December 18th Meeting

Our last meeting of the 2017 calendar year was held in the BYK Conference center. It was short and sweet, so that we could move out to the lobby and enjoy refreshments while doing a round of table topics by the fire.

Sandra Centorino was Toastmaster for the evening. We happily welcomed two new members – Markus Schumacher and Celina Dorn. Tom Piekarski served as the humorist and Ian Brooks gave the quote of the day, "Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection." – Winston Churchill.

To keep the meeting short, we only had two speakers. Ute Brinkmann delivered speech #9, Persuade with Power from the Competent Communicator manual. Her speech was titled Giving, and she spoke of the importance of giving to those who are less fortunate than we are. There are many ways to give – we can donate time, money, and resources. By doing so we can give hope to others in this world.

Maryanne Shirshac gave Speech #6, Vocal Variety, from the Competent Communicator manual. Titled “Holly Days”, Maryanne spoke about her cat, Holly. Holly came into Maryanne’s life as she was mourning the loss of her previous cat. Holly has left pawprints on Maryanne’s heart, which is something to which other pet owners can relate.

The general evaluator was Nilani Shankar, and Ian Brooks and Stephen McGirr evaluated the speeches. Functionary roles were: Ah-Counter – Heather McKelvie, Grammarian – Salvatore Romano, Timer –Melinda Torgerson.

After the evaluations and functionary reports were given, the group migrated to the lobby for snacks and socialization in front of the fireplace. Deborah Haggett led a holiday session of table topics. All in all, it was a fun way to celebrate our time together as Toastmasters.

December 4th Meeting

Once again, we met in the BYK Conference Center – an interesting change from our usual venue. 

Jaime Fisher, our Sergeant at Arms was first on the scene to ensure the room was ready for the night and to open the meeting with the bang of the gavel.

Eagles President Ute Brinkmann announced that next meeting (Dec. 18) is the holiday-themed meeting, and everyone may contribute by bringing something delicious to share. (Sign up on the agenda!) Perhaps some holiday attire, if you’ve got an ugly sweater you’re itching to show off?

Tom Corrigan was the Toastmaster for the evening. 16 members and 8 guests (yes 8!) were present.

Robin Corrigan was the humorist and told a funny story about a failed attempt to impress someone.

Robin also presented the Quote of the Day – from Adam Steltzner’s book The Right Kind of Crazy. I failed to write down what his quote actually was, but take a moment to Google him if you don’t know who he is – he’s an incredibly interesting guy! I think I’ll be reading that book!

Grammarian Paula Erardi presented the word of the day, which was Complicity.

Tony Centorino was Tabletopics Master and used the time to crowdsource us for ideas on how to get clubs to gain more visitors and members. Along the idea of having themed meetings, he asked us to speak for 2 minutes on various themes, such as books, travel, children, and music. Heather, Jaime, Paula and Robin all participated.

Our first speaker of the evening was the club’s prodigal son, Curtis Reddick. (Welcome back to the club, Curtis!) Curtis spoke from the Competent Communication Manual, project # 9 (Persuade with Power). Curtis’ speech was titled Rebel Against Mediocrity. Curtis packed his speech with information about how we can better ourselves. Just by being part of Toastmasters, we strive to rise above the status quo! He recommended a book called Organize Tomorrow Today, and reminded us that consistent behavior is what leads to change.

Nilani Shankar was up next, completing project #3 (Get to the Point) from the Competent Communication Manual. Nilani spoke about how she was introduced to the therapeutic techniques of tapping and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) from a fellow graduate student at UConn. She took us through the history of these therapies and even had us participate in a quick demo of self-tapping.

Speaker #3 was yours truly, Heather McKelvie. I chose project #1 (Speaking to Inform) from the Advanced Communication Series, Speaking to Inform.  In The Art of Zentangle, I attempted to introduce Zentangle to the group, explaining what it is, how it got started, and then how to do it. I brought examples of Zentangle books, as well as my own artwork, and even did a quick demo on the easel, but unfortunately, I found the time was up before I had completed the speech! Lesson learned: You can’t fit 20 minutes’ worth of material in a 5-7-minute speech!

