August 21st Meeting

Hi Eagles!

I arrived at our August 21^st meeting expecting another small group. Boy was I wrong! We ended up with a total of 22 people – 8 of whom were guests.

Jaime Fisher was back to bang the gavel and begin the night. I (Heather McKelvie) served as Toastmaster.

As Humorist, Tom Piekarski told a risqué joke about a nun giving two priests an eyeful while on vacation.

Paula Erardi gave a quote from Frederick Lewis Donaldson about the seven social sins.

Following in Tony’s footsteps from last week, I also served as Topicsmaster. I brought in a grab bag of items and asked people to come up, randomly choose an item and then speak about it for 2 minutes. Sandra and Steve both found sunglasses and talked about their experiences with the solar eclipse. Jaime, inspired by a stuffed giraffe, told us about her struggles as a minimalist parent with children who hoard stuffed animals. Chris found a “clock man” in the bag and spoke about how it was a super hero action figure. He convinced us that it was a valuable collector’s item. One of the guests, Sarah, gave it a whirl and impressed us with her thoughts about pearls.

Then it was time for the main event – the speeches!

T Poirer gave the first of the three icebreaker speeches of the evening. She spoke about her nervousness and shared a poem she wrote about the nervousness and fear. As Sandra would later emphasize, T took the energy from her fear and turned it into courage!

Nilani Shankar’s icebreaker was inspired by the Jim Rohn quote from the previous meeting. She spoke briefly about her 22 years of formal education and then dove into her self-education. She discovered that self-hypnosis could help her memorize 25 pages of piano music, and has gone on to study how hypnosis can be used to help others.

In her icebreaker, Anne Lee started off by telling us how her family moved from Korea to Bangkok, where she learned English in an American school, only really taking it seriously once the math problems became word problems and she had to rely on probability to get the answers right. Anne came to the US for high school and college. She wanted a practical career, so she became a doctor and practiced radiology for 20 years. She then tried her hand at house-flipping, developed interested in real estate and became a broker! She says that when you want something in life, opportunities will come to you, and that America really is the best place to make that happen.

Amy Demas then gave a speech from the Advanced Manual – Special Occasion Speeches, Speaking in Praise, called “Thank you, Light” Amy praised light for three of it’s greatest characteristics – Radiance, Energy & Momentum and Guidance.  She concluded by reminding us that we can empower and motivate, just like the sun. 

Jaime Fisher wrapped up the evening as General Evaluator. Speech evaluators were Sandra Centorino, Amy Demas, Steve McGirr and Jaime Fisher.

Other functionaries were Paula Erardi: Ah-Counter, Nilani Shankar: Grammarian, and Richard Freeman: Timer.

Our next meeting is September 11^th. Ute suggested that the theme for the evening be National Day of Remembrance.

See you then!

Heather McKelvie

Eagle Secretary