This week’s meeting kicked off with a warm welcome from our recently elected President, Tina Joe, followed by the One World Many Voices segment led by Toastmaster Kenny. Kenny spoke about a recent conversation she had regarding the need for experience to qualify for certain positions, regardless of credentials on paper. She questioned how someone is expected to obtain experience for a role when they don’t currently hold that position and the starting requirements are unrealistic, offering the notable quote, “everyone starts from somewhere.”
Afterward, Tina Joe briefly introduced the Bias Flag and explained its purpose as a tool our club uses to promote inclusive and mindful language throughout our meetings.
The meeting was then turned over to our Toastmaster of the Day, Sophie, who quickly explained the purpose of her role and ensured all roles were filled, with Tina Joe stepping in to fill the timer role. Sophie then led a round of introductions where she asked members to say where they are calling from and something they are looking forward to this weekend. Sophie went on to introduce the Word of the Day, Ambivalent, defined as “having or showing simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings toward something or someone.” With that, she guided us through an engaging meeting.
We had no scheduled speakers this week. Instead, the time allotted for prepared speeches and evaluations was filled with an extended Table Topics session led by Toastmaster Savvy. This session was highly engaging because Savvy told a story about an interesting party and related the questions back to particular parts of the story, leading us on a tour of the party. Some of the questions included: what is a tradition that you didn’t grow up with but got involved in, what is your least favorite chore, what is something that someone brings you when they come to visit because you don’t have local access to it, what’s it like when your family gets together, do you prefer to host or be a guest at parties, what is a dish you only have on special occasions, and what is something that was fun as a kid but you wouldn’t recommend now.
Next, we moved into our Breakfast of Champions segment for those on the East Coast of the United States, also known as Lunch or Dinner of Champions depending on your location, which is the evaluation and feedback portion of the meeting. Toastmaster Kerstin led this segment and complimented the overall flow of the meeting as well as the fantastic table topics questions. Toastmaster Tina Joe and Matthew kept us on track by timing each speaker and tracking filler words.
The meeting adjourned right at 8:00 AM EST, and we are already looking forward to next week’s meeting.
The next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting will be at 7 a.m. on July 10, 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: Chang Yu
One World, Many Voices: Lisa Garofola
Speaker 1: Diana Calmic
Speaker 2: Danielle Benzon
Table Topics: Yuko Honda
General Evaluator: Kenny Eniola
Evaluator 1: Savvy Murphy
Evaluator 2: Tina Joe
Timer: Kerstin Haase
Grammarian: Norris Bass
