September 18th Meeting - Evaluation and Humorous Speech Contest

The September 18th meeting was a special one - it was our fall contest! Many members chipped in and brought food and drinks to keep us fueled throughout the evening.

Jaime Fisher served as Contest Master, Peter Penev was Sergeant at Arms, and Deb Haggett was Chief Judge.

The group consisted of 17 members, 5 guests, and one guest of honor - the target speaker, Richard Peck, DTM, First Vice President of Toastmasters International.

As the target speaker, Richard's role was to give a speech for the evaluators in the evaluation contest to evaluate. (Make sense?)

In his speech, More Than Just Words, Richard asked: "How do you use words to take people on a journey? When used properly, words can be extremely powerful." He went on to compare FDR's famous Pearl Harbor speech with an earlier draft, showing how the right words can have a much more powerful impact than those that first come to mind. He encouraged us to keep the 4 R's in mind when preparing speeches: Reinvent, Renew, Revitalize and Rewrite! Be mindful that your words take people on their journey, not yours.

Evaluation contestants were Joseph Oddie and Stephen McGirr

For the humorous speech contest, there were four contestants/speeches. In order of appearance:

1. Sarah Anne Ouellette / How Shit Can Set You Free
2. Brad Leete / My First World Record
3. Sandra Centorino / 17 Seats
4. Maryanne Shirshac / iLost

After each contestant, there was time for the judges to complete a checklist, which would be used to determine the speech contest winners. (This was also true for the judging of the evaluation contest.)

Once the judging forms had been completed, the ballot counters and chief judge retreated to another room to tally up the results. The rest of us mingled and enjoyed the refreshments.

Finally - drumroll please - the winners were announced.

For the evaluation contest, Joseph Oddie took first place, and Stephen McGirr second. For the speech contest, Brad Leete came in at #1, and Sandra Centorino came in second.

All four of the winning contestants would then go on to compete at the Area Contest, which was held in Waterbury on October 12th.

September 11th Meeting

The September 11^th meeting opened on a somber note, with Ute Brinkmann reading a poem remembering that fateful day. But she added a positive thought – the date 9/11 in European style stands for November 9. On that day in 1989, the Berlin Wall came down.

Amy Demas served as Toastmaster for the evening and suggested that we move Table Topics to the end of the meeting to make sure we had enough time for all the speeches.

The word of the day, presented by Thom Knowlton was Imagine.

The first speech of the evening was given by Kate Kelly. It was entitled “Pay it Forward” and was taken from the Advanced Manual – Specialty Speeches (2) Uplift the Spirit. Kate recalled that immediately after 9/11, humanity was at its best. People were kind and rushed to help each other and check in on each other. As often happens after tragedy or disaster, people reacted with love and concern. Kate asked, how do we keep that good spirit going? She then answered that we must always pay it forward to keep the kindness going. We don’t need to wait for another attack or disaster to motivate us.

Speaker 2 was Heather McKelvie (yes, that’s me!) who delivered a speech from the Storytelling Manual (3) The Moral of the Story. A Tale of Two Squirrels took the audience on a journey with a pair of squirrels – one who was very goal-driven and the other who was a bit less so. The story ended with a twist when the goal-oriented squirrel (Filbert) was snatched up by a hawk and the lazy squirrel (Marshall) went on to live the life that Filbert had once dreamed of for himself. The moral of the story was that you can plan all you want but you never really know how things will turn out in the end.

Joseph Oddie was the third speaker of the evening. He also chose a project from the Storytelling manual (4) The Touching Story. In “Face Your Fear” Joseph spoke about his paralyzing fear of public speaking that struck during his junior year of high school. From then on, his life choices were influenced by this fear. It took him 20 years before he confronted it by attending an improv class and even then, he wanted to run out of the room. But he stuck to it and was euphoric afterwards. He went on to try his hand at stand-up comedy. Each time was a little step forward. Joseph’s message to us was that if you don’t face your fear head-on, it will follow you throughout your life.

Our final speaker of the evening was Stephen McGirr, who gave his final speech from the Competent Communicator Manual (10) Inspire Your Audience.  Steve’s speech was entitled “What Will You Become?” He spoke about the three values he lives by: 1. Find Answers, 2. Be a Mentor, 3. Focus. When Steve was a child, he saw a Nostradamus documentary that cause him great distress. As he grew older he was crippled by his fears, suffering panic attacks that prevented him from going out and enjoying life. After consulting with a psychiatrist, and focusing on personal development and leadership training, he found answers to his struggles, became a mentor for others and has learned to focus on love and positivity, rather than the negative things in life. We too, can move past our own fears and use our experiences to help others.

Jaime Fisher lead table topics for the evening, which were a series of interesting questions such as: If you had a superpower for one day, what would it be? What was your favorite childhood toy or game? And, if you could learn a new skill, what would it be? Sarah Ouellette, Maryanne Shirshac and Brad Leete all participated, and then we were out of time!

Thomas Piekarski was the general evaluator for the evening, while Anne Lee, Brad Leete, Paula Erardi and Joseph Oddie evaluated each speaker.