September 23 Eagle Toastmasters Meeting

Eagles,

We had another full agenda at Eagle Toastmasters last night. Seeing our 20 members and 4 guests gathering proved to be propitious as we started right on time and ended almost on time.

Jaime Fisher served as our Toastmaster of the evening with an auspicious opening. She shared how Eagle helped her achieve her goals by providing a supporting environment where she could “fail forward”. To quote the Wizard of Oz, “it was always in you”, Jaime! Toastmasters is about bringing out what is in all of us!

Ute Brinkmann opened up with a humorous story on  how to save a million dollars simply by using a pencil. Paula Erardi provided us our quote of the day, instructing us to dip our gloomy Mondays in glitter.

Speaker #1, Ric Zabor, gave a speech that was relevant to….well, all Earthlings! It was a “re do” of a speech he had done several months back. Ric tried new things and applied lessons learned from his previous version.

Speaker #2, Eric Krausz, also gave a “re do” with an introspective speech. He told us that “life is not fair…but it’s not unfair either”.

Kat Calhoun, Speaker #3, gave us an Icebreaker about her storied life in Toastmasters. She shared her experiences from her early days in “Melba Toastmasters” (yes, that was a real club) to her participation and leadership in over seven Toastmaster clubs from coast to coast.

Joseph Oddie, Speaker #4, gave a speech titled “Crime and Punishment”. Joseph’s speech was 3 speeches in one! He shared his knowledge about the factors of criminogenic behavior (thank goodness for spellcheck), the story behind a terrible tragedy at a bakery in the 1970s, and his interaction with two people that will spend the rest of their lives behind bars. If you were not present to hear his speech, I encourage you to ask Joseph about it.

Sandra Centorino, our Table Topics Master, was singlehandedly responsible for disclosing secrets that our fellow Eagles were keeping. I learned that if I carpool with another Eagle, I will make sure they wear glasses and avoid driving by McDonalds. I also learned that guinea pigs and bassoons actually do mix. Our fellow Eagles can picture their esteemed Club Secretary walking down the fashion runway!

Thank you to all of you that served in functional roles. It is the Ah Counters, Grammarians, etc that enable us to have a fulfilling and educational experience! The functionaries included Steve McGirr (ah counter), Diana Grippen (Grammarian), Markus Schumacher (Timer), Joseph Oddie (General Evaluator and Speech Evaluator), and Speech Evaluators Ian Brooks, Christine Austin, Kate Kelly, and Tony Centorino.

A couple of announcements:

Virtual Meeting

On September 30, Sandra Centorino will be leading a Toastmaster Virtual Meeting. It is full of speakers! She is looking for a few good Eagles to evaluate. Whether you speak, serve as a functionary, or simply watch online, please consider participating! The link to sign up is below:

https://calendly.com/sandracentorino/toastmasters-virtual-meeting

Dues

Dues are….due! If you haven’t already paid, please send a check ($54.00) to Maryanne Shirshac at 1 Bayberry Court, Cromwell, CT 06416.

Our next online meeting is 9/30. Our next Eagle Meeting at the Parks and Rec is on 10/7. Many roles, including Toastmaster, are open!

See you all at the next meeting!

Tony Centorino

Eagle Toastmasters Secretary

September 9th - Eagle Toastmasters Meeting

Eagles,

Another action packed speech filled meeting at the Wallingford Parks and Rec……Let’s get right to it!

Sandra Centorino, our Toastmaster, presided over the meeting of 21 people, 3 of which were guests.

As the Humorist, Chris Scoppetta told us a story of how a “5 fingered discount” resulted in only 3 beers for a warrior celebrating a conquest.

Barbara Flagg shared a quote inspired by the memory of her husband….”Endeavor to Persevere”. 

Following her quote, the Table Topic speakers, led by Table Topicmaster Ric Zabor, endeavored on a variety of questions. We learned that Tom Piekarski wanted to dine with Russian Spy, Julia Child. Diana Grippen shared a moment that made her day. John Sepple shared the biggest challenge of his week……and Christine Austin shared her excitement about a project at work.

On to the speakers…..

Speaker #1, Tony Centorino, shared some insights on financial planning that he read from a book called “The Power of Zero”. This was from the Speaking to Inform project manual.

Speaker #2, Ute Brinkmann, shared a story about her negotiating skills with somebody in the market for a viola. Her story was told with simple props and price tags that reminded me of “The Price is Right”. (Ute – If I didn’t know better, I would think you were watching that on TV.)

Speaker #3, Omar Ghannam, showed his multiple personalities in a captivating Icebreaker. He gave a captivating speech…..but only one of his personalities walked out with the Icebreaker candy.

Last, but not least, our President Markus Schumacher, gave a speech utilizing visual aids about the virtues of reducing waste….making me rethink how I discard my trash.