Kate Kelly closed out the speech portion of the evening with her speech, entitled Take a Giant Hike. Her title was a play on words, as she talked to us about hiking at Sleeping Giant! A big part of her speech was on the importance of having a trail map so that you can anticipate the type of terrain you’ll be encountering, and find a gentle way back to the parking lot once you’ve had enough.

Jaime Fisher was our General Evaluator. Kate Kelly, Robin Corrigan, Sandra Centorino and Tony Centorino evaluated each speech respectively.

Other functionaries were: Curtis Reddick, Ah-Counter, and Stephen McGirr, Timer.

Our next meeting will be held on Monday, December 18^th at BYK. It will be a holiday-themed meeting and will include pot-luck. Be sure to see the agenda on eagletoastmasters.com to sign up!

See you then!

Heather McKelvie

Eagle Secretary

November 20th Meeting

Hi Eagles!

Our November 20^th meeting had a new venue – the conference center at BYK! We’ll meet here temporarily for the next several meetings, as our usual location has other plans.

The meeting was opened by our Sergeant at Arms, Jaimie Fisher. We had 14 members and 5 guests in attendance.

Club President Ute Brinkman welcomed us and mentioned that Ian Brooks was about to complete his Competent Communicator for the second time around!  She also reminded us that it’s good to look around at other clubs to visit, or even give a speech there.  Ute reminded us that the holidays are coming up fast and we’d like new ideas for our December 18^th holiday meeting.

Our Toastmaster for the evening was Kate Kelly. Tom Corrigan was the humorist and had us all chuckling about how a husband had apparently already picked out his replacement wife, should his current wife die before him.

Ute Brinkman delivered the word of the day, which was Zonked, meaning to be exhausted.

The Quote of the Day was delivered by Sandra Centorino, taken from the book Kindness Boomerang: “Pay for the coffee. It’s not the coffee that will be remembered, but the kindness.”

Ian Brooks was the first speaker of the night. His task, taken from the Competent Communicator Manual was to Get Comfortable with Visual Aids. Ian gave us a brief history of early recorded sounds – as much as one can fit 30-40 years of sound in a 7-minute speech. He brought along a phonograph and played some old records for us. He also demonstrated the fragility of the old thermoset plastic records by breaking one with his bare hands!

Jaime Fisher gave us the Best Holiday Survival Guide with Kids. Since it is commonly thought that it takes 100,000 hours of experience to become an expert, Jaime qualifies as an expert in dealing with children. She had three helpful tips for anyone who may be spending time with kids this holiday season. 1. See kids as an asset in helping you be more mindful. They are mindfulness minions! 2. Consider skipping gifts. Sponsor violin lessons, or karate, or take them somewhere to have a memorable experience instead! 3. Remember the most important gift of all – make the time to spend with family and friends, even those relatives you don’t agree with. To simply listen to another is a gift.

Our final speaker of the evening was Chris Gaffney. He spoke from an advanced manual The Entertaining Speaker. In Meaningful Thoughts, Chris spoke about three people who he admired as inspirational thinkers. 1. Tom Bodette, who states his mind in a clear and reflective way. 2. Garrison Keillor, the master of nostalgia, who not only makes you think of it but feel it too. 3. Andy Rooney, the former curmudgeonly commentator from 60 Minutes. Chris also shared that he is now sharing his own meaningful thoughts on his new blog: www.uncommondiscourse.com  

Table Topics was moved to the post-speech portion of the evening, to make the best use of time. Robin Corrigan was the Table Topics Master. Robin got creative with this one, turning it into a crime scene, with all the participants as suspects! The scene was Sun Studios recording studio, and the crime was the stolen golden guitar! Kate was the detective, while Tony was the Elvis impersonator, Heather was the “real” Elvis, Tom P. was Johnny Cash, Ian was Carl Perkins, Curtis was Jerry Lee Lewis, Nilani was Diane, and Sam Phillips was played by Tom C. One by one, each suspect had to explain what they were doing during the hour break when the guitar went missing. In the end, Detective Kate determined that it was the Elvis Impersonator who had stolen the golden guitar!

