Our first Speech-a-Thon of the year

Dear Eagles,
Today we had our first speech-a-thon for the year and we were treated with 6 fabulous speeches covering a wide range of topics. We covered folk tale of Silver tree and Gold Tree, we heard the Mad Gardner Song by Lewis Caroll, we were made to think and take action on Gun Violence, we were provided great details on Stents, we were encouraged to take flu shots to protect ourselves and finally we were asked to Look into the Mirror of our character. That was awesome.

Today, considering the snow and the cold, we had a good turn out of 12 members. We even signed up Susanne as our newest member. Not only that, Susanne has committed to jump right in to give an icebreaker at our next meeting. That is fabulous and please join me in welcoming Susanne.

Today, many of the members could not come due to the weather, due to the not-so-safe driving conditions, due to other personal reasons, but then we showed our improvisation skills, we showed our adaptability, we showed our relentless commitment. Susanne, our guest, even played a cameo Sargent-at-Arms role - special thanks to Susanne and everyone who stepped forward. That is something to be proud of.

Today was one of the meetings where everyone of the member present had a chance to speak, not once, but multiple times. Always there is a brighter side.....another example for "less is more", it just depends on the perspective :). That is always something to aim for (everyone speaking, improving and developing the skills).

Remember the following dates: Jan Jam on 26th, TLI training on Jan 30th and Feb 20th.Please contact me or Rachel (area governor) for details.

Thanks again to all of you for coming and making it into a great and fun meeting. See you all in two weeks on Feb 4th and please sign up for the roles.

Goodnight.

Chandra

The Promise, the Excitement and the Freshness

Dear Eagles,

A new year, a new beginning brings in the promise, brings in the excitement and brings in the freshness. It is often very difficult to maintain the balance between the above three important qualities. Often times, one or the two or all the three qualities are very much compromised in many of the situations, but surprisingly at our club we tend to maintain a very healthy balance between all the three - often by member participation, many times by the quality of the speeches, and sometimes by alcohol. Of course today we saw all the three things: member participation, the quality and the alcohol in full display. That is great and thanks to all of you.

We had a wonderful meeting with close to 20 members and Mike as our guest. We started the meeting with our traditional New Year toast of Champagne. Thanks to Ute for the champagne and the toast. She also baked us cookies and provided the crackers and cheese along. 

Ian as quote master provided three quotes from Winnie-the-Pooh, Alexander Graham Bell and the Saint Buddha - three very diverse personnel belonging to very diverse fields/background and three very different times in history, but all the three quotes were very inspirational.

We were all treated with 4 very high quality speeches. Daya gave his icebreaker titled "Believe it or not" where he somehow revealed his self by taking us through a journey by cleverly answering the following two questions: (1) do you believe the established thought as "Truth"? - by answering he told about what his core beliefs are and how he gave his children the freedom to decide rather than force and (2) do you think we should do what we love? - this he answered by telling how he followed his passion for computers, his grad school, his work and how he has fallen in love with toastmasters. Great job, Daya. Looking forward for more speeches from you.

Kate followed with her speech titled "Man's best friend", where she narrated a touching story of the relation of Doug and his best friend Buster, the dog. How Doug in the process of gaining his older brothers attention had almost lost his life if not for the timely rescue of Doug to "heaven" by Buster. Kate is an excellent storyteller and she takes all the audience on a ride as if we are sitting on a simulator and experiencing in real.... Fantastic job....

Tom gave the third speech on "a failed experiment", where he realised during his recent visit to national constitution center in Pennsylvania, how in early 1900s Government with the help of several religious and other groups tried to curb the rampant drinking especially in the working class by Prohibiting Alcohol, how the whole experiment was a big fiasco etc etc... All this was good, but I liked the ending the most. He celebrated after the tour by going to a bar and drinking and he brought all the members champagne to drink on the occasion.  Thanks Tom, two drinks in a night of course multiplies the FUN.

Robin gave the final speech for the night on "Robots are Amazing", where she took us through the evolution of Robots and how a 3000 plus-component controlled robo-tuna with 4 ft long built in 1994 at MIT became a one foot long robo- fish powered only by 10 components by 2009 again designed by MIT. By mid 2010 the robo-tiny became a 4 inch long fish designed by an organization based in Japan powered by magnetic actuators. It becomes even better, by 2012 we have self propelled Nova (robo-fish) that can be put in a Fish tank. The demo was awesome and Elaine, the evaluator, was so thrilled that she is sure of getting one. Robin ended the speech with a question "what next?" ( of course in my head the answer was "real fish with flesh and blood", then we will go a full circle :))

Some Decisions that need to be taken:

We have  $1000 in our club's account. Please send in ideas on what we can invest in that can equip the club to meet the needs of the current and future members. One idea is a projector, but please throw in ideas and we can decide the next meeting.