Thank you to all of the functionaries that participated…….Speakers are nice, but it is the functionaries that ensure a fulfilling experience for everybody. The functionaries included Kat Calhoun – ah counter, Paula Erardi – timer, Ian Brooks – Grammarian, General and Speech Evaluator.  Diana Grippen, Chris Scoppetta, and Eric Krausz rounded out the cadre of speech evaluators.

Kat Calhoun has taken on the ambitious initiative of starting up a bilingual Toastmaster Club. There is a meeting coming up on 9/23 at 7:00 am…..If you are interested in participating in this club or supporting Kat please reach out to her at kat_calhoun@yahoo.com.

Our next meeting is on 9/23…..we have many openings on the agenda, including Toastmaster. Please get onto the site and sign up!

Tony Centorino

Eagle Toastmaster Secretary

August 19, 2019 Eagle Toastmaster Meeting

In the absence of our faithful secretary, Tony Centorino, I have the privilege of emailing out the meeting notes from our August 19th gathering.

If you were not able to make it tonight, you missed a full and exciting meeting which included 17 members, 4 guests and at least two references to the idea of time travel! 

Ian Brooks served as a very capable toastmaster, ushering us warmly and efficiently through the descriptions of functionaries, table topics and prepared speeches. 

Eric Krausz served as Table Topics master with the theme of superlatives! Eric brought out the most in us as he asked questions which highlighted many favorites in our members. Lynn spoke fondly of a favorite family member. Maryanne described interactions and adventures with her favorite friend.

Ian filled us in on his favorite historical time period, while Omar set a high bar by telling us about the most competent person he knows, his boss! Steve finished off by elevating our very own Ian as one of his favorite thought leaders, and artful mixing in a story of well remembered date in time. 

For Prepared Speeches Ute worked toward level 3 of her leadership path, by contrasting a strict and rigid view of mentor-ship with a focus on strong connections and building authentic relationships. Safe to say she's throwing out the limiting ideas, and holding on to the good!

Ross Grippen brought a fresh voice to our group with his Ice Breaker speech. Ross's speech titled "Reasons Why I  Joined" explained to us why he joined Eagle Toastmasters. Ross spoke kindly of our club while giving us many reasons to look forward to his future speeches. 

Next we had a real treat---our first musical performance in a speech! Maryanne brought us Mozart by way of twinkle, twinkle little star with the help of her violin and her courage to face her fear of receiving feedback. Maryanne dazzled us with humor and showed us the power of listening and excepting feedback through music. 

Eric Zabor strayed from his typical position of dealing with number and exact values, by dabbling in the humanities. Eric lead us through a journey of poetry by way of music lyrics. His theatrical speech demonstrated poetry can be found in some very catchy places. 

Our Virtual Meeting is Tuesday August 20th. Also, be on the look out for communication and details from Kat Calhoun about the new club she is chartering and opportunities to serve in this mission. 

I will end with food for thought brought to you by Jackie Fuller and her chosen Quote of the Day.
" Be thankful for what you are now, and work towards what you want to be tomorrow."

Your Substitute Secretary-
Jaime Fisher 

8/5 Eagle Toastmaster Meeting - Worthy of a Panegyric

Once again, Eagle Toastmasters had another action packed meeting with 4, no 3, ahh…4 speeches! Yup…..4! Our meeting started with 17 members and 3 guests and ended with 20 members and zero guests!

Steve McGirr opened up the meeting as the Sergeant at Arms and introduced Toastmaster Steve McGirr!

Ute Brinkmann served as the President with a few business items….Let’s get right to it.

Item #1 – Kat Calhoun is spearheading a bilingual (Spanish and English club) with 2 demonstration meetings scheduled for September 12^th at 6:30 in the Community Room at the Fair Haven Library. There will be another demo meeting at a location TBD at a date TBD. If you would like to overcome your fear of public speaking in 2 languages, then this is the meeting for you! (Spanish fluency is not a requirement.) For more information, please contact Kat at (707) 823-3544 or at kat_calhoun@yahoo.com.

Item #2 – Sandra Centorino is leading a virtual meeting on Tuesday August 20^th. This meeting offers you a great opportunity to participate in an online setting that is becoming increasingly popular in the workplace. Your level of participation can range from just attending and watching, to giving a speech, or anything in between……and nobody has to know about the Sponge Bob pajama bottom patterns you may be wearing during the meeting. (Ute – that’s a TV character.) The link to sign up is below.

https://calendly.com/sandracentorino/toastmasters-virtual-meeting?month=2019-08

Let’s get into the action, shall we?

Ann McGuire opened up the meeting with a joke that taught us that the Lion may be the King of the Jungle but is no match for a smart monkey.