The general evaluator for the evening was Heather McKelvie. Robin Corrigan, Paula Erardi and Tony Centorino evaluated each speech, respectively.

Other functionaries were: Ah Counter, Stephen McGirr (who is ruthless in this role!), and Timer, Nilani Shankar.

The December 4^th meeting will be held in the BYK Conference Center again. Hope to see you there!

Heather McKelvie

Eagle Secretary

November 6th Meeting

Hello Eagles!

As usual, the meeting was opened by our Sergeant at Arms, Jaimie Fisher.

Eagles President Ute Brinkmann announced that our club had won the Smedley Award for gaining 5 members between August 1 and September 30^th.

Ian Brooks served as Toastmaster for the evening. 14 members and 2 guests were present.

The word of the day, presented by Grammarian Tony Centorino, was Assuage – meaning to ease or lessen pain, as with get-well cards or flowers.

Heather McKelvie was the humorist, and told a nutty joke about some complimentary nuts in a bar.

Nilani Shankar presented the Quote of the Day – from Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles. “Don’t believe everything you hear – even in your own mind.”

Sandra Centorino was Tabletopics Master. In honor of Monday being International Kindness Day, Sandra had participants share what they would say in a letter to someone who deserved their appreciation. Ian, Heather, Melinda (a guest), Salvatore (another guest!) and Paula all contributed.

Our first speech of the evening was delivered by Amy Demas. Amy’s project was from the Technical Presentations Manual – (1) The Technical Briefing. In Revolutionary Front Desk Training, Amy demonstrated the training she would provide for a dentist office staff when switching to a cloud-based recording platform for their phone system.

In speech 2, Jaime Fisher spoke from the Competent Communication manual – (5) Your Body Speaks. What’s Inside an Acorn? was inspired by Jaime’s then 2-year-old son asking what was inside of an acorn, and Jaime responding with the bright answer, “A Tree!” Jaime explained that, just as the material inside the acorn requires time, energy and patience to grow into a big tree, we too can reach our full potential through consistent, deliberate daily efforts.

Ute Brinkmann also spoke from the Competent Communication manual – (5) Your Body Speaks. In Little Knights, Ute told us how she began making simple sugar cookies for the Merchant Marines. She soon grew bored of the plain cookies and began adding pizzazz with stamped rolling pins and cutters. Over the years she has amassed quite a collection of unique and in some cases, intricately detailed cookie cutters, stamps and molds, which she passed around for us to see. Decoration adds love and sunshine to the cookies, but no additional calories. In Ute’s words, people from Uzbekistan to Asia decorate their food. I think I speak for the club when I say the best part of Ute’s speech was that she brought little bags of cookies for each of us to sample!

Tony Centorino delivered speech project (9) Persuade with Power from the Competent Communication manual entitled You Own It.  Tony spoke about how we each have our own individual journeys, but we share a journey together as a club. For Tony, who has worked at GE for over 20 years, it means a lot to him that GE has been around for 125 years, and Toastmasters has been around for 120. Both have well-established cultures and seemingly endless resources. This means that we can grow as much as we want with Toastmasters. Our club has a healthy mix of “Senior” members – those who have been around for a long time, “Junior” members – those with 3-5 years’ experience, and “Newbies” – those who have joined within the past 3 years or less.  Our club is owned by the members and run by the members.  Tony’s message to us is that we can be in the drivers’ seat! Reach out and do what you can for the club and for yourself. Ask for any help you need – resources are available.

Stephen McGirr was our General Evaluator. Speaking of resources, Steve mentioned that he had compiled some resources for the General Evaluator role and was willing to share with whoever needed them. The General Evaluator Role is in the Competent Leadership Book 6 times!

Tony Centorino, Chris Gaffney, Kimberly Lewis, and Richard Freeman all served as evaluators for the evening. Other functionaries were: Nilani Shankar, Ah-Counter, and Paula Erardi, Timer. 

