Minutes from Friday, Sept 12, 2025
Sunrise Toastmasters
This week’s meeting started with a warm welcome from our Vice President of Membership, Toastmaster Tim Murphy. He spoke of the struggles faced and surmounted by a 1942 college football player named Jack who when onto become a Lieutenant in the Army who refuse to sit in the back of the bus due to the color of his skin, was court marshaled as a result and found not guilty. This person was someone many of us have heard of, the legendary Jackie Robinson, and the recounting of 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 Stiles Burr. Stiles led us through a round of introductions for our guests before introducing the word of the day, indecisive which means to have difficulty making decisions quickly or effectively.
Toastmaster Savannah Murphy introduced our first speaker, Toastmaster Bettina Ross. Tina Joe spoke on the topic “The Power of the Authentic Self” and encouraged us to drop the masks we may be hiding behind. These masks may help us feel safer but can often cost energy and weigh us down. She reiterated that you cannot be your authentic self while hiding behind a mask. Without reflection and guidance, we drift without a true direction. She encouraged us to turn off the auto-pilot, reconnect with our purpose, and reach for the more we know is there.
Toastmaster Kerstin Haase introduced our second speaker, Toastmaster Matthew Choate who spoke on the topic “From Vans to Ventilators.” Matthew had been working in a computer repair shop while looking for other positions, and was alerted to a Level 1 Clinical Engineer position by a past acquaintance. He shared his experience during an interview in which he ended up having to wear his Vans because the sole had come off his dress shoes. It was an unusual interview in the community room on a Rehabilitation unit with the manage, other team members, and rapid fire questions. He really had no idea how he had done and was excited to get the call and job offer. Some of the lessons learned were that the connections you build years before can make a difference in your future.
Table Topics was led by Toastmaster Chang Yu and focused on our word of the day. Toastmaster Summer Murphy described the indecisiveness of a group of friends which led them to have assigned roles as to “the decider” on a given evening. Toastmaster Adnan admitted that he had felt somewhat indecisive about getting married but was happy share that he had now been married 15 years and they had been blessed with 2 children. Toastmaster Yuko Honda felt she was indecisive about gardening and didn’t care for her plants enough, but had recently received the wonderful surprise of flowers in her garden despite this. Toastmaster Gulnara Askerova shared that she felt there was a reason for indecisive behavior when shopping- you will either find a better option, a better price, or realize you’re happy with what you have. Betty Fulk felt that she can tend to make a decision too quickly which can lead to a poor outcome, and that there have been benefits from times when she was indecisive, took longer to make a decision.
We then moved onto the Breakfast of Champions, speech and meeting evaluations. Toastmaster Kendra Hiatt served as our General Evaluator, turning it over to Savvy to complete Speaker 1 evaluation and then to Kerstin to complete Speaker 2 evaluation. Toastmaster Dave Burr and Toastmaster Melissa Dutmer filled the Timer and Grammarian roles.
Food for thought:
Celebrate your “too much!”
There’s a reason (for indecisiveness).
Roles for Friday, Sept 19, 2025 are as follows:
Toastmaster: Dave
Speaker 1: Kehinde
Speaker 2: Kim
Table Topics: Abdulrahman
Gen Evaluator: Anu
Evaluator 1: Stiles
Evaluator 2: Tina Joe
Timer: Kendra
Grammarian: Chang