All in all it was a great night. Thanks again to all of you. Our next meeting is on Jan 21st. Please sign up for the roles.

Goodnight and see you all in 2 weeks.

Chandra

Eagle Toastmasters Newsletter Issue 2, Q2, 2012/13

Wish you all a Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year

Dear Eagles,
2012 is almost coming to an end, and what a phenomenal year we had. We achieved President's distinguished for the 11th consecutive year, and the past 6 months since I took on the role of President have been equally great. We always had a great turnout, we always had fantastic meetings thus far, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the members and all the officers. Thus far it has been a humbling experience, a rewarding experience and an enriching experience, and all of you with your commitment make the club successful. Thanks.

We had another great turnout this evening. It is always great to see the family members. We had 2 guests , Roger and our good friend Rose coming back after a long hiatus.

We started the night by holding a moment of silence honoring the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting. It was the least we could do as a community. Thanks to Kate and Ute ( our past club presidents) for suggesting this.

We had an extended table topics. All the 17 people in the room except for 2 spoke. That was fun. Thanks to all of you for bringing in the gifts and also socks/underwear, this is what the community needs and it means a lot.

Dan, husband of the CEO of Masters Manna , Cheryl, and also a volunteer by himself, gave a brief history of masters manna, the community they serve, their challenges and their next steps. I thought that was great.

We had 3 prepared speeches all touching the spirit of holidays. Sarah gave her icebreaker speech on "celebrating life," where she asked us to accept than discriminate. Sarah has incredible energy and it was the first icebreaker speech ever in the history ( of my experience) where the speaker had made all the members stand in a line and sing happy birthday song. It was confusing but hilarious. Sonia as evaluator rightly pointed her energy, but suggested her to hone the energy and lead the audience with a message. Sarah, you can do it, and looking forward for your next speech.

Jay gave his second speech from CC titled "the art of giving," where with clear examples explained the three classifications of gifts: gifts you expect, gifts you dont expect and the gifts you expect in return ( service gifts or bribery gifts). Jay's speeches are well-organized, well-thought and well-rounded. He always provides a clear mental picture for all of us to imagine, which is not that easy to accomplish. No notes, good eye contact for 2nd speech is incredible. Good job and keep it up.

Rich gave the third speech of the night titled "holidays dos and donts," where he provided us tips on how to be a good host and also to be a good guest. He told us to treat everyone with respect and also to be yourself as others were already taken. In addition to the content, what impressed me most, and was pointed by Kate as his evaluator, was the progress he has made, how Rich has stopped using notes, how Rich was using hand gestures, using the room etc etc, the little things toastmasters teaches us. We can clearly see great strides made by Rich over the course of a few speeches. Add vocal variety, Rich, you have the whole package. Great progress.

As the tradition, Tom P. gave colorful plants as an year-end holiday gift to all the members present at the meeting. Thanks Tom.

Our next meeting is in 3 weeks on Jan 7th of the new year, 2013. We will be meeting at our regular Park & Rec building. Please do sign up for the roles.

Wish you all a Merry Christmas, wish you all a happy holidays and wish you all a happy and a prosperous new year, 2013.

Goodnight and See you all in 3 weeks.

Chandra

It is the Commitment that pulls us through

Dear Eagles,
Sometimes you feel that nothing is in your favor and somehow you need to pull it through, and often times it is by the shear power of the Commitment that gets us through the task. Today was one of those days where we had to rely on the commitment more than the normal. For me it started at home when my two little ones were driving me nuts right before the meeting; once I salvaged the chaos situation at home and escaped, in anticipation of  bliss, to the toastmasters, we realized that park and rec is closed, and we had to meet in the snack room with the loud, annoying noise from the vending machines as the background, but that did not stop us from having fun. To top it all, even the Old Dublin place where we decided to meet for the drinks was having a play and was not open for the customers, oh, you should see my frustration, but then we did end up at Gaetanos and had a really good time. Yes, commitment was the common factor that pulled us through in all the above three minor obstacles that were laid in our path.

