December 18th Meeting

Our last meeting of the 2017 calendar year was held in the BYK Conference center. It was short and sweet, so that we could move out to the lobby and enjoy refreshments while doing a round of table topics by the fire.

Sandra Centorino was Toastmaster for the evening. We happily welcomed two new members – Markus Schumacher and Celina Dorn. Tom Piekarski served as the humorist and Ian Brooks gave the quote of the day, "Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection." – Winston Churchill.

To keep the meeting short, we only had two speakers. Ute Brinkmann delivered speech #9, Persuade with Power from the Competent Communicator manual. Her speech was titled Giving, and she spoke of the importance of giving to those who are less fortunate than we are. There are many ways to give – we can donate time, money, and resources. By doing so we can give hope to others in this world.

Maryanne Shirshac gave Speech #6, Vocal Variety, from the Competent Communicator manual. Titled “Holly Days”, Maryanne spoke about her cat, Holly. Holly came into Maryanne’s life as she was mourning the loss of her previous cat. Holly has left pawprints on Maryanne’s heart, which is something to which other pet owners can relate.

The general evaluator was Nilani Shankar, and Ian Brooks and Stephen McGirr evaluated the speeches. Functionary roles were: Ah-Counter – Heather McKelvie, Grammarian – Salvatore Romano, Timer –Melinda Torgerson.

After the evaluations and functionary reports were given, the group migrated to the lobby for snacks and socialization in front of the fireplace. Deborah Haggett led a holiday session of table topics. All in all, it was a fun way to celebrate our time together as Toastmasters.

December 4th Meeting

Once again, we met in the BYK Conference Center – an interesting change from our usual venue. 

Jaime Fisher, our Sergeant at Arms was first on the scene to ensure the room was ready for the night and to open the meeting with the bang of the gavel.

Eagles President Ute Brinkmann announced that next meeting (Dec. 18) is the holiday-themed meeting, and everyone may contribute by bringing something delicious to share. (Sign up on the agenda!) Perhaps some holiday attire, if you’ve got an ugly sweater you’re itching to show off?

Tom Corrigan was the Toastmaster for the evening. 16 members and 8 guests (yes 8!) were present.

Robin Corrigan was the humorist and told a funny story about a failed attempt to impress someone.

Robin also presented the Quote of the Day – from Adam Steltzner’s book The Right Kind of Crazy. I failed to write down what his quote actually was, but take a moment to Google him if you don’t know who he is – he’s an incredibly interesting guy! I think I’ll be reading that book!

Grammarian Paula Erardi presented the word of the day, which was Complicity.

Tony Centorino was Tabletopics Master and used the time to crowdsource us for ideas on how to get clubs to gain more visitors and members. Along the idea of having themed meetings, he asked us to speak for 2 minutes on various themes, such as books, travel, children, and music. Heather, Jaime, Paula and Robin all participated.

Our first speaker of the evening was the club’s prodigal son, Curtis Reddick. (Welcome back to the club, Curtis!) Curtis spoke from the Competent Communication Manual, project # 9 (Persuade with Power). Curtis’ speech was titled Rebel Against Mediocrity. Curtis packed his speech with information about how we can better ourselves. Just by being part of Toastmasters, we strive to rise above the status quo! He recommended a book called Organize Tomorrow Today, and reminded us that consistent behavior is what leads to change.

Nilani Shankar was up next, completing project #3 (Get to the Point) from the Competent Communication Manual. Nilani spoke about how she was introduced to the therapeutic techniques of tapping and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) from a fellow graduate student at UConn. She took us through the history of these therapies and even had us participate in a quick demo of self-tapping.

Speaker #3 was yours truly, Heather McKelvie. I chose project #1 (Speaking to Inform) from the Advanced Communication Series, Speaking to Inform.  In The Art of Zentangle, I attempted to introduce Zentangle to the group, explaining what it is, how it got started, and then how to do it. I brought examples of Zentangle books, as well as my own artwork, and even did a quick demo on the easel, but unfortunately, I found the time was up before I had completed the speech! Lesson learned: You can’t fit 20 minutes’ worth of material in a 5-7-minute speech!

