Eagle Toastmasters Week of February 17th

Eagles,

Our February 17^th meeting included 21 members, 5 guests, and 1 missing wallet! More on that wallet later….

Christine Austin opened up the meeting as President and Toastmaster.

Your humble Secretary (me) served as our bi-partisan Humorist with funny quotes from Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

David Garner, one of our newest Toastmasters, rose to the occasion as a last minute volunteer for quote of the day…..”Proceed and be bold”! The first three speakers, among our newest Eagles, did just that!

Diana Grippen provided our meeting’s Pathways Moment by sharing her experiences that have enabled her to complete Level 2. As a Pathways Pedestrian, Diana is not about to put the kibosh on her progress...The word of the day from our Grammarian, Ross Grippen. Appropriately, we had four Pathway Speeches!

Speaker #1, Danette Fitzgerald, provided her Ice Breaker speech from the Innovative Planning path. She told us about her journey as a covert stutterer. It is rare to hear an ice breaking speech with as many layers as Danette’s. She explained the various types of stutters, avoidance behaviors, and wide range of emotions she experienced along her journey.

Speaker #2, Omar Ghannam, gave his Evaluation and Feedback speech from the Dynamic Leadership path. In his speech, Omar applied the feedback from his previous version of his story about how he lost his wallet. Sadly, one area of improvement that did not happen involved the actual wallet itself….It was never found.

Speaker #3, Lauren Bruno, accompanied by one of our guests Judy Bruno (her Mom) gave a speech about Brand Identity and Design. She taught us that the first five seconds of a brand is critical in attracting clients. This was speech #2 of the Evaluation and Feedback project from the Dynamic Leadership Path.

Speaker #4 has been an Eagle Toastmaster longer than the first 3 speakers combined! Sandra Centorino gave a speech titled “Just Show Up”. Sandra’s speech project was “Communicate Change” out of the Visionary Communication path. Sandra leads our monthly virtual meetings at Eagle…..Including a Virtual Pathways Seminar that took place on February 20^th. Sandra shared a simple message in person, which was reinforced by “Virtual Sandra” as a video message.

Jacqueline Fuller served as our Table Topic Master. Called into duty at the last minute, Jacqueline asked each Toastmaster what they wanted to be when they grew up……The range of answers from our enthusiastic speakers leads me to believe that most of us have not grown up yet!

Thank you to all of you that participated in our meeting, whether it was in one of the above-mentioned roles or our functional roles not mentioned above…Ian Brooks, General and Speaker Evaluator, Tony Centorino, Kate Kelly, and Eric Krausz, Speaker Evaluators…….Kat Calhoun, our Ah Counter, and Ryhon Solheim, our Timer.

Our February 17^th meeting was just the beginning!

On February 20^th, we held a Pathways Virtual Seminar. Our Seminar was a “how to” meeting about Pathways. Christine Austin gave an Icebreaker speech, showing us how to access Pathways to download her project and to upload her evaluation. Kate Kelly served as Christine’s evaluator, showing us how to complete an online evaluation. In between, Sandra Centorino, gave a speech that explained the general structure of the Pathways program. Tony Centorino shared some key Pathway materials and terminology.

The above-mentioned seminar included 21 virtual attendees….This was more than 3X the highest attendance from our previous virtual meetings! A link to the virtual meeting replay is below.

PATHWAYS VIRTUAL MEETING

For those of you that are interested in checking out a virtual meeting, please click on the above to see what it was like. If you just want to “dip your toe in the water”, you can join the meeting as an observer. For those of you that have the desire to work on your online presence, I especially encourage you to click on the above link. Yours Truly has some opportunities for growth here…..Others, such as Sandra, Christine, and Kate nailed it!

Our next meeting will take place on March 2^nd….Omar Ghannam is our Toastmaster. He’s looking for a few good Toastmasters to sign up for some choice meeting roles!

Have a great week!

Tony Centorino

Eagle Toastmasters Secretary

Eagle Toastmasters February 3rd Meeting

Our February 3^rd meeting featured a total of 23 members and guests and a fun filled meeting.

Tony Centorino served as the Toastmaster.

Danette Fitzgerald opened up the meeting with a funny story about how she parlayed a raise by telling her boss that she was in high demand…..It’s what she didn’t tell her boss that earned her the raise!

Ian Brooks provided several quotes of the day with words of wisdom for those of us that are in sales. The key lesson was that “if you don’t think you are in sales, then think again”.

Sanda Centorino provided a Pathways Moment that lasted precisely 1 minute and 7 seconds. She shared her experience of being stuck in Pathways as a Sideliner and how she learned a couple of keys that will turn her into a Pedestrian. We are holding a couple of Pathways Seminars aimed at helping make Pathways easier for you. Details are below.

Speaker #1, Tony Centorino, gave a speech on how to create the best club climate. Tony shared how each one of us can, and in many cases do, contribute to a positive climate at our club. I’d like to emphasize one point……Eagle is committed to providing speaking slots to anybody that wants to speak. If you are 90% sure you will speak, please sign up! If you want to sign up and the slots are full, then please reach out to our President (Christine) or VP Education (Ute). They will do what they can to ensure you get a slot.

Ryhon Soheim was Speaker #2. Ryhon gave his Ice Breaker speech on the Persuasive Influence Path. Speaking without notes, Ryhon gave us the condensed version of his life story that led him to IBM. Well done, Ryhon! On to speech #2!

Omar Ghannam was Speaker #3. He shared a captivating story about moving into his new home and losing his wallet (again). He taught us that our brains have a tremendous capacity to store information….It appears Omar’s brain is so full that he has no room to store the information on where is wallet actually is. The one thing that I learned is that it wasn’t in the fruit bowl!

Sandra Centorino was our Topic Master for the evening. Sandra took full advantage of her expanded time slot by inviting a total of nine “Newbies” and members that had non-speaking roles to take a card off of the Love Wheel and tell us what they love…..It was groovy!

A special thanks to the functionaries that were not mentioned above….Brad Leete (Timer) who did good…Grammarian, Ian Brooks, who told Brad he actually did well. General Evaluator, Kate Kelly, and her band of merry evaluators, Ian Brooks and Eric Krausz….and our Ah Counter, Ann McGuire.

See you all on February 17^th!

Tony Centorino

Eagle Toastmasters Secretary