We had another fantastic meeting in an extremely hot room, amidst the constant loud humming, with more than 18 members including a guest. ( I felt at home to be honest :)). Lucy was our table topics master and the theme was the holidays with a twist - the topics ranged from "roof over the head holiday" to the "national ding-a-ling holiday " - the topics were different and that added fun. Sarah broke the record for table topics by giving almost a speech :). That was incredible, which means Sarah you are ready for your icebreaker. Richard as humorist also almost gave a speech which came close to breaking Andrew's record on time:)

We had three prepared speeches tonight. Sonia, with New Year fast approaching, started telling how only 8% of the people who make resolutions succeed and a vast majority fail in keeping the resolutions/promises with in a month. She asked all of us to Get SMART - Specific,Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. BTW, people who make resolutions have 10x more chance of succeeding.

Carlin gave her second speech titled "living with purpose and passion" on how Art Bert through shear determination and will power overcame the quadriplegic state he had succumbed to after an unfortunate road accident right before his marriage. Her speech had several memorable quotes, a couple of them being - " you cannot control the events that happen, but can surely control the response" and the other being " focus on what you have and not focus on what you dont". It was a very good inspirational speech and recommend reading the book "impossible takes a little longer" by Art Bert. BTW, Art now gives public speeches, that i think is really cool.

The third speech for the day was given by Andrew titled " Holy fools" where he talked in great detail about Diogenes, their/his philosophy and how he believed in the minimalistic approach, a method perfected by the monks of the East and slowly spread to the West and by which Diogenes was very much influenced. The speech was good with humor and facts interlaced even though it went a few minutes over time.

After this we headed to Gaetanos for couple of drinks after being turned down by Old Dublin. With 11 members present,  we absolutely had a blast. Thanks to all for coming to the meeting and to the few who also joined for the drinks. It was great.

Our next meeting will be at Masters Manna on Dec 17th at our usual starting time of 7.15 pm.
Address: 46 North Plains Industrial Road, Wallingford, CT - 06492

Masters Manna is a non-profit organization catering for the people in need. More information can be found at www.mastersmanna.org. They are in need of underwear and socks for children and adults (especially for plus sizes), so please do bring if you can.

Please do come and please bring in your family members as this meeting is open for the family. Bring in a toy/gift wrapped for young children not more than $10 in value. This is more of a tradition and they become part of the table topics (a tip for the first-timers). Let me be clear, you are under no pressure to bring anything, your presence is most important.

Please do sign up for the roles at www.eagletoastmasters.com, and please do come.

Goodnight and see you all in 2  weeks.

Chandra

Achieved Distinguished Club Status - Thanks to all of you

Dear Eagles,
    I think we do are flying high these days. At the beginning of June when I reluctantly, hesitantly, timidly accepted the role of President kindly offered by Kate, our past President, if you had asked me if we would be distinguished by November, my answer would be of course NO; if you had asked me if we would be having a least 20 members at a meeting in mid November, my answer would be you must be New to the club; if you had asked me if we would be adding 12 new members by November, my answer would be you must be Smoking. Believe it or not, to my utmost surprise, all the above three miracles ( at least to me) have happened, and I have to thank all of you, the officers, the team for us flying high. Amidst of all the above miracles, the common thread, the bond, the glue that ties us together, that helps us achieve the wonders, that helps us reach new heights is the laughter and the fun we have at our meetings..... Yes, for this we are all part of the show - thanks and congratulations to all of us and we should pat ourselves at the back.

We had another phenomenal meeting with 20 people including Deb, Mahesh and Rich as invited guests from 3M, and of course we added Sarah as our new member to our family. Please join me in welcoming Sarah.

Nomophobia - fear of not having a mobile, was the word of the day....

Andrew set the stage for tonight's show by his immaculate acting, voice maneuvering, whistling and howling in delivering the joke. Good job. This was the 2nd longest joke in our club's history... The longest joke is also held by Andrew BTW.

Kate was smooth and instructive as the toastmaster, Joe used Thanksgiving as Table topics tonight and Richard as general evaluator was at his best like he is always.... We can't expect any less from these three...

Lucy gave her 3rd speech titled "You must know the nature of the emergency" where she told us how research went into coming with easy to remember the three numbers "9 1 1," some of us understand the purpose and value of it and some of us abuse it without understanding the consequences not only to self but also putting others in grave danger who are in greater need of that valuable, timely help. She is a great composer of a story and laid it well with personal stories and comical stories from others.... Lucy, magic number for you is 7.

