Minutes from Friday, July 18, 2025
Sunrise Toastmasters
This week’s meeting started with a warm welcome from our President, Toastmaster Abdulrahman Albazie. He discussed barriers to embracing others due to different backgrounds and beliefs, and cited fear of the unknown and cultural differences leading to biases and stereotyping which can fracture communities. He recommended 3 tools: look through different lenses, don’t be afraid to ask the point of view, and have empathy. This led us into our moment of silence in recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement and the ongoing struggle for racial equality. The introduction was concluded with reminders such as use of the bias flag as a tool toward becoming more conscientious speakers before turning the meeting over to our Toastmaster of the Day, Toastmaster Norris Bass. Norris led us through a round of introductions for our guest Melissa Dutmers, and then introduced our word of the day “complacent” which admittedly can have a negative connotation but noted that he wanted to focus on the positive, an acknowledgment of complacency and moving forward.
Toastmaster Tim Murphy introduced our first speaker, Toastmaster Stiles Burr who was joining us from Arizona and spoke on the topic “Late Night Bites.” He started out by telling us that he felt like he was moving a million miles per hour ithrough life right now, between planning a wedding, selling and buying a house, and of course his work, managing travel for the Cincinnati Reds organization. Needless to say his brain is quite busy and this has led to some sleep issues, late night snacks, & memories he wanted to share. An early AM apple recalled a trip to NYC and the first, futuristic seeming Apple Store and how much he had loved that time with his family and his iPod nano. Cheese and crackers reminded him of Lunchables taken on field trips with his Mom as chaperone, particularly a zoo excursion where he had been disappointed to realize his assigned animal was the baboon and not the lion. Next was chocolate, dangerously good Belgian chocolate and memories of a wobbly walk with his Dad back to their accommodations in Bruges, Belgium after being served the strongest beer instead of the requested weakest. Last he mentioned last night’s AZ snack, cinnamon tortilla chips reminding him of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal which had helped awaken him to join us this morning at 4 AM from Arizona!
Toastmaster Dave Burr introduced our second speaker, Toastmaster Matthew Choate who spoke on “Life with Jasmine, the Cinna-Menace.” Matthew shared the challenge, personal growth, and enjoyment he and his wife get from their wild and lovable Vizsla, a breed that were trained as bird hunters by history and very active. Jasmine can run up to 40 miles per hour and jump higher than their backyard fence by simply springing up into the air. This has left him with the unfortunate need to replace their not so old fence with a taller fence due to her natural ability to leap without exerting much effort. While there are certainly challenges to pet and puppy ownership, including less flexibility with his personal schedule and added expenses, they cannot imagine life without her. They are embracing the phases of highs and lows as she breezed through initial training and moved onto higher level public access training where Jasmine experienced sensory overload at a TJ Maxx store. Matthew has reshaped his life for her and is thankful for it.
Table Topics was led by Toastmaster Bettina Ross. Tina Joe focused on our word of the day, also choosing to take a positive spin on complacency and look at it from the perspective of moving forward. Toastmaster Kendra Hiatt said one of the ways she tries to help people avoid complacency and maintain a healthy lifestyle is by inviting a friend to join her group of early AM walking buddies. Toastmaster Kerstin Haase shared that while she lets her 20-something children do their own “adulting”, when asked for advice she tries to give them her 50-something “30 year” perspective to help them make their own decision. Toastmaster Summer Murphy felt it is hard to know how she interprets an issue compared to the person going through it, and tries to offer advice by asking a question instead. How will you feel about this decision in 5 minutes, in 5 days, and in 5 years?
We then moved onto the Breakfast of Champions, speech and meeting evaluations. Toastmaster Savvy Murphy served as our General Evaluator, turning it over to Tim to complete Speaker 1 evaluation and then to Dave to complete Speaker 2 evaluation. Abdulrahman and Kerstin filled the Timer and Grammarian roles.
Food for thought:
Her nickname is Vizsla-raptor.
Take a minute to think about it.
Cinnamon TOAST Crunch for Sunrise TOASTmasters!
Roles for Friday, July 25 are as follows:
Toastmaster: Tim
Speaker 1 & 2: Summer
Table Topics: Summer / Abdulrahman
Gen Evaluator: Matthew
Evaluator 1 & 2: Kerstin
Timer: < open >
Grammarian: Kim
