Rain or Shine We Rock

Dear Eagles,
This past week was very fluid. We had members sign in for a role and had to drop out in the last minute to address to the situations the life throws at us be it either good or bad, be it sad or happy, be it any. On top, today was especially gloomy with Sun being in hiatus for most periods of the day and, to add to it, we had downpour of rain right around our meeting time. With these events in the backdrop, I was dreading about the member turnout for the meeting and more importantly about the safety. Surprise, surprise, we had a full agenda, we had a great meeting, we had a great turnout with 20+ members including 4 guests, and one guest, Carlin, even signing on the dotted line. That is amazing, thanks to all of you, and it atones to the fact that " Rain or Shine We Rock". Also, please join me in welcoming Carlin.

Sonia, first time in the role of a toastmaster, did a great job today. She handed out agendas to everyone at the start of the meeting and at the end she even encouraged everyone to take on the roles they haven't tried yet! Thanks Sonia.

Joe was our table topics master with the theme as "spice". Joe cleverly rephrased the old saying of "variety is the spice of life" into "spice is the variety of life". We had fun and lots of laughter, and on top we had Hollie, one of our guests, give a shot at the table topics. I thought Hollie was a natural speaker as she was able to deftly include the props of the previous table topics speakers in her narration. That was neat and super cool.

We again had 4 prepared speeches starting with Hyunsoo, who spoke on "blue Monday" clearly demonstrating with great personal examples and scientific data showing no evidence for Monday to be no different than a Tuesday or a Wednesday or a Thursday, with a slight change in perception, rightly so, for the weekends. Hyunsoo has a very unique style in her narrations and she does it with a pleasant smile. I especially liked her conclusion where she told us to not to let the "memories play tricks on our mind".

Rich spoke about the "American night and the American dream", about a play he recently watched at Yale, where the play covered the American history and how people come here from far far lands with the single purpose of providing a better life for themselves and their kin. Rich shared a story of a family from Ecuador who have come here in search for a better life but are currently facing the wrath for not having all the legal documents.... Rich highly recommended the play. (Rich can you please share the details of the play with us?)

Dawit made us aware of the subtle, albeit important, difference between Sustainable Vs Renewable - the main difference being "sustainable" with all the pollution can potentially have a long term bad consequences, whereas "renewable" can replenish without hurting the environment. Dawit speeches are always nice as he provides us stats and shows the direction we need to proceed forward.

As the 4th speaker for the night, I shared my only encounter with Gandhi, I mean Rajiv Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi and also the 7th Prime Minister of India. It just happened that the day I saw Rajiv Gandhi sadly was also the day he was assassinated. My mom with whom I went to see Rajiv Gandhi on May 21st, 1991, was totally devastated on the news of the death of Rajiv and after 20+ years, I understand my mom's remorse back then.

Some more good news: Congratulations to Sonia and Rich for finishing their 1/2 CCs.... 5 more to reach the finish line. You guys can do it....

Finally, as I always say, we are doing well, we had another fantastic meeting and please sign up for a role and let the momentum continue....

Goodnight and see you all in 3 weeks on Nov 5th.

Chandra

Hearty Congratulations!

Dear All,

Can you believe it? We won two awards at the humorous speech contest at the area level - Sonia came in 1st and Rich came in 3rd.

Hearty congratulations to both Sonia and Rich.

Sonia will advance to the Division level. I was there, and Sonia's speech execution was flawless and fabulous. Sonia, I think you can set your sight on the District level. You were phenomenal, and in a zone of your own tonight.

Life is like a box of chocolates, truly. Rich kindly agreed to replace Mike at the last minute, and he came back with an award.... This is awesome and incredible. Congratulations Rich!

The Division contest is on Oct. 23rd at Northeast Utilities at 6.30 pm. Please come and cheer Sonia.

