Hello Fellow Speakers,

We had a two entertaining speeches tonight and an insightful and action packed business meeting, with 10 members and 1 guest present.

Our SAA was filled extemporaneously by Deborah Hill who welcomed us and helped us pledge our allegiance to an imaginary flag (the person with all of our stuff, including the flag and camera no-showed). Our stand-in president Paul Johnson greeted us, then introduced Peter Gibson, our Toastmaster. His team consisted of:
GE: Deborah Hill
GR: Claudia Brogan (we all learned from her report tonight)
Timer: Merrilee Morris (creatively without our cards or watch)
Camera Person: None (no camera)

Our speakers:
Vinny was back in full swing tonight. Jon Schwartz entertained us with two short speeches meant for video, entitled, “Vinny Vents.” He vented about bottled water, hotel water, customer service and a few other side subjects.

Paul Johnson became three people tonight, as he interpretively and creatively read from the screenplay, “Diff’rent” by Eugene O’Neill.

Our business meeting was well lead by Paul and was very productive. We voted on three resolutions - two approved and one failed. Bill Hosken will send the official resolutions to us soon. We also discussed the priorities of the club and are actively rethinking what we all want out of the club. Claudia will research the initial charter doctrines and we’ll consider defining our club objectives and structure as we are now and want to be.

Merrilee provided us with some glorious date cake, which went quickly (more quickly than Deb’s brown rice chips).

Our meeting started 4 minutes late and ended a touch late.

See you in two weeks. Remember, no meeting next week. Have a fun Memorial Day!

My Best,
Deborah Hill
Secretary

Hello everyone.

We had an entertaining meeting Monday evening.  Our TM Merrilee did her usual wonderful job.  She set the tone with her cleverly designed agenda and kept us moving through the meeting with humor and style.

Keith spoke to us about bridging the generations with a computer game. Check with him for the full details!!!

Rui Li selected a beautiful piece for her interpretive reading.

Bill Kovach and I volunteered to jump in as impromptu speakers.  What a master of organization our Bill K is!  If you missed his speech on a timely topic sure to impact each of us this summer please be sure to ask him about it at next week’s meeting.

We had two very cute young guests.  It was fun to listen to their views of our meeting.

We have a line up of stars for next week’s meeting so be sure to be there!

Signing off for now and looking forward to seeing you soon…

Vicki

Hello Fellow Speakers,

We had an exciting fun evening tonight, with 10 members and 3 guests present. One guest was Cara Iovino, back from life and wanting to rejoin our group. Many of you remembered that she was a dynamic speaker and asset to the club. She turned in her application and we’ll vote next week. We need a quorum of 11, so either turn your vote into Claudia, or show up to vote on Dr. Cara.

Our SAA Keith Schroder welcomed us and helped us pledge our allegiance to the flag. Our president Pat Schmalzried greeted us, then introduced Claudia, our Toastmaster. Claudia’s theme was “Fresh Ideas in Springtime.” She gave us three tips throughout the evening to put into our “speaker’s toolbox.” Our cast of characters included:
GE: Deborah Hill
GR: Paul Johnson
Timer: Paul Poodt
Camera Person: Shared by Keith S. and Iris Grimm

Before our speakers presented, Kelly Vandever spoke to us about a membership drive that she’s doing for our club. She’s already spoken with several people who were at the conference, spreading the word and handing out cards. Now she’s handing out lists of clubs and contacts for us. Each of was asked to help by calling and emailing the contacts at the other clubs. We want to be sure to not step on any club toes, so be sure to clarify that we are only soliciting for people to join us as a second club. To further prove that we aren’t poaching from other clubs, don’t contact people from clubs who meet on Mondays or target clubs that are struggling to maintain membership. Contact Kelly for more info.

Our speakers:
Iris Grimm energetically taught us about teaching with energy. She gave a brief parcel of a speech that she’ll give to a group of teachers on how to deal with students, using dog training as an example.

Pat Schmalzreid lead us in three table topics. Our topic speakers were Dr. Cara, Deborah Hill and Merrilee Morris.

Keith Schroder entertained us with his story, called A Dog’s Tale. The dog may right now be telling about how Keith saved his life after he was in an auto accident on Ashford Dunwoody.

We ate merrily during our break.

We started a little late and ended on time.

See you in two weeks. Someone please fill in for me doing minutes next week.

My Best,
Deborah Hill
Secretary

The First Baptist Church Sandy Springs surprised us last night, April 28, 2008, when we arrived and found the temporary wall between the two meeting rooms open and a dozen or so round tables set up with table clothes and all. Several members commented on arrival, “This is truly a Speakers Roundtable meeting.” President Pat Schmalzried called the meeting to order and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Iris Grimm was our Toast Master for the evening. Merrilee Morris was General Evaluator. Pat, our President and acting Sgt at Arms, also served as our Grammarian. Volunteering as timer was Donna Satchell and Rui Li as our camera person.

Our first speaker of the evening was Kelly Vandever rehearsing her speech for the International Speech Contest this weekend. Kelly’s speech was totally polished, laced with humor, rich with Jody’s vocal characterization, and enriched with visually strong and meaningful gestures. Kelly wanted us to draw blood with our evals, but she didn’t leave us much to scratch at. She’s searching for a more appealing title than “The Arm Exercise.” You’ve got a winner, Kelly!

