03/14/2016 About last night ... Colors

Hello fellow Toastmasters, 

Last night our meeting was quite colorful to say the least, as we had a number of unique occurrences. 

First off, thanks to all the members who filled in roles and helped out. By helping the club and taking on a role, we're actually helping ourselves practice and get better. We also had 5 guests and one guest speaker from another club! 

Byron, our Toastmaster, gave us a great introduction and made sure our meeting ran smoothly. Our Table Topic Master Michelle really had us thinking with her take on Table Topics. Speakers were asked to pull from a bag a piece of paper containing a quote and give their thoughts. A more challenging table topics session, but very productive. 

Alex, our Table Topic Evaluator, provided the speakers with helpful criticism and focused on things to improve, since last week, the Table Topic Evaluator focused on the 'positives.'

Refreshments were provided by Byron. Thank you for filling in! It was delicious. 

We had three speakers last night. Brian shared with us a story about his career journey and his message to embrace the change in our lives. Martin enlightened us with his speech about the brain, specifically Amygdala hijacking and how to train our brain to have less emotional reactions. Our third speaker was our honored guest Glenn Y. from San Dimas Toastmasters who gave us a speech about conquering bullying. He is practicing for the area contest, good luck Glenn! 

Daniela and Fabian provided constructive criticism to the first two speakers. A group evaluation was provided for our guest Glenn. A number of members spoke out and provided him feedback that he appreciated. 

George, our General Evaluator, gave us a great summary of our meeting and provided a succinct evaluation of the speech evaluators. 

All in all another successful meeting. Hope to see many of you next week. Have a great weekend!

03/21/2016 About last night ... Spring is here!

Hello Fellow Toastmasters,

 

Last night’s meeting was in full bloom as the evening was full of wonderful speakers and stories. 

Garvin stepped in as our Invocation and shared with us his take on Easter and renewing ourselves. Great to see you back Garvin. Martin shared with us a joke to get us comfortable and laughing at the top of the meeting. Alex was our Toastmaster for the night, and the meeting flowed very smoothly and full of energy as expected.

George was our Table Topic Master of the night, and although the theme for the night was ‘Spring,’ he modified the Table Topic questions to challenge our eager brains a bit more. As he explained, if we know what the questions are about beforehand, we can anticipate certain answers. This way, we REALLY had to think on our feet. Great job George. Our Table Topic Evaluator, Daniel, followed up with some do’s and don’t’s. He pointed out the things that worked, and the things that need improvement. We all learn from each other. 

Thank you Juju for the wonderful refreshments. As was mentioned several times last night, refreshments are always the best part of the night ;)

The second half of the evening hosted three speakers who coincidentally all used props, visual aids and some sort of gestures to the max! The first Speaker was Charles with his convincing and entertaining speech about  using body language to convey confidence, especially during Toastmasters Table Topic sessions. He pointed out that we don’t have to hide in our chairs! We can sit with confidence and wait for our name to be called. Lucille had on display samples of her beautiful quilts, and spoke to us about the history of quilt-making and the process involved. The audience was certainly captivated by the intricate designs and colors, and even got to see for themselves because she passed samples of them around to the audience. The third speaker was myself, Daniela. I shared with you my experience running the marathon, and how this incredible feat has come to be so recognized. Using visual aids like the projector for presentation and hand held items really helped get the message across.

Following the speeches were the evaluations. Brian evaluated Charles’ speech and commended for his great use of the stage and presence. He also gave him a couple pieces of advice to further engage the audience. George evaluated Lucille and pointed out what wonderful use of visual aids to engage the audience, but recommended that projecting her voice would make her speech louder and clearer. Migo evaluated Daniela and stated that he appreciated the use of 2-D and 3-D visual aids to get the message across. He recommended engaging the use of body language more to really make a point, especially when talking about something emotional. 

Besides a slightly entertaining flop at the end of the meeting (during the calling of the winners, the wrong names were called up…Yikes!), the meeting was a success. We had a number of guests who enjoyed their experience. We hope to see them back, as well as our fellow members. See you next week!  

03/07/2016 Last nights meeting

Hello fellow Toastmasters, 

Last night our meeting was quite colorful to say the least, as we had a number of unique occurrences. 

First off, thanks to all the members who filled in roles and helped out. By helping the club and taking on a role, we're actually helping ourselves practice and get better. We also had 5 guests and one guest speaker from another club! 

Byron, our Toastmaster, gave us a great introduction and made sure our meeting ran smoothly. Our Table Topic Master Michelle really had us thinking with her take on Table Topics. Speakers were asked to pull from a bag a piece of paper containing a quote and give their thoughts. A more challenging table topics session, but very productive. 

Alex, our Table Topic Evaluator, provided the speakers with helpful criticism and focused on things to improve, since last week, the Table Topic Evaluator focused on the 'positives.'

Refreshments were provided by Byron. Thank you for filling in! It was delicious. 

We had three speakers last night. Brian shared with us a story about his career journey and his message to embrace the change in our lives. Martin enlightened us with his speech about the brain, specifically Amygdala hijacking and how to train our brain to have less emotional reactions. Our third speaker was our honored guest Glenn Y. from San Dimas Toastmasters who gave us a speech about conquering bullying. He is practicing for the area contest, good luck Glenn! 

Daniela and Fabian provided constructive criticism to the first two speakers. A group evaluation was provided for our guest Glenn. A number of members spoke out and provided him feedback that he appreciated. 

George, our General Evaluator, gave us a great summary of our meeting and provided a succinct evaluation of the speech evaluators. 

All in all another successful meeting. Hope to see many of you next week. Have a great weekend!

02/29/2016 Last nights meeting "Conservation"

Good Evening Fellow Toastmasters,

Last nights meeting "Conservation" had us speak on what we thought about our environment and our lives.

Brian, our Toastmaster last night ran a very smooth meeting for us.

Daniel asked varied questions to each and every Toastmaster participating in Table Topics.

Charles then provided POSITIVE feedback from each speaker which we could use in our speeches.

George provided delicious snacks. For those in attendance who tried the Red Velvet Oreo's, you know what I'm talking about.

Florence (Taiwan hospice), Angelica ( Chaos inside/outside) Fabian (Memories) all had very interesting speeches which were evaluated by Byron, George, & Charles. Great job speakers and evaluators.

In my opinion last night's meeting was ran like "a well oiled machine". In typical Club 269 fashion each and every Toastmaster in attendance was enthusiastic in listening to their fellow Toastmasters & all members with assigned roles were executed flawlessly. I already wish it was next Monday to be there again! 

We'll see everyone next Monday!