President Kerstin Haase started the meeting by welcoming members and reminding us of our mission to continue to strive be better speakers.
Kerstin acknowledged the racial inequality that consistently reminds us of the significant challenges the people of color face. In particular, the call for action in response to Eric Holder’s struggle on July 17, 2014, when an NYC police officer put Eric on a choke hold rendering him helpless and unable to escape as he continued to utter his last words, I can’t breathe. It’s a stark reminder that we are not free from the biases we experience.
In our efforts to support our members become competent speakers, our challenge is to recognize biases in our speeches. Kerstin pointed us to showing a ‘peace’ sign when we hear a bias in a speech to let the speaker know and to address the bias after the speech.
As a sign of respect and support for the Black Lives Matter movement, the group muted the microphones, turned off the cameras, and observed a minute of silence to honor all victims of racial injustice.
Toastmaster of the day, John Doggett introduced the “Word of the Day” (WOD), “Forgetful,” meaning likely to forget, or characterized by negligent failure to remember.
Toastmaster Anu Parvathaneni introduced the speaker for the day, Toastmaster Savannah Murphy, to deliver her Consensus Project with the goal of having her selected panelists reach a group consensus on the ongoing precautions to be taken regarding Covid in the current day-to-day life. Savannah’s robust statistics on the topic enhanced her credibility as a speaker, and thus laying the framework for the panelists to share their thoughts and opinions on what our communities can do to mitigate the threat of Covid, the challenges to address, and the precautions to take as actionable items in order to keep ourselves and our communities safe.
Anu congratulated Savannah on her exceptional attempt to lead a discussion with four panelists and arrive at a consensus on a common resolution in response to the issue on hand. Anu thanked Savannah for preparing a well-crafted speech on the seriousness of the topic in question, for giving the panelists an opportunity to share their opinions on the issue and its impact, and for summarizing the panelists’ viewpoints, clearly and succinctly. Anu also offered constructive feedback in terms of setting a time limit to the panelists to prepare and delivery their thoughts and to ensure everyone has same amount of time to share. Anu recalled the ease with which Savannah led a well-planned discussion session to achieve the desired results.
Toastmaster Dave Burr then led the table topics session using the theme things we notice or remember, contrasting the word of the day to help us remember the things we noticed or remembered when visiting a place of interest. The responses showed participants’ quick thinking and carefully crafted responses in story forms, thus demonstrating their confidence and competence when presenting.
Toastmaster Stiles Burr served as the General Evaluator, providing the members with insightful comments on their exceptional performance.
President Kerstin shared the Timer report, ensuring each segment and participants adhered to the allocated time. Toastmaster Hema Kellett offered insights on the appropriate grammar usage and highlighted the need to minimize use of fillers such as ‘like,’ ‘you know,’ ‘ah,’ and ‘um’ to keep our presentations clean and enhance credibility.
Toastmaster John transitioned the meeting over to President Kerstin. Kerstin gracefully summarized our session’s activities, and officially adjourned the session with a poignant quote, reminding us of our civil duty to do our part: “No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.” – Calvin Coolidge.
The next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting will be at 7 a.m. on July 19, EST. If you would like to join our meeting as a guest, contact us for the meeting link.
The roles for the next meeting are as follows:
Toastmaster: Savannah
Speaker 1: Kerstin
General Evaluator: Norris
Table Topics: Tim
Evaluator 1: Summer
Timer: John
Grammarian: Tina Joe
