This week’s meeting started off with a warm welcome from our President, Toastmaster Kerstin Welch commenting on the Sunrise Toastmasters feeling like catching up with old friends and reflecting on the irony of the freeze on Civil Rights cases in U.S. Judicial system occurring on Martin Luther King Day. This led us into our moment of silence in recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement and the ongoing struggle for racial equality. Kerstin concluded with reminders such as the use of the bias flag as a tool to help us become better speakers before turning the meeting over to today’s Toastmaster, Norris Bass. Norris introduced and encouraged use of our word of the day, “reconcile”, proceeded to lead us through a great meeting, and welcomed our returning guest Matthew Choate.
Toastmaster Tim Murphy introduced our first speaker, Toastmaster Abdulrahman Albazie. Abdulrahman spoke on “A Journey Toward Understanding.” This was a topic that resonates deep within our societies and addressed the need for self awareness of personal biases or assumptions, education, and meaningful conversations. He concluded with citing Elie Wiesel, “The opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference.”
Toastmaster Kendra Hiatt introduced our second speaker, Toastmaster Dave Burr titled “Hip Hip Dave!” Dave led us through his very recent Total Hip Replacement surgery experience, from careful masking for 2 weeks prior to surgery in order to prevent any possible delay due to illness, presentation to the hospital at an early hour for the pre-operative steps through the post-operative recovery area, and concluding with achievements needed for discharge after evaluations by both the Physical and Occupational Therapists. It sounds like Dave is well on his way to recovery, for which we all are grateful.
Table Topics was led by Toastmaster Bettina Ross. Tina Joe skillfully used “reconcile” in keeping with the theme established by our word of the day in each question. Thoughtful replies were heard from all and we came away with several strong statements.
- If you tried, then you succeeded.
- As much as you value yourself, value the other person.
- Love is an active verb.
- Reconcile. There is a lot of meat in that word.
We then moved onto our Breakfast of Champions- speech and meeting evaluations. Toastmaster Savannah Murphy filled the role of General Evaluator, immediately leading us into Speaker 1 evaluation by Tim and Speaker 2 evaluation by Kendra. Toastmaster Summer Murphy and Toastmaster Kerstin kept us honest today by serving as Timer and Grammarian. Savannah then wrapped up the evaluation portion of our meeting, before turning it back over to Norris who subsequently handed off to President Kerstin for meeting adjournment.
Roles for Friday, January 31, 2025 are as follows:
Toastmaster- Tina Joe
Speaker 1- Summer Murphy
Speaker 2- Norris
Table Topics- Dave
General Evaluator- Kerstin
Evaluator 1- OPEN
Evaluator 2- OPEN
Grammarian – Savannah
