Folks:
Looking forward to seeing you at today’s SRT meeting in the new Buckhead location on Peachtree. Donna Satchell will be our Meeting Toastmaster and guide us well through our events (if she still needs any help with roles/spkr etc) she will let you know!

MAKE A CALENDAR NOTE: no meeting next week (Monday Oct 6) as we head up to cheer on member Kelly Vandever at her graduation night festivities. See you soon~~

We had a rollicking good time at the June 2 SRT meeting. Lucky for us that things went so well, with a humble number of 5 members present. But the great gift of the evening was *Kelly V’s* outstanding work to invite guests~~ so we had a bounty of very talented, jump-right-in guests who helped make the meeting lively and engaging.

Our acting Sgt at Arms Rui Li started us off, then Acting Pres. Paul Johnson welcomed us, then Meeting TM Rui Li took things from there. Our five great guests were: Brian McClellan (to practice for Region 8 event), Shawn Toombs (who wants to come back again), Peter M. (his second visit), Patricia (referred to us by her friend Donna S), and Oscar (longtime friend of the club).  What a talented group! Let’s just say, they enjoyed themselves greatly, were well welcomed & active during the meeting, each got time with our excellent VP membership to gain some info, and each one suggested they just may be back. Congratulations and thank you, Kelly!

Brian delivered his practice speech for the Region 8 event, and wow’d us. The title “Get it? Got it. Good” was an engaging, heartfelt, masterfully-delivered speech about the trials and tribulations of learning how to be a good parent.  Then Claudia delivered a practice speech she’s working on, titled “3 Key Tips for Connecting with Your Audience, and One Bonus Take-Home Prize.” Ideas were presented for techniques that speakers can use to honor listeners in their audience by valuing the experience and expertise of those listeners, as well offering practical tips (not just theories) and ways to engage so that listeners feel included.

Rui provided two Table Topic opportunities—our guests Sean and Oscar both rose well to the occasion, delivering 4 minute speeches and reveling in the fact that they got to receive 2 minute verbal feedback segments also. (Guest Sean confessed afterwards he’d not spoken extemporaneously like that before, which you’d never have guessed. He had us in the palm of his hand!).

Bill timed us well, Oscar listed closely for benevolent-users, Kelly did the camera work, and Paul evaluated The Whole.

All in all, a festive, high-spirited evening….with five engaged guests and five hard-working members. Each person in the room had their hand in making this meeting a success! Kelly proved, once again, her excellent skills at rousing guests, and all put out the welcome mat.

See you next time!

Acting Sec, Claudia Brogan

Folks:
Remember the children’s fable where the character ’spun gold out of straw’? That’s a little what it felt like at our SRT meeting on Monday March 24.

Or, put another way……we were small (in number) …but we were mighty!

I stepped in at the last minute when we realized that there was no substitute Mtg TM confirmed, and I was glad to do so. Every person in the room was put to work fruitfully — if not a speaker, folks were asked to serve to either complete a manual written speech evaluation, or to serve as TR, CP or GE. We had two great speeches and a good round of spontaneous Table Topics. Seven members attended, all with something to do. Here’s how it unfolded:

After setting up the room with a bounty of Easter refreshments & some beautiful fresh strawberries from M.M., we were ready to start. I led the Pledge of Allegiance, and President Pat Schmalzreid offered her welcome and opened the meeting. Then we listened to Merrilee outline for us the great benefits of Daydreaming. Rather that wasteful ‘wool-gathering,’ this practice (as she reminded us) can lead to our dreaming up solutions to problems that stump us, can help greatly with stress relief, and can motivate us to make changes and improvements in our situations. She also talked about the power of being able to ‘imagine completing a project successfully’ with a mental rehearsal and reminded us that daydreaming can help us keep loved ones near. Whether we imagine and reflect on things in our past, or things that have not yet happened, daydreaming is not a habit to scold children to avoid, but actually is good for any of us, any age, any stage.

Our second speaker was Pat, conducting an assignment from an Advanced Manual on “Giving a Toast.” She used this time to practice a wedding toast she’ll be giving in a couple months at former-SRT member Lisa Verhoff’s wedding in the Virgin Islands. Complete with our raising our plastic champagne glasses of Ginger Ale, Pat demonstrated a good balance of sharing affectionate stories about the bride & groom with also giving a sincere, hearty wish for the couple’s best happiness and long lives together.

After a break of Easter goodies and bright red strawberries, we reconvened to conduct a spontaneous round of Table Topics, since speaker #3 was delayed up in Kennesaw for a work project. Our attendees rose to the occasion and hailed this new practice of ours, to insert TT when possible.

We adjourned two minutes early, after our time together of ’spinning gold out of straw.’ We’ll see you next time!

BONUS NEWS: Had you heard this scoop yet? Our own Kelly Vandever won the Division G event of the International Speech contest, held on March 22, and will now advance to the May 3 District Contest. She used that speech she’d presented to us (colloquially titled ‘that one where the arm lifts up’) on Visualization and Positive Beliefs. Congrats, Kelly… good luck ahead.

~~Respectfully submitted,
Claudia B

Folks: I know you’ve seen lots of all-group emails in the last few days, offering switch-deals and good bargains. I’m suggesting we curtail those, please—for fear of overwhelming our members’ emailboxes.

Let’s look at the Roles/Speaker Sheet this way: That document was simply a ’snapshot’ that was taken with info we knew at the start of Nov/Dec timeperiod. Things will happen, people’s schedules will change, assignments will modulate from this. No need to ‘reply all’ to the group with each schedule change.

As noted before, let’s use the Meeting Toastmaster for each night as the key person to have info for coordinating that meeting’s changes/updates, not the whole group. Try your best to find a sub, with one- on-one emails or phone calls, then notify the Mtg TM. (If you find that you can’t serve your night as TM, please do the same replacement process off-line.) Since we are now using Tuesday-preceding-a-meeting as the time for the Mtg TM to be in touch with each of her/his people, that Mtg TM will learn if there are still some unfilled gaps, will move swiftly if Speaker Slots are still unfilled, then will shouldertap indiv. roles beforehand or even AT the mtg.  We’re flexible, we can adapt, we can handle these challenges well, even spontaneously.

Let’s not try to fix this at the ‘meta’ level, but solve at the simplest level possible. Once we get in sync with each other & these agreements, all will work just fine I’m sure.

As usual, my best to you~~~CHEERS to some fine, learning-filled meetings!