See you next time!

Heather McKelvie

Eagle Secretary 

September 18th Meeting - Evaluation and Humorous Speech Contest

The September 18th meeting was a special one - it was our fall contest! Many members chipped in and brought food and drinks to keep us fueled throughout the evening.

Jaime Fisher served as Contest Master, Peter Penev was Sergeant at Arms, and Deb Haggett was Chief Judge.

The group consisted of 17 members, 5 guests, and one guest of honor - the target speaker, Richard Peck, DTM, First Vice President of Toastmasters International.

As the target speaker, Richard's role was to give a speech for the evaluators in the evaluation contest to evaluate. (Make sense?)

In his speech, More Than Just Words, Richard asked: "How do you use words to take people on a journey? When used properly, words can be extremely powerful." He went on to compare FDR's famous Pearl Harbor speech with an earlier draft, showing how the right words can have a much more powerful impact than those that first come to mind. He encouraged us to keep the 4 R's in mind when preparing speeches: Reinvent, Renew, Revitalize and Rewrite! Be mindful that your words take people on their journey, not yours.

Evaluation contestants were Joseph Oddie and Stephen McGirr

For the humorous speech contest, there were four contestants/speeches. In order of appearance:

1. Sarah Anne Ouellette / How Shit Can Set You Free
2. Brad Leete / My First World Record
3. Sandra Centorino / 17 Seats
4. Maryanne Shirshac / iLost

After each contestant, there was time for the judges to complete a checklist, which would be used to determine the speech contest winners. (This was also true for the judging of the evaluation contest.)

Once the judging forms had been completed, the ballot counters and chief judge retreated to another room to tally up the results. The rest of us mingled and enjoyed the refreshments.

Finally - drumroll please - the winners were announced.

For the evaluation contest, Joseph Oddie took first place, and Stephen McGirr second. For the speech contest, Brad Leete came in at #1, and Sandra Centorino came in second.

All four of the winning contestants would then go on to compete at the Area Contest, which was held in Waterbury on October 12th.

September 11th Meeting

The September 11^th meeting opened on a somber note, with Ute Brinkmann reading a poem remembering that fateful day. But she added a positive thought – the date 9/11 in European style stands for November 9. On that day in 1989, the Berlin Wall came down.

Amy Demas served as Toastmaster for the evening and suggested that we move Table Topics to the end of the meeting to make sure we had enough time for all the speeches.

The word of the day, presented by Thom Knowlton was Imagine.

The first speech of the evening was given by Kate Kelly. It was entitled “Pay it Forward” and was taken from the Advanced Manual – Specialty Speeches (2) Uplift the Spirit. Kate recalled that immediately after 9/11, humanity was at its best. People were kind and rushed to help each other and check in on each other. As often happens after tragedy or disaster, people reacted with love and concern. Kate asked, how do we keep that good spirit going? She then answered that we must always pay it forward to keep the kindness going. We don’t need to wait for another attack or disaster to motivate us.

Speaker 2 was Heather McKelvie (yes, that’s me!) who delivered a speech from the Storytelling Manual (3) The Moral of the Story. A Tale of Two Squirrels took the audience on a journey with a pair of squirrels – one who was very goal-driven and the other who was a bit less so. The story ended with a twist when the goal-oriented squirrel (Filbert) was snatched up by a hawk and the lazy squirrel (Marshall) went on to live the life that Filbert had once dreamed of for himself. The moral of the story was that you can plan all you want but you never really know how things will turn out in the end.

Joseph Oddie was the third speaker of the evening. He also chose a project from the Storytelling manual (4) The Touching Story. In “Face Your Fear” Joseph spoke about his paralyzing fear of public speaking that struck during his junior year of high school. From then on, his life choices were influenced by this fear. It took him 20 years before he confronted it by attending an improv class and even then, he wanted to run out of the room. But he stuck to it and was euphoric afterwards. He went on to try his hand at stand-up comedy. Each time was a little step forward. Joseph’s message to us was that if you don’t face your fear head-on, it will follow you throughout your life.

