This week’s meeting started off with a warm welcome from our Secretary, Matthew, who filled in for the Club President. The meeting then moved into our One World, Many Voices segment led by Toastmaster Savvy, who raised awareness of the stark differences between healthcare in the U.S. and Mexico, particularly the ease of access to timely care in Mexico.
After introductions, our Toastmaster of the Day, Syed, presented the Word of the Day, “deportment,” along with its definition and an interesting backstory. Syed then led us through a great meeting made even more interesting by several mid-meeting role fill-ins. Syed essentially ran Toastmaster of the Day on hard mode and handled everything flawlessly. Well done, Syed!
We had two speakers today. Toastmaster Yuko Honda delivered a speech titled “Four Day Battle”, describing the challenge of getting a leaky water heater repaired. The message emphasized two key takeaways: the power of desperation paired with sincerity, and the importance of not giving up when faced with what feels like an impossible problem.
The second speaker, Toastmaster Matthew, presented “An Inner Voice with a Stopwatch”, recounting a recent 60k mountain bike event where things did not go according to plan and reflecting on the persistent internal voice that insists, “You can do better.”
Table Topics Master Chang Yu presented four engaging questions to the group. Among the topics discussed were: What is something you learned as a child that you still do today? What is something you are most stubborn about? And what rule do you live by that most people would find surprising?
Responses included Toastmaster Dave’s reminder about the lasting wisdom of eating your vegetables; Toastmaster Abagayle’s story about standing for three hours rather than playing 52-card pickup; and Toastmaster Kehendie (Kenny)’s encouragement to live with gratitude in everything you do.
The meeting then moved into our Breakfast of Champions, the evaluation portion of the agenda. Savvy stepped in on the spot to lead the evaluation team and highlighted the importance of support roles and their vital contribution to the success of each meeting and the club as a whole. Syed evaluated our first speaker after stepping into an additional role due to the absence of the scheduled evaluator, and Toastmaster Tina Joe evaluated our second speaker. Both evaluators offered clear and helpful feedback on the strengths and impact of the day’s speeches. Toastmaster Lisa and Toastmaster Adnan kept time and tracked filler words to help the group stay on pace and improve clarity.
The meeting adjourned exactly at 8:00 AM EST, and we look forward to next week’s meeting.
The next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting will be at 7 a.m. on March 27, 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: Gulnara Askerova
One World, Many Voices: Norris Bass
Speaker 1: Syed Imran Ali Shah
Speaker 2: Md Adnan
Table Topics: Melissa Dunmer’s
General Evaluator: Abdulrahman Albazie
Evaluator 1: Lisa Garofola
Evaluator 2: Savvy Murphy
Timer: Abigayle Burnett
Grammarian: OPEN