Regards,
Chandra

Let us take a moment to celebrate

Dear Eagles,
We finished first quarter of 2012/13 calendar years in flying colors. Three months into it, we have already accomplished 4 goals or 40% of the target for the year as our VP of education stated. All the officers gave their quarterly reports and all of us feel that we are doing good. We also published our first newsletter for the club capturing all the highlights and achievements thus far; our intention is to have a quarterly newsletter. Special thanks to Sonia for designing and editing. All these things suggest we are doing great and we should take a moment to celebrate.

We had a great meeting tonight with almost a full house including 4 guests and of course entertained and enriched by 4 fantastic speeches.

Richard shared the following quote on failure - "failure is not falling down, failure is not getting back up," - Anonymous

Ian was the table topics master with the theme centered on membership and organization. It was great and fun as usual which also had Mike our guest had a go at the table topics. Believe me, Mike convinced most of us including seasoned toastmasters that he actually indeed is a member of toastmasters for a long time even though today was his first toastmasters meeting ever. Lesson - if you want to "Bluff", please get a tip or two from Mike :)

Ute was smooth, clear and lucid as a toastmaster and explained all the roles to our guests. She also played a cameo humorist role.

Coming to prepared speeches, Shari started the prepared speeches section with her speech titled "breaking the ice", where she told us about what she does, what she likes, what kind of food she prefers and what kind of person she is. She told all these things with a natural smile on her face and I felt that her speech had a nice rhythm and ring to it. She even had a prop for icebreaker which is very very unusual and sort of cool. Great job. More than that her favorite color is Orange, which is same as my daughter's. That is extra cool :). I want to congratulate Shari for giving her icebreaker speech with in 2 weeks of becoming a member....awesome!

Jessica narrated us why "reality shows are not real". She is a natural storyteller with such comfort and ease, you would not believe that it was her second speech at toastmasters. She told us why she got into watching TV, primarily for improving language, which transformed later into keeping up with the local celebrity gossip, which finally got fixated into like rest of the country " keep up with Kardashians". Jessica brings subtle humor to her speeches and she ended with a quote saying "watching reality shows, one would learn less history than you learn from watching Titanic movie" ..... That clearly and succinctly sums up the message.

Kate shared with us the folk tale of "the golden touch" where how king Midas learnt through a hard way that gold has its value but it cannot replace the value of life, the value of seasons, the value of change, the value of the aroma, the taste, the value of growing up, the value of pleasure in simple daily things and occurrences. Kate did a wonderful job in bringing story to life, the gestures, the body language, the vocal variety and yes the whole package....and she picked a great manual (story telling) that fits her style and delivery.... Watch out for more speeches from her..

Finally, Sonia gave a practice speech on "boost your street cred" in preparation for her area contest and got feedback from all the members. Her speech gave details on how to improve on the street credibility by the way you dress, the way you talk, the way you walk, the bling, the glasses, oh yes! Everything. All the members rated the speech very high on the novelty and the content, the humor is there, Sonia brings in the mannerisms needed and it has all the pieces needed for it to be a serious contender at the area level. It all comes down to execution and we all believe that Sonia has it....... Sonia, GO FOR IT........

All in all, it was a great meeting and a great night. Please sign up for roles and see you all in 2 weeks on Oct 15th.

Goodnight.

Chandra

Congratulations to all the winners and the participants

Dear All,

Did I say Andrew was setting something special for us and Yes, he did, and the night was special. We had great food, we had sambusas, we had cookies and we had red and white wine flowing and more than this we had a great turnout for the meeting. With Andrew, the contest chair and Tom, the chief judge running the show efficiently, I was able to sit, relax, enjoy the wine and the great food.... Excellent job guys. I can't thank you enough.

Thanks goes to all the volunteers for bringing the food. Thanks goes to all the members and guests for showing up tonight and making the contest a HUGE SUCCESS... And SUCCESS it was.

Special thanks go to Yvonne, our target speaker. The speech was fabulous, it was like a perfectionist putting on a show for us. It was like a feast to hear the speech over the great food. Did I say the contest is about pleasing essentially all the 5 senses - yes, all the senses had a Treat.

Finally congratulations to all the winners and the participants.