Kate Kelly closed out the speech portion of the evening with her speech, entitled Take a Giant Hike. Her title was a play on words, as she talked to us about hiking at Sleeping Giant! A big part of her speech was on the importance of having a trail map so that you can anticipate the type of terrain you’ll be encountering, and find a gentle way back to the parking lot once you’ve had enough.

Jaime Fisher was our General Evaluator. Kate Kelly, Robin Corrigan, Sandra Centorino and Tony Centorino evaluated each speech respectively.

Other functionaries were: Curtis Reddick, Ah-Counter, and Stephen McGirr, Timer.

Our next meeting will be held on Monday, December 18^th at BYK. It will be a holiday-themed meeting and will include pot-luck. Be sure to see the agenda on eagletoastmasters.com to sign up!

See you then!

Heather McKelvie

Eagle Secretary

November 20th Meeting

Hi Eagles!

Our November 20^th meeting had a new venue – the conference center at BYK! We’ll meet here temporarily for the next several meetings, as our usual location has other plans.

The meeting was opened by our Sergeant at Arms, Jaimie Fisher. We had 14 members and 5 guests in attendance.

Club President Ute Brinkman welcomed us and mentioned that Ian Brooks was about to complete his Competent Communicator for the second time around!  She also reminded us that it’s good to look around at other clubs to visit, or even give a speech there.  Ute reminded us that the holidays are coming up fast and we’d like new ideas for our December 18^th holiday meeting.

Our Toastmaster for the evening was Kate Kelly. Tom Corrigan was the humorist and had us all chuckling about how a husband had apparently already picked out his replacement wife, should his current wife die before him.

Ute Brinkman delivered the word of the day, which was Zonked, meaning to be exhausted.

The Quote of the Day was delivered by Sandra Centorino, taken from the book Kindness Boomerang: “Pay for the coffee. It’s not the coffee that will be remembered, but the kindness.”

Ian Brooks was the first speaker of the night. His task, taken from the Competent Communicator Manual was to Get Comfortable with Visual Aids. Ian gave us a brief history of early recorded sounds – as much as one can fit 30-40 years of sound in a 7-minute speech. He brought along a phonograph and played some old records for us. He also demonstrated the fragility of the old thermoset plastic records by breaking one with his bare hands!

Jaime Fisher gave us the Best Holiday Survival Guide with Kids. Since it is commonly thought that it takes 100,000 hours of experience to become an expert, Jaime qualifies as an expert in dealing with children. She had three helpful tips for anyone who may be spending time with kids this holiday season. 1. See kids as an asset in helping you be more mindful. They are mindfulness minions! 2. Consider skipping gifts. Sponsor violin lessons, or karate, or take them somewhere to have a memorable experience instead! 3. Remember the most important gift of all – make the time to spend with family and friends, even those relatives you don’t agree with. To simply listen to another is a gift.

Our final speaker of the evening was Chris Gaffney. He spoke from an advanced manual The Entertaining Speaker. In Meaningful Thoughts, Chris spoke about three people who he admired as inspirational thinkers. 1. Tom Bodette, who states his mind in a clear and reflective way. 2. Garrison Keillor, the master of nostalgia, who not only makes you think of it but feel it too. 3. Andy Rooney, the former curmudgeonly commentator from 60 Minutes. Chris also shared that he is now sharing his own meaningful thoughts on his new blog: www.uncommondiscourse.com  

Table Topics was moved to the post-speech portion of the evening, to make the best use of time. Robin Corrigan was the Table Topics Master. Robin got creative with this one, turning it into a crime scene, with all the participants as suspects! The scene was Sun Studios recording studio, and the crime was the stolen golden guitar! Kate was the detective, while Tony was the Elvis impersonator, Heather was the “real” Elvis, Tom P. was Johnny Cash, Ian was Carl Perkins, Curtis was Jerry Lee Lewis, Nilani was Diane, and Sam Phillips was played by Tom C. One by one, each suspect had to explain what they were doing during the hour break when the guitar went missing. In the end, Detective Kate determined that it was the Elvis Impersonator who had stolen the golden guitar!