Speaker #1 was Tony Centorino, who spoke out of the Special Occasion Speech manual. Tony accepted an award for Sales Professional of the Year. I received several “love notes” from my fellow Toastmasters (thank you)…..One of them indicated that maybe I’m wishing myself to success….hear hear! (or is it “here here”?). Let’s all resolve to continue writing each other notes!

Speaker #2 was Chris Gaffney  who read from the Interpretive Reading Manual “Let America be America Again”. Chris started out by introducing the speech and then completely transforming himself into the authoritative Thurgood Marshall. Little did Langston Hughes (the original author) know that his poem would be as meaningful today as it was when he wrote it in 1935. This poem was not panegyric.

Speaker #3 was Diana Grippen, who has become a regular at the Eagle Toastmaster Speaking circuit. Diana gave a speech that was as sweet as Isomalto-oligosaccharide!

Speaker #4 was a last minute addition to the agenda….Michelle Madeux’s Time is Money theme as it relates to applying beauty products was thought provoking…..an average of 7 minutes to apply cosmetics and 6 minutes to remove add up to almost an entire workday per month!

Jaime Fisher led Table Topics….Little did we know that we had a room full of budding art critics!

Thank you to all of the functionaries that ensured our meeting, ahem, functioned! Ross Grippen (Grammarian), Ian Brooks (General Evaluator and Speech Evaluator), Chris Scoppetta (Evaluator), Tony Centorino (Evaluator), and Ric Zabor (Evaluator). John Sepples served as our Ah Counter and Kat Calhoun served as our timer.

Thank you for making it another special evening at Eagle!

Our next meeting will be on 8/19……Lots of open roles…..please sign up for one!

Tony

Eagle Toastmasters Secretary

7/15 Eagle Toastmasters Meeting...another Electric Evening

Eagles,

Tonight we enjoyed an electrifying meeting in a smaller venue at the Parks and Rec., with special accompaniment by the children’s choir next door! We had a total of 23 attendees….21, now 22 members, and 1 guest.

Yours Truly served as Toastmaster of the evening. Markus Schmacher, our President, opened up the meeting, fresh from a return from his trip to Germany.

Chris Scoppetta, one of our newest members, provided an inspirational quote from Theodore Roosevelt that set the tone for the evening.

Steve McGirr followed with a funny story about a snarky parrot.

Michelle Madeux provided table topics with a culinary theme. Markus advised us that the most nutritious breakfast is no breakfast at all, an opinion that Steve McGirr was not willing to second. Now if somebody offered Steve seconds for breakfast……..

As for the speeches…..Jaime Fisher gave an inspirational speech that taught us that “clarity of task” can overcome many barriers….even language barriers. Speaker #2, Tony Centorino, presented an award out of the Special Occasion manual. Kat Calhoun gave a speech about the hazards of electricity and its many forms. Ric Zabor followed with a similar topic that taught us the positives of negative electrons. It was an old school multimedia presentation complete with flip charts and interesting props. Kat and Ric’s presented information backed by research that lent credence to their speeches.

A special thanks to all of the evaluators that stepped up. Diana Grippen, Kate Kelly, Eric Krausz, and Steve McGirr served as evaluators. While I benefited from my evaluation by Kate, I also learned a lot from the evaluation of others. I’d like to especially acknowledge Diana and Eric for stepping up as Eagle “newbies” and evaluating our more experienced speakers. We always benefit from new perspectives…..and giving an evaluation offers a terrific opportunity to give a “mini speech”. If you haven’t evaluated a speech before, please consider doing so at the next meeting!

Finally, thank you to Sandra Centorino (General Evaluator), Paula Erardi (Timer), Carlos Perez (Ah counter), and Barbara Flagg (Grammarian, new member, and Michelle Madeax’s Mom)!

Some housekeeping notes:

Our next meeting will take place on 7/29…..We are taking advantage of the fifth Monday for a third meeting…..The theme will be “Adventures”. More to follow on this theme by President Markus.

Start thinking about the following meeting on 8/5 as well….Chris Scoppetta will be the Toastmaster for that meeting.

Sandra Centorino our VP PR is “calling for all Facebook Live people” that are willing to do a live recording of “meet the members”. Addy Nunez and Steve McGirr couldn’t raise their hands fast enough! More to follow!

Thank you for another fun and fulfilling Eagle Toastmasters Meeting!

See you all on 7/29!

Tony Centorino

Secretary

New Year....New Beginnings

Eagles,

July 1^st marked New Year’s at Eagle Toastmaster. Complete with bubbly beverages (leaded and unleaded) and homemade sweets – courtesy of the meeting Toastmaster, Ute Brinkmann! Nothing like sweets and beverages to get us off to a good start, “knock on wood”.

Our meeting featured 21 attendees - 16 members and 5 guests (some which have become newly minted members).

