Hello Sunrise Toastmasters Members and Guests!
Rewind from September 18
Today’s meeting was held at Moses Cone Memorial Hospital in room NT102Aand started at 7:00 AM. We had a total of 10 members present at our meeting, including one guest: Pharrell Williams. (OK, not literally, but read on for more.)
Vice President of Education Esther Khoury opened our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and turned it over to Summer Murphy, Toastmaster for the morning. And what a morning it was! To match with her theme today (‘For the Fun of It’), she chose ‘irrepressible’ as the word of the day and invited people to state their source of ‘irrepressible joy’ while striking a power-pose with a foam football. All around the room, we started to sense that this was not to be any old Sunrise Toastmasters meeting.
The first speaker, Phil Stringer, delivered an advanced manual speech, titled ‘How NOT To Steal a Pig.’ Phil’s rural-Indiana upbringing really set the scene for his hog-thieving tale, giving every audience member their weekly dose of hilarity. As if that wasn’t fun enough, the second speaker, Lolita Henley, completed her seventh project in the Competent Communicator manual, simply titled ‘Happiness.’ Her well-researched speech included a compelling argument for self-generated happiness and then artfully conducted a social experiment to validate her hypothesis… with a Pharrell-inspired dance party and a selfie stick!
Steve Stephens led the club in a series of ‘slow-pitch’ Table Topics where respondents were given an opportunity to practice proper form: including an opening, body, and conclusion. We went six rounds in table topics before moving into evaluations. Special thanks to Dustin Johnson and Will Koppenhaver for serving as evaluators, to Esther Khoury for evaluating the meeting in general, and to Tim Murphy for serving as Timer/Grammarian.
Unconventional though it was, Sunrise Toastmasters had a blast and went out into our respective work places, glittering with laughter and happiness – some of us literally glittering! Thanks to our Toastmaster Summer Murphy for a meeting to remember.
Fast-Forward to September 25:
Please see the slated roles below.
| Toastmaster | Esther Khoury | |
| Speaker 1 | *Open* | |
| Speaker 2 | Angela Ligon | |
| Table Topics | Dustin Johnson | |
| General Evaluator | Phil Stringer | |
| Evaluator 1 | Dave Burr | |
| Evaluator 2 | Lolita Henley | |
| Timer/Grammarian | Jenna Willingham |
Member Reminder: Please render your dues to Club Treasurer Steve Stephens.
Additional Reminder: Please note that we will be located in a different room on 9/25 called Room 1040 (also known as the ‘West Auditorium’).
If you know how to get to Rooms 29, 30, and 31 in the hospital, you can find this one easily. It is located exactly one floor above these rooms.
- Park exactly as you would in the Guest Parking Garage.
- Instead of walking by the fountain, walk towards the West Entrance.
- Walk around to the ‘AHEC entrance’ and walk down the hall to take the West Elevators one floor up.
- Once off the elevators, continue west towards the West Auditorium.
On the day-of the meeting, there will be Toastmasters wayfinding signs. A colorblock map of the campus can be found here: Moses-Cone-Hospital-Interior-Map.
Thank you all, until Friday-
Jenna Willingham
Club Secretary
Sunrise Toastmasters
