Hi Eagles!
Our November 20th 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 18th 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 4th meeting will be held in the BYK
Conference Center again. Hope to see you there!
Heather McKelvie
Eagle Secretary
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