Tony Centorino opened the meeting with a toast….This marked speech #1 of the evening straight out of the old school Special Occasion Speech Manual. The theme of the toast was for each one of us to be committed to achieving our goals, to ourselves, and to each other.

Diana Grippen followed with a funny story to warm up the crowd. She commanded the stage like a seasoned pro!

Kat Calhoun provided a poignant quote of the day that was worthy of repeating….so she did!

Sandra Centorino led a light and  captivating, 4^th of July themed Table Topics. Six people stood up front, including three Eagles and three guests.

As for the speeches…..

Eric Krausz, Speaker #1, provided a compelling story about letting happiness find us. To those of us that wish we’d win the lottery, Eric’s story was a reminder that money can buy a lot of misery and that happiness is something that can find us.

Chris Scoppetta, Speaker #2, gave a persuasive speech encouraging us to serve as evaluators. He also taught us how to receive evaluations by taking the “attitude of gratitude”.

Tony Centorino, Speaker #3, gave a speech outlining the merits of Small Talk (aka social oxygen).

Kudos and Thank Yous to all of those that stepped up to serve as meeting functionaries. Richard Freeman (Ah Counter), Riz Zabor (Grammarian), John Sepple (Timer), Steve McGirr (General Evaluator), Joseph Oddie (Evaluator #1), Lauren Bruno (Evaluator #2), Eric Krausz (Evaluator #3).

Our next meeting is Monday July 15^th…..We still have a lot of roles open, including Toastmaster and General Evaluator. If you are going to be at our meeting on 7/15, please sign up for a role! You will make the experience fulfilling for yourself and better for everybody else!

Tony Centorino

Eagle Toastmaster Secretary

March 26th Spring Speech Contest

Brass City and Eagle Toastmasters convened in Wallingford on the night of March 26^th to hold the Area 23 Spring Speech Contest, consisting of Table Topics and International Speeches.

Markus Schumacher called the meeting to order as Sergeant at Arms and introduced Sandra Centorino, the Contest Master.

The Table Topics Contest had four contestants: Stephen Burgess of Brass City, Michelle Modeaux of Eagle, Peter Penev of Eagle, and Maribel Rodriguez of Brass City.

As is customary in table topics at the contest level, three of the contestants were led to a separate room so they would not have the advantage of hearing the topic until it was their turn to speak. Each was given the same question: What was the kindest thing someone has ever done for you?

After a brief break following the Table Topics Contest, the International Contest could begin. Once again, there were four contestants who spoke on a variety of interesting topics:

Maribel Rodriguez of Brass City; Our Moment Has Arrived. Inspired by March being Women’s History Month, Maribel spoke of the progress made in women’s rights and in the women’s empowerment movement.

Stephen Burgess of Brass City; Bees Matter. Steve, an avid beekeeper, spoke of the importance of these pollinating insects. He shared information on colony collapse disorder, where honeybees leave their hives and never return, and gave tips for things we can do to help save the bees.

Chris Gaffney of Eagle; Everyday Moments. Chris reminded us that what defines and connects us are those little every day moments that being joy, such as receiving the daily paper, or the friendly banter with the cashier while checking out at the store.

Steve McGirr of Eagle; Rubber Band Habits – Using clever visual aids, Steve demonstrated how we can get ourselves unstuck from habits that are holding us back and build new habits that will propel us toward our goals.

While the ballot counters tallied up the scores, Sandra Centorino interviewed each contestant. We learned that Steve Burgess has held every officer role over the course of his time with Toastmasters. Michelle Modeaux said that she is most inspired by the compassion demonstrated by the nurses she works with. Peter Penev’s son Christian has taught him patience more than anything else. Mirabelle Rodriguez believes that showing love and compassion to her elderly patients is the gentle way to shake up the world. Chris Gaffney’s blog holds the distinction of being named one of Feedspot’s Top 100 Humor Blogs, which may be a scam but he’s proud either way. Steve McGirr shared his motto that the next 5 years don’t have to be like the last 5 years.

Lani Brown of Brass City gave a 2-minute Spring Conference Update, letting us know the Keynote speaker, Mark Hunter is one we should not miss! The Conference will be on May 19^th at UMass Amherst.

Finally, the moment we’d all been waiting for: The Presentation of Awards! Sandra and Tony Centorino handed out awards as follows:

Table Topics Contest: 2^nd Place Winner: Peter Penev of Eagle. 1^st Place Winner: Michelle Modeux of Eagle.

International Speech Contest: 2^nd Place Winner: Chris Gaffney of Eagle, 1^st Place Winner, Steve McGirr of Eagle.

Closing Remarks were given by Larry Wood – Division B Director. The next level of the contest (the Division level) will be held on Wednesday, April 11 at Eversource in Berlin, CT.

Thanks to all who participated in and supported the contest by taking on a role, helping to set up the room, and contributing food! Every little bit counts!