Sonia, Mike and Rich came in 1st, 2nd and 3rd, respectively, in the humorous speech contest.

Ian, Kate and Jessica came in 1st, 2nd and 3rd, respectively, in the speech evaluation contest.

Sonia, Mike, Ian and Kate will represent the club at the area level. The area level contest is on Oct 10th at North East Utilities, Berlin starting at 6.30 pm.

We have more good news, Shari joined as our club member tonight.. Welcome Shari to our family! With Shari joining we reached the magic number 8 of new members ..... 8 = 2 .... That calls for extra celebration and I can sleep well :)

Thanks again to all of you. Our next meeting is on Oct 1st at our usual time (7.15pm) and our usual location. Please sign up for the roles.

Goodnight and see you all in 2 weeks.

Chandra

Club's Quality, Energy and Enthusiasm

Dear Eagles,

With the cool breeze in the air, it seems the days of extremely hot and humid days are finally over. In the past few months, we have seen many weather changes - hot days,  humid days, rainy days, windy days, but among all these unavoidable changes we have one thing staying the same - and that is our club's quality, energy and enthusiasm. We had another solid meeting with a good turnout including 4 guests.

With the humorous speech contest looming, Richard quoted Bill Cosby on how humor helps in many other dimensions  "Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it".

Kate as table topics master did something different, she made the previous table topics speaker to pick the next one... This was really good. There is always something new you learn at toastmasters!

Coming to the prepared speeches, with both the Republican and Democratic conventions done, Richard talked about three kinds of political ads - attack ads, contrast ads and dirty tricks and gave examples of each in his speech appropriately titled as " conventions are over. Let the ads fly". Richard is like an encyclopedia, his speech was loaded with details, facts, valuable information and to be honest it was difficult to keep pace with note taking. Couple of quotes I was able to jot it down - " we all know that politics is a contact sport" by Obama and another by Truman "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen".

Dawit in his speech titled "Peace Corp & me" talked about how the Peace Corp missions enrich and enlighten the lives of both the volunteers and the beneficiaries,  and after a certain time the definitions of providers and seekers may actually reverse. Dawit had a few capturing quotes in his speech like "if you spend 24 months in Africa, you learn to move(dance)" and of course Jessica as general evaluator pounced on that statement and requested Dawit to show some moves in his next speech which Dawit accepted with a smile.... (Body Speaks?) ... So keep an eye on Dawit's next speech and don't miss it if you want to learn some moves :)

Ute gave the speech on "Time to talk about food" where she did not talk about food per se but rather with good demo/gestures showed how different cultures consume food in different ways like use of silverware, use of wood (chop sticks) and of course use of plain hands. And what can I say about the speech?  She packed every  aspect of toastmasters into practice in her speech, be it the props, be it the body language, be it the vocal variety, be it the audience engagement, be it the inspiration... Yes she delivered all in this speech. She noted an interesting observation -about  1/3rd of the world population eat with silverware, 1/3rd with chop sticks and the rest 1/3rd with hands. A simple but phenomenal observation and I commend her in going out of her way to assimilate the different cultures....

Our next meeting on Sept 17th is a contest meeting. There will be food and wine on the table. It is time to put our 5 senses to use -  taste, smell, listen, speak and talk... And no better venue than the contest night. Please come. There will be many roles available like judges, timers, ballot counters etc etc and of course more member involvement more fun.

We have a Target speaker coming from the greater Hartford and the Audience is the best gift any speaker can have. So please come,  let us put on a good show and make the contest a success.

Goodnight and see you all next Monday.

Chandra

Fantastic show tonight

Dear Eagle Toastmasters,

Another night, another meeting and we put together another fantastic show tonight. Friday night we had almost an empty roster except for 3 speaking slots filled, and by Monday afternoon we had a full roster with even a backup speaker.... Yes, this is incredible and this is something very special about our club - stepping in when needed. We had 18 members tonight including our guests Susan and Michelle, and we had Steve sign up as a new member. Welcome Steve to our club/family.