Speaker number two was Bill Kovach. He’s usually so warm and friendly, but this evening he was throwing things out of a bag all over the floor. That got our attention. Bill spoke on “Taking Out the Trash.” Plastics are not biodegradable. A disposable diaper will hang around a 500 years before sunlight breaks it down to smaller and smaller pieces. He spoke of Gyres which are areas in the ocean where debris fragments accumulate. Bill referred to these gyres as cesspools we couldn’t flush. He cited research that warned us of neo-natal malformations, diabetes and even obesity if we don’t start protecting our environment and ourselves from the all the plastic we toss into our world.

We had a six minute break of cookies, chips and dip, snack mix and donuts. Yes, much of it was in plastic containers!

The evening’s last speaker was Claudia Brogan. She spoke from the “Speeches by Management Manual” The Briefing. Claudia’s briefing was on the valuable use of time. Her handout of Time Quadrants kept us in step with where her discussion was taking us. What’s urgent, what’s not urgent, what’s important, what’s not important, what’s a necessity, what’s deception, Claudia gave us examples and tools for using our time in meeting our work goals. She then fielded a good five minutes of questions. Claudia responded to the questions with appropriate and insightful answers. She is definitely a master in her communication field.

Closing reports were brief. Rui Li recorded one speech on DVD, Kelly’s. Donna Satchell informed us that Kelly’s speech was 7 minutes on the nose. Bill 15 seconds over on his trash talk and Claudia used an extra minute for her speech, “It really is all about time.” Pat found a couple of ahs and ums. She also noted that Claudia had used the word of the day, “unelectable” twice! Merrilee Morris complimented Iris on her brief, yet informative introductions. Iris ran a professional, timely and fun meeting.

President Pat Schmalzried asked members to volunteer to be on a nominating committee to put forward member names for our new officer slate. New officers assume their positions in July. The new scheduled (May and June) was emailed to members 4/28. Roles for May 5 are as follows:

Toast Master: Claudia Brogan
Speakers: Iris Grim, Keith Schroder, Pat Schmalzried
General Evaluator: Vicki Willard
Grammarian: Paul Johnson
Camera Person: Bill Kovach
Timer: Paul Poodt

Respectfully submitted:
Merrilee Morris for Deborah Hill-Flach

This evening’s meeting of Speakers Roundtable (4/21/2008) visited a wide variety of speech topics and speaking styles. It began with Keith Shroeder leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance and then giving President Pat Schmalzried control of the meeting. There were 12 members present and one guest. Our guest, Peter Muchtogo, is a member of the Alpharetta Toastmasters club and was invited to visit Speakers Roundtable by Kelly Vandever.

President Pat also served as our Toastmaster for the meeting so slid easily from President to the role of TM. First on the agenda, she introduced our General Evaluator for the evening, Keith Schroder. His team included Claudia Brogan, Timer; Merrilee Morris, Grammarian; and Paul Poodt, Camera Person.

The first speaker of the evening was Rui Li. Rui delved into her Story Telling Manual to bring us a Chinese Folk Tale. It was about an old and wise man who lived on his country’s border. Rui pulled on her imaginary beard and gave the old man’s advice in her surprisingly deep, gruff voice. The moral of the story was to be patient and wait, that good things can and do come out of bad things. Everyone was pleased with her sagacity and speaking skills.

Next, it was to stand, turn, and face the wall. At Pat’s direction, we then faced forward and sat down. She proceded to introduced our next speaker, Paul Johnson, who was no where to be seen. Apparently he had taped his Interpretive Reading which Pat pretended to start. Thus Paul began his reading of “Maud” Scene 1, by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Voice booming through the room our invisible reader led us through Maud’s stream-of-conscious thoughts on living and dying. Paul returned from behind the door to receive his glowing evaluations.

We enjoyed a scrumptious 10 minute break of dips, chips, subway sandwiches, angel cake, and other goodies.

Our third speaker for the evening was Bill Hosken. Bill’s objective for the speech, which was on China, the Giant, was to effectively deliver a non- politically correct speech on a hot political topic. He dealt with the lack of freedom in China, their pollution, the manufacture of fake products, their economic impact, the list of concerns was documented and long. Then he turned the focus to the country that had allowed and even caused the current problems in China and the world today, the U.S. Bill was not booed or stoned by his evaluators, but rather praised on his ability to present both sides of a political hot button with sagacity.

Next Pat called on Keith for his evaluation of the evening’s program. Rui Li’s speech was the only one recorded by Paul. The speakers and evaluators had their double clutches, ah’s and filler words duly noted. The Timer reported that all but one speaker fell within the requested time. Toastmaster Pat delivered excellent introductions for all three speakers and kept the meeting snug and on time.

Sliding back into her President’s role, Pat congratulated Iris Grimm on achieving her ATM Silver. She reminded us that Kelly Vandever will be competing in the International Speech Contest on May 2 & 3. Speakers Roundtable business cards, designed and created by Paul Johnson and Deborah Hill-Flach were distributed in 25 card packets to the members that were present. Members not present should contact Paul Johnson for their card packets.

The meeting was adjourned exactly on time.

Respectfully,

Merrilee Morris on behalf of Deborah Hill-Flach, secretary-treasurer.