Dear Eagle Toastmasters,
Another night, another meeting and we
put together another fantastic show tonight. Friday night we had almost
an empty roster except for 3 speaking slots filled, and by Monday
afternoon we had a full roster with even a backup speaker.... Yes, this
is incredible and this is something very special about our club -
stepping in when needed. We had 18 members tonight including our guests
Susan and Michelle, and we had Steve sign up as a new member. Welcome
Steve to our club/family.
Andrew as table topics master not only
lightened the mood but was also very creative with the material he
offered as topics. Everyone felt at ease and as a matter of fact Andrew
did not have to force anyone to step forward as he had members
voluntarily step forward and had a go at it. Yes we all had belly full
of laughs.... Thanks and great job Andrew.
Our streak of meetings
with icebreaker speeches is still going strong (hope it does not end
anytime soon..?) and today Hyunsoo gave her first speech titled "the
places i have been", narrating us how she landed in Wallingford after
her stops in Seoul (birth place), Canada, Long Island (New York),
England and Chicago, in sequential order. Her speech was well written
and her soft & soothing voice had the attention of the whole room.
I
grabbed the opportunity of an open speaking slot and, for a change,
gave a speech on how my pain, anger and sorrow remained the same even
after 18 years of the loss of a family member very dear to me. I hope,
by sharing this with all of you tonight, my pain, anger and sorrow
subside... Really hope and thank you all for the kind words.....
Rachel
brings in passion to everything she does. Rachel imposturing as the
division lead for the Juice Product Association called on all the fellow
colleagues on how important it is for their division to get their act
together in time to disseminate facts vs myth about the arsenic levels
present in food, especially pertaining to apple juices. For a moment I
thought she moved to a new job - excellent job, Rachel.
Ute
shared the 4 core values of Toastmasters: 1. Dignity 2. Dedication to
excellence 3. Service to the member and 4. Respect for the individual.
Thanks for sharing this and I hope we maintain these core values at our
club.
In short, we had a fantastic show tonight. Thanks to everyone for stepping forward and making this happen.
Goodnight and note that our next meeting is on Sept 10th.
Chandra
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Drinks on me for breaking the Eagle tradition
Dear Eagles,
A new room, a new setting and yet the same great turn out and the same great fun filled meeting. We had another 20+ member turnout, with 2 guests and one signing above the dotted line. Welcome Jay to the Eagle family!
We had Andrew as the toastmaster, and he did a wonderful job considering that this was his first time as TM. I want to commend Andrew for reaching out to all the speakers prior to the meeting and setting the tone & the tempo for the speakers and the speeches.
We had 3 prepared speeches tonight. Richard gave his Icebreaker speech titled "Shadow effect", in which he narrated us the story, the relation, the bonding, the emotions, the evolution and the growth of his 2 loves - his daughter Bailey and her (their) horse, Shadow, and how Shadow had a major influence in both his daughter and also their lives, and he ended by saying "No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle taking care of the horse," which had an appropriate addition "taking care of the horse" to the famous Winston Churchill's quote. Richard kept us so captivated that we did not realize that he was 2 minutes over time, which in itself is phenomenal for an icebreaker speech!
Mike followed Rich's speech with his icebreaker speech titled "Who is Michael". Oh, Mike had several stories with in a story. I really liked the way he connected the mini stories of his childhood, his family, his work, his education, his passion, his love...... He had this gentle, soft natured humor to his narration that, oh yes, he got the room worked up....
Lucy gave her 2nd speech titled "Memories," where she described vividly with great detail and examples how the meaning of vacation is so different for parents and children - parents want vacation for relaxation and stress-free whereas children want vacation for just the opposite "Chaos"... what better way to sum up the wide rift in the expectations......? Lucy is like a "Wordsmith," where her narration is like a poetry or a well written prose, and the choice of words and the quality of the content keeps us beholden.
All in all, we had a great night filled with 3 fabulous speeches. Congratulations to both Rich and Mike for giving their first speeches, and my apologies to both of you for forgetting to give the "icebreaker" mementos - our club tradition; extra drinks on me for both of you for this unforgiving mistake of mine :)
As mentioned, we will have 4 speaking slots from next meeting onwards. The agenda already shows these changes, thanks Joe.
Sign up for the roles, goodnight and see you all in 2 weeks.
Regards,
Chandra
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)