (both Democrat and Republican) were clubs.  These “clubs” provided a service to their constituents.  The reformers felt these clubs were getting too powerful.  Now we have primaries where 14% of the registered voters determine who gets on the general ballot.  Third parties generally fail because they focus on one man.  He reminded us of George Wallace and Ross Perot.  Steve is convinced we need to break the two party hold on our country.  In doing so, we would also break the legislative bottlenecks.  As usual, Steve was knowledgeable, dynamic, prepared and convincing.

Dawn Gartin called on her evaluation team for their reports.  Cindy Light reported the actual speech and evaluation times.  Rui Li, our camera person, had recorded Steve’s speech, but the disk filled before the evaluations were captured.  Wendy Y. Bailey gave her grammarian report, giving accolades to folks who had used the word of the day.  Yep, someone used it twice during the evening!  Dawn called the meeting fantastic and praised Paul Johnson for hosting an outstanding and on time meeting.

Cindy asked Keith to take our guests and Tom Nixon out into the hall so we could discus and vote on Tom as a candidate for membership.  Welcome to Speakers Roundtable, Tom! Dawn announced that our club humorous speech and evaluation contests have been moved up to this coming Monday August 2^nd.  We have three committed humorous speaking contestants.  We have one evaluation contestant and seeking more.  Cindy reminded us that at our meeting on August 16^th we would be taking a vote on whether to extend our meetings by ½ hour on the first and the third Monday of each month or whether we should go to weekly meetings. Cindy also read an e-mail from Deborah Hill in favor of going to the weekly meeting.  The fantastic meeting adjourned.

Toastmaster: Paul Johnson

Speakers:

• Tom Nixon-Ice Breaker
• Bill Kovach
• Merrilee Morris
• Dwayne Smith
• Back-up Speakers Shea Ellison & Mark Parham

General Evaluator: Dawn Gartin

Grammarian: Steve Cohn

Timer: Cindy Light

Camera Person: Rui Li

Back-up Eval: Wendy Y. Bailey

SPECIAL ALERT!  CHECK THIS WEB SITE AND WATCH YOUR E-MAIL IN CASE THERE IS A CHANGE IN OUR MEETING SITE!

It was a dark and rainy evening as we gathered in the parking lot while SRT President Bill Kovach hunted the office complex for a meeting place.  It’s hard to believe that a group of our talent, our moxie, and our intellect could reschedule a meeting due to the July 4^th Holiday and not verify the availability of the meeting room. We were thrilled when the building guards sent us to Class Room C in Building D for Toastmasters.  There we almost invaded the Metro Brokers Toastmasters Club for this was also their meeting night and Class Room C their meeting room.  We did find our way into a large and comfortable conference room and Bill called the meeting to order.

As the first order of business, Bill presented the slate of officers:

President – Cindy Cannon~~ VP Education- Dawn Gartin~~ VP Membership – WendyY Bailey~~ Marketing/PR – Keith Schroeder with Web Master Paul Johnson~~ Treasurer – Iris Grimm~~ Secretary – Merrilee Morris~~ Sgt at Arms – Richard Kirby

It was moved by Paul Johnson and seconded by Kelly Vandever that the slate of officers be accepted.  The new officers were unanimously approved.  Bill turned the meeting over to our new president, Cindy Cannon.  Cindy welcomed our only guest, area governor, Barbara Morris.

Kelly Vandever served as Toastmaster for the evening.  She used quotes from the book “Real Leaders Don’t Use Power Point” to introduce each speaker for the evening.  This not only wove the meeting together, but provided us with valuable information.  Her first quote advised us not to imitate anyone.  Kelly then introduced our truly unique and one of a kind, Cindy Light.   Her talk, “Tea Time with Fisherman Sam,” was from the story telling manual.  Cindy spoke on a very sad time in her life back in 2006 and how she met a ghost that year.  Friends had offered Cindy their California beach front home following her divorce so she could have some quite reflective time to put her life back in order.  It was in that beach house that a fisherman she called Sam all garbed in a yellow slicker, appeared at night in the living room.  Calmly, she put a tea kettle of water on to boil and set two cups on the living room coffee table.  Cindy’s advice to us, “Find your someone to share a cup of tea with and talk until your mind is clear.”

“Great speakers are connection makers.” Kelly quoted as she introduced Ericka Butler who was giving her club icebreaker.  Ericka grew up in Detroit and managed to remove some of that city’s media tarnish by her open affection for Detroit.  She spoke of home memories and issues they debated.  Where was Jimmy Hoffa?  Should Diana Ross have left the Supremes?  Which Detroit Pizza maker was best?  She spoke of the Tigers, the Pistons, even the Lions.  With wonderful humor she spoke of crooked mayors, crime, and jelly filled Polish donuts.  Ericka not only connected us with her core being, but she even left us a bit connected to Detroit!

Following our break, Kelly introduced Rui Li with a quote on being fully committed to the moment, fully there.  In Rui’s speech, “Playing Your Cards Well in Life” she took us back to Berkley and graduate school.  She shared the pressures of being on a fellowship in graduate school, the stress of difficult classes and of setting high levels of achievement for herself.  After graduation, she found herself focusing on the goals she hadn’t achieved and not celebrating what she had actually accomplished.  As with any card game, life deals the cards to you.  Rui concluded that life doesn’t deal you all good cards, but playing the cards well that you have been dealt, will make you happier in the long run.

Steve Cohn stepped in as General Evaluator and provided overall feedback for our meeting.  Our Grammarian, Paul Johnson, appreciated the use of the word ACME.  He picked up on a few grammatical errors along with several offending a’s and ah’s.  As a matter of fact, he concluded, he was the only one whose grammar for the evening was perfect!  Our camera person, Shea Ellison, without a minute of training, operated two cameras and recorded all three of our speakers.  Paul lent a hand in finalizing the disks.  Our timer was also recruited at the door, (RAD if you like acronyms). Wendy-Y Bailey clocked everything down to the second!  The three speakers stayed within their requested times!  Steve commended TM Kelly as she was clearly prepared and did a great job.  The speeches were fabulous and we as a club proved how flexible we are sometimes required to be.  Kelly’s final quote before turning the lectern over to our new president was not to advise speakers to imagine their audience as naked people.

Cindy Cannon asked if anyone was interested in the Evaluation or Humorous Speech Contest.  Paul Johnson expressed an interest in the Humorous contest.  Barbara Morris, our visitor and area governor, had enjoyed sitting in on our meeting and looks forward to visiting again. The sun is out and beaming as our meeting adjourns.