Shari told us the trick of " How to grow the brain." It is rather simple, all you got to do is learn at least 2 languages, I mean become bilingual. She provided us several resources to learn, practice and further develop it and she said it is never too late to get one more language under our wings. Her speech had one of the best closings when she ended her speech in Spanish giving an extra umph to her speech. Great job Shari... As Ute mentioned, give a speech a month... Awesome!

Tami demonstrated us how laughter can be the best medicine ever in her speech. She had the whole room follow her in following the 5 simple rules on how to laugh and generate laugh whether real or fake. Oh BTW, it does not matter whether the laughter is real or fake, but the benefits are real..., who will say no to that? Tami, great job. If you can get the whole room worked up and follow you, that means you are doing a great job... Carry on! Tami's speech was great, everyone laughed, and the speech evaluation given by Tom was equally funny.... He said these memorable words "good introduction, good conclusion and heck of a body," and with that the whole room went bananas...

I gave the 4th speech as a car salesman. I ensured that if there was a hiring manager in the party, I would never ever be considered for the sales job. Thanks for all the support from the members to reach my time limit when I was running short... That was a perfect example of a team effort....

Our next meeting is in 2 weeks on Dec 3rd. Don't forget, we go to a local bar after the meeting and the first round is on the President. So if you dont like me, this is your chance to make me PAY :)

Goodnight, sign up for the roles and see you all in 2 weeks.

Chandra

Warmth of our Club

Dear Eagles,


Sometimes aren't we all left surprised and wondering about when the things are turning out to be much better than expected? I am surely sitting in that lot puzzled, wondering, reasoning out for why (?) when looking at how great the things are at our club!  I think , as analysts say, we are "beating the expectations fair and square," and the reason is quite clear to me, it is the "warmth of our club." We had another phenomenal meeting with more than 20+ members including 3 guests, of which Daya signing on the dotted line.

Richard, as the toastmaster, set the tempo for the night, by making us sit on a journey of laughter. Richard was funny and set the whole room alight :) 

With tomorrow being the Big election night, Tom Corrigan provided us not one quote but a series of quotes from the founding fathers of the country reminding us of the Government's role.

Ian stepped in as the table topics master and with the weather being uncomfortably cold, the theme was rightly on the "winter". Good part was all the 3 guests, Daya (now a member technically), Hollie and Sarah had a stab at the table topics. Oh, Sarah, was hilarious with her sarcastic, cynical humor, where she did not even spare the great poet, Robert Frost....

We had a full roster with 4 speeches, and the two icebreakers were so good that you would not believe that they were indeed icebreaker speeches. Carlin gave her icebreaker speech "all about me," covering the various aspects of her life some of them being the very high moments and some being the unfortunate low points succinctly; she shared with us some of the things she is trying in the process of figuring out of her way after the recent unfortunate turn of events. From her stage presence, you could clearly see that she is not a novice to giving speeches, but the best part of her speech, which struck me, was her can do attitude and her positive outlook towards the future......

Jay followed Carlin with his icebreaker speech on "Lebanon." It was one of the well organized speeches for an icebreaker, in which with his vivid description gave us almost a picturistic guide of Lebanon - the three different regions, the three different landscapes, the three different flora and fauna, the three different cuisines - yes, it was well done. Jay even clarified that not all kids in Lebanon go to school on camels, and not all lamps in Lebanon create the magical Genie :)

Joe gave a speech on "words are friends," where he told us 7 simple steps for an effective speech. The seven being : write for the ear, be specific ( vague is like plague), vivid words, rhetoric devices, reduce jargon, economize and say it correctly. Joe did a wonderful job.

The final speech was given by Kate on "Another kitchen gadget". Oh, Kate had the whole room cracking. Few of us had tears in our eyes because of all the laughing. I can say that this speech would have won the Humorous speech contest at the Division level - Hands down, no question. It was that hilarious when she talked about the vegetable slicer, the dicer, the chopper, the designer cutter she bought at a trade show. The whole room went ballistic when Tom Piekarsky, interjected Kate in the middle of her speech when she was showing us how we can cut the potatoes, the onions, the squashes with a curious question of " Kate, do you actually cook ?"..... Oh it was better than a stand up comedy and yet for free, I should have recorded the speech, it was that awesome.

It was a great night. Thanks to all of you.

BTW, the fall conference is on Nov 17th. Please let me know if you are interested and I can give more details.

Our next meeting is in 2 weeks on Nov 19th, so please do sign up for the roles.

Goodnight.

Chandra