Our President, Amelia Black, opened the meeting with a message encouraging racial equality in all systems, and led us into our minute of silence in acknowledgement and support of the Black Lives Matter movement. After welcoming our guests Abdul’Rhman Albazie, Luke and Toastmaster Stiles Burr, Amelia shared an overview of the meeting and transitioned to the day’s Toastmaster Tim Murphy. Tim chose shenanigan as the word of the day, a devious trick used especially for an underhand purpose. Everyone incorporated the WOD into their introduction as we welcomed our returning guest Abdul’Rhman and Toastmaster Stiles and Luke to our well attended meeting of 16.
Karen Rhodes introduced Amelya Black, our first speaker. Amelya’s speech titled “The Emergent Professor” Amelya shared a speech on a recent class experience that uncovered both challenges and convictions on what works and what is not effective when it comes to early childhood education. The speech was well prepared, spoken clearly and passionately. A strong opening and brilliant reframing of ”I want to get fired” was some of the feedback shared by evaluator Karen.
Savannah Murphy introduced Anu Parvathaneni, our second speaker. Anu’s speech titled “A Long Journey to An A”, dove into the difference between hearing and listening. In this speech Anu conveyed the importance of listening and used creative examples to convey how challenging the willingness to be quiet and listen can be. This speech was well organized, relatable and pulled the audience in effectively was feedback shared by evaluator Savannah.
Greg Sutton hosted Table Topics and did an excellent job selecting questions to the attendees leveraging the word of the day. Even our guests participated, a complement to the session leader, and everyone did an excellent job managing their response within the allotted time. Renuka Korlipara served as General Evaluator for the first time and did an excellent job with the meeting summary. Maria Leon provided the Timer report, and John Doggett shared the Grammarian report – well done everyone!
Toastmaster Tim thanked the guest and Toastmasters for another great meeting and transitioned the meeting back to Amelya. Amelya congratulated Renuka for an excellent job serving as General Evaluator, thanked our guest and Toastmasters for joining us. Encouraging everyone to join us again soon, just because it feels great afterwards! Roles were shared for the meeting next week and the meeting was adjourned.
The next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting will be at 7 am, August 5 EST on Zoom.
Roles for the next meeting are as follows:
Toastmaster: Maria
Speaker 1: Renuka
Speaker 2: John
Table Topics: Norris
Gen. Evaluator: Tim
Speaker 1 Eval: Anu
Speaker 2 Eval: Tanuja
Timer: Karen
Grammarian: Dave