Andrew as table topics master not only lightened the mood but was also very creative with the material he offered as topics. Everyone felt at ease and as a matter of fact Andrew did not have to force anyone to step forward as he had members voluntarily step forward and had a go at it. Yes we all had belly full of laughs.... Thanks and great job Andrew.

Our streak of meetings with icebreaker speeches is still going strong (hope it does not end anytime soon..?) and today Hyunsoo gave her first speech titled "the places i have been", narrating us how she landed in Wallingford after her stops in Seoul (birth place), Canada, Long Island (New York), England and Chicago, in sequential order. Her speech was well written and her soft & soothing voice had the attention of the whole room.

I grabbed the opportunity of an open speaking slot and, for a change, gave a speech on how my pain, anger and sorrow remained the same even after 18 years of the loss of a family member very dear to me. I hope, by sharing this with all of you tonight, my pain, anger and sorrow subside... Really hope and thank you all for the kind words.....

Rachel brings in passion to everything she does. Rachel imposturing as the division lead for the Juice Product Association called on all the fellow colleagues on how important it is for their division to get their act together in time to disseminate facts vs myth about the arsenic levels present in food, especially pertaining to apple juices. For a moment I thought she moved to a new job - excellent job, Rachel.

Ute shared the 4 core values of Toastmasters: 1. Dignity 2. Dedication to excellence 3. Service to the member and 4. Respect for the individual. Thanks for sharing this and I hope we maintain these core values at our club.

In short, we had a fantastic show tonight. Thanks to everyone for stepping forward and making this happen.

Goodnight and note that our next meeting is on Sept 10th.

Chandra

Drinks on me for breaking the Eagle tradition

Dear Eagles,

A new room, a new setting and yet the same great turn out and the same great fun filled meeting. We had another 20+ member turnout, with 2 guests and one signing above the dotted line. Welcome Jay to the Eagle family!

"Don't count the days, make the days count" by Muhammad Ali was one of the 2 quotes provided by quote master, Richard.

We had Andrew as the toastmaster, and he did a wonderful job considering that this was his first time as TM. I want to commend Andrew for reaching out to all the speakers prior to the meeting and setting the tone & the tempo for the speakers and the speeches.

We had 3 prepared speeches tonight. Richard gave his Icebreaker speech titled "Shadow effect", in which he narrated us the story, the relation, the bonding, the emotions, the evolution and the growth of his 2 loves - his daughter Bailey and her (their) horse, Shadow, and how Shadow had a major influence in both his daughter and also their lives, and he ended by saying  "No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle taking care of the horse," which had an appropriate addition "taking care of the horse" to the famous Winston Churchill's quote. Richard kept us so captivated that we did not realize that he was 2 minutes over time, which in itself is phenomenal for an icebreaker speech!

Mike followed Rich's speech with his icebreaker speech titled "Who is Michael". Oh, Mike had several stories with in a story. I really liked the way he connected the mini stories of his childhood, his family, his work, his education, his passion, his love...... He had this gentle, soft natured humor to his narration that, oh yes, he got the room worked up....

Lucy gave her 2nd speech titled "Memories," where she described vividly with great detail and examples how the meaning of vacation is so different for parents and children - parents want vacation for relaxation and stress-free whereas children want vacation for just the opposite "Chaos"... what better way to sum up the wide rift in the expectations......?  Lucy is like a "Wordsmith," where her narration is like a poetry or a well written prose, and the choice of words and the quality of the content keeps us beholden.

All in all, we had a great night filled with 3 fabulous speeches. Congratulations to both Rich and Mike for giving their first speeches, and my apologies to both of you for forgetting to give the "icebreaker" mementos - our club tradition; extra drinks on me for both of you for this unforgiving mistake of mine :)

Club level Evaluation and Humorous speech contest will be on Sept 17th, so start working on your humorous speeches. 

As mentioned, we will have 4 speaking slots from next meeting onwards. The agenda already shows these changes, thanks Joe.

Sign up for the roles, goodnight and see you all in 2 weeks.

Regards,

Chandra