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

Humorist Speech Contest - Taking Chances

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    At the first mention of the upcoming Humorist Speech Contest and a call for volunteers, I felt myself look away as if to put a wall up between those words and myself. Without consideration, I sidestepped the request. Weeks passed, more requests for volunteers were made, but I ignored them all thinking I would be in the audience watching the poor schmuck attempting to entertain me. But, the joke was on me. As it turned out, I would be the schmuck attempting to entertain. A month before the club contest, I received a request from Chandra, our club President, to which I wrote an email declining the appeal. Before I sent that email I remembered Mark Twain's words, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.” It's the reason I joined Toastmasters. There is only one way to overcome fear and that is to confront it.

    I felt the butterflies in my stomach as I accepted the request. I was now competing in the Humorist Speech Contest. I expected my venture to begin and end there. To my surprise, I made it to the area level and then the district level. With each speech I gave I was acutely aware of how right Mark Twain is. Having courage does not mean the absence of fear. It is about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Fear was present each and every time. Never late, in fact, sometimes it was early. But, if there is anything that I learned, it is that I always pull through unscathed and intact. Although, it is always nice to receive an award you can display on your mantle, it is even better when you learn what it truly takes to overcome fear.

"Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark, professionals built the Titanic." --Unknown

Quite an Achievement by Sonia

Dear All,
  Just came back from the Division C contest and I should say it was a fun-filled night. With 24 clubs in contention representing more than 500 members, I would say our club had a very high % of participation. That is always a good news.

For the evaluation contest, our own Ute kindly stepped forward to be the test speaker and of course it goes without saying, as for any of Ute's speeches, that all the attendees were in for a treat. She gave the speech on " It is not what but how you eat matters!" and all the evaluation contestants appreciated the speech and provided some valuable positive feedback. Thanks to Ute for stepping forward.....

Coming to the humorous speeches, yes, we were really laughing and rolling on our backs literally. All the speeches were of very high quality loaded with laughter. In my opinion, they were all pretty good and our own Sonia was placed top 6 of the 500. It is a tremendous achievement, in my opinion, for Sonia considering the fact that she was with toastmasters for a little over 6 months and, moreover,  this was her first ever contest. Congratulations to Sonia for bravely stepping forward and yes, she cleared at least 2 hurdles, the club and the area hurdles during the process. To put in perspective of her achievements- many, myself included :), haven't gone past the area level even after a few attempts - that itself speaks a lot! Sonia clearly matured as a speaker where her speeches embody vocal variety, body language, stage presence etc etc, the very hard things that take time to develop, and Sonia does seem to do it effortlessly now. That is quite an achievement in such a short span with Toastmasters. Sonia, now you know where to set your sight at?  Division and District :) You may hear more from Sonia about her experience.

Congratulations again to Sonia and thanks to Ute.

My personal thoughts: contests are fun, you learn a lot, you progress faster by taking much bigger steps than the normal process and you meet and interact with people from different clubs......

This is my new mantra : Never ever miss a chance to participate in a contest, You never know where it might lead to?

Chandra

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