The general evaluator for the evening was Heather McKelvie. Robin Corrigan, Paula Erardi and Tony Centorino evaluated each speech, respectively.

Other functionaries were: Ah Counter, Stephen McGirr (who is ruthless in this role!), and Timer, Nilani Shankar.

The December 4^th meeting will be held in the BYK Conference Center again. Hope to see you there!

Heather McKelvie

Eagle Secretary

November 6th Meeting

Hello Eagles!

As usual, the meeting was opened by our Sergeant at Arms, Jaimie Fisher.

Eagles President Ute Brinkmann announced that our club had won the Smedley Award for gaining 5 members between August 1 and September 30^th.

Ian Brooks served as Toastmaster for the evening. 14 members and 2 guests were present.

The word of the day, presented by Grammarian Tony Centorino, was Assuage – meaning to ease or lessen pain, as with get-well cards or flowers.

Heather McKelvie was the humorist, and told a nutty joke about some complimentary nuts in a bar.

Nilani Shankar presented the Quote of the Day – from Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles. “Don’t believe everything you hear – even in your own mind.”

Sandra Centorino was Tabletopics Master. In honor of Monday being International Kindness Day, Sandra had participants share what they would say in a letter to someone who deserved their appreciation. Ian, Heather, Melinda (a guest), Salvatore (another guest!) and Paula all contributed.

Our first speech of the evening was delivered by Amy Demas. Amy’s project was from the Technical Presentations Manual – (1) The Technical Briefing. In Revolutionary Front Desk Training, Amy demonstrated the training she would provide for a dentist office staff when switching to a cloud-based recording platform for their phone system.

In speech 2, Jaime Fisher spoke from the Competent Communication manual – (5) Your Body Speaks. What’s Inside an Acorn? was inspired by Jaime’s then 2-year-old son asking what was inside of an acorn, and Jaime responding with the bright answer, “A Tree!” Jaime explained that, just as the material inside the acorn requires time, energy and patience to grow into a big tree, we too can reach our full potential through consistent, deliberate daily efforts.

Ute Brinkmann also spoke from the Competent Communication manual – (5) Your Body Speaks. In Little Knights, Ute told us how she began making simple sugar cookies for the Merchant Marines. She soon grew bored of the plain cookies and began adding pizzazz with stamped rolling pins and cutters. Over the years she has amassed quite a collection of unique and in some cases, intricately detailed cookie cutters, stamps and molds, which she passed around for us to see. Decoration adds love and sunshine to the cookies, but no additional calories. In Ute’s words, people from Uzbekistan to Asia decorate their food. I think I speak for the club when I say the best part of Ute’s speech was that she brought little bags of cookies for each of us to sample!

Tony Centorino delivered speech project (9) Persuade with Power from the Competent Communication manual entitled You Own It.  Tony spoke about how we each have our own individual journeys, but we share a journey together as a club. For Tony, who has worked at GE for over 20 years, it means a lot to him that GE has been around for 125 years, and Toastmasters has been around for 120. Both have well-established cultures and seemingly endless resources. This means that we can grow as much as we want with Toastmasters. Our club has a healthy mix of “Senior” members – those who have been around for a long time, “Junior” members – those with 3-5 years’ experience, and “Newbies” – those who have joined within the past 3 years or less.  Our club is owned by the members and run by the members.  Tony’s message to us is that we can be in the drivers’ seat! Reach out and do what you can for the club and for yourself. Ask for any help you need – resources are available.

Stephen McGirr was our General Evaluator. Speaking of resources, Steve mentioned that he had compiled some resources for the General Evaluator role and was willing to share with whoever needed them. The General Evaluator Role is in the Competent Leadership Book 6 times!

Tony Centorino, Chris Gaffney, Kimberly Lewis, and Richard Freeman all served as evaluators for the evening. Other functionaries were: Nilani Shankar, Ah-Counter, and Paula Erardi, Timer. 

See you next time!

Heather McKelvie

Eagle Secretary