Our final speaker of the evening was Stephen McGirr, who gave his final speech from the Competent Communicator Manual (10) Inspire Your Audience.  Steve’s speech was entitled “What Will You Become?” He spoke about the three values he lives by: 1. Find Answers, 2. Be a Mentor, 3. Focus. When Steve was a child, he saw a Nostradamus documentary that cause him great distress. As he grew older he was crippled by his fears, suffering panic attacks that prevented him from going out and enjoying life. After consulting with a psychiatrist, and focusing on personal development and leadership training, he found answers to his struggles, became a mentor for others and has learned to focus on love and positivity, rather than the negative things in life. We too, can move past our own fears and use our experiences to help others.

Jaime Fisher lead table topics for the evening, which were a series of interesting questions such as: If you had a superpower for one day, what would it be? What was your favorite childhood toy or game? And, if you could learn a new skill, what would it be? Sarah Ouellette, Maryanne Shirshac and Brad Leete all participated, and then we were out of time!

Thomas Piekarski was the general evaluator for the evening, while Anne Lee, Brad Leete, Paula Erardi and Joseph Oddie evaluated each speaker.

August 21st Meeting

Hi Eagles!

I arrived at our August 21^st meeting expecting another small group. Boy was I wrong! We ended up with a total of 22 people – 8 of whom were guests.

Jaime Fisher was back to bang the gavel and begin the night. I (Heather McKelvie) served as Toastmaster.

As Humorist, Tom Piekarski told a risqué joke about a nun giving two priests an eyeful while on vacation.

Paula Erardi gave a quote from Frederick Lewis Donaldson about the seven social sins.

Following in Tony’s footsteps from last week, I also served as Topicsmaster. I brought in a grab bag of items and asked people to come up, randomly choose an item and then speak about it for 2 minutes. Sandra and Steve both found sunglasses and talked about their experiences with the solar eclipse. Jaime, inspired by a stuffed giraffe, told us about her struggles as a minimalist parent with children who hoard stuffed animals. Chris found a “clock man” in the bag and spoke about how it was a super hero action figure. He convinced us that it was a valuable collector’s item. One of the guests, Sarah, gave it a whirl and impressed us with her thoughts about pearls.

Then it was time for the main event – the speeches!

T Poirer gave the first of the three icebreaker speeches of the evening. She spoke about her nervousness and shared a poem she wrote about the nervousness and fear. As Sandra would later emphasize, T took the energy from her fear and turned it into courage!

Nilani Shankar’s icebreaker was inspired by the Jim Rohn quote from the previous meeting. She spoke briefly about her 22 years of formal education and then dove into her self-education. She discovered that self-hypnosis could help her memorize 25 pages of piano music, and has gone on to study how hypnosis can be used to help others.

In her icebreaker, Anne Lee started off by telling us how her family moved from Korea to Bangkok, where she learned English in an American school, only really taking it seriously once the math problems became word problems and she had to rely on probability to get the answers right. Anne came to the US for high school and college. She wanted a practical career, so she became a doctor and practiced radiology for 20 years. She then tried her hand at house-flipping, developed interested in real estate and became a broker! She says that when you want something in life, opportunities will come to you, and that America really is the best place to make that happen.

Amy Demas then gave a speech from the Advanced Manual – Special Occasion Speeches, Speaking in Praise, called “Thank you, Light” Amy praised light for three of it’s greatest characteristics – Radiance, Energy & Momentum and Guidance.  She concluded by reminding us that we can empower and motivate, just like the sun. 

Jaime Fisher wrapped up the evening as General Evaluator. Speech evaluators were Sandra Centorino, Amy Demas, Steve McGirr and Jaime Fisher.

Other functionaries were Paula Erardi: Ah-Counter, Nilani Shankar: Grammarian, and Richard Freeman: Timer.

Our next meeting is September 11^th. Ute suggested that the theme for the evening be National Day of Remembrance.

See you then!

Heather McKelvie

Eagle Secretary