This week’s meeting started off with a warm welcome from our President Abdulrahman. The meeting then moved into our One World, Many Voices (OWMV) segment led by Toastmaster Norris, who took an interesting approach by posing the question of what if, instead of one world many voices, it was one world one voice, and that voice is AI. They went on to ask if we are simply going to turn over the ability to think and create, and concluded with a strong encouragement to not take the easy way out and instead retain personal creativity.
After the OWMV segment, Abdulrahman reminded everyone of the bias flag then turned the meeting over to our Toastmaster of the Day, Gulnara, who presented the Word of the Day, “concise,” along with its definition. Gulnara reminded the group that Toastmasters is a place for practicing speaking even though it’s sometimes uncomfortable, then proceeded to lead a well-run meeting.
We had two speakers today. Toastmaster Syed delivered a speech titled “Healthy Weight, Healthier Life,” describing the rise in obesity and how managing it can prevent chronic issues. They went on to describe how the BMI scale works, provided what goes into building the daily caloric requirement, and spoke about the Harris-Benedict formula.
The second speaker, Toastmaster Adnan, presented “The Night Someone Was Under My Bed,” recounting a story from a childhood home in Qatar where someone was hiding in the house for several days before abruptly making their presence known one evening. This all ended with the person pushing their way out of the house and jumping a wall only to disappear into the night.
Table Topics Master Melissa presented several engaging questions to the group that focused around things learned from Toastmasters. Among the topics discussed were: What is one thing you have learned about yourself since joining Toastmasters? Is there a piece of feedback that really stuck with you? And what is something you do to prepare before public speaking?
Responses included Toastmaster Dave’s observation that public speaking is a “use it or lose it” skill; Toastmaster Yuko Honda’s story about receiving feedback around the importance of vocal variety; and Toastmaster Summer typing an entire speech out then cutting it down to the most important points.
The meeting then moved into our Breakfast of Champions, the evaluation portion of the agenda. Led by Abdulrahman, this segment highlighted the interesting twist on OWMV and the overall smoothness of the meeting. Toastmaster Lisa evaluated our first speaker, and Summer evaluated our second speaker. Both evaluators offered clear and helpful feedback on the strengths and impact of the day’s speeches. Some highlights centered around how vocal variety helps engage the audience, and how slowing or increasing speaking pace depending on the context is a good way to utilize that variety. Toastmaster Abigayle and Toastmaster Robert 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 April 3, 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: Tina Joe
One World, Many Voices: Summer Murphy
Speaker 1: Savvy Murphy
Speaker 2: Lisa Garofola
Table Topics: Dave Burr
General Evaluator: Kerstin Haase
Evaluator 1: Norris Bass
Evaluator 2: Md Adnan
Timer: Robert Shephard
Grammarian: Melissa Dutmers
