Sunrise Toastmaster Club President Kerstin Haase welcomed the club members and transitioned the meeting to our Sergeant at Arms, Toastmaster Dave Burr to open the meeting. Dave shared a memorial experience during a meeting with Abe, a maintenance technician from Little Rock Arkansas. When asked if there was any criminal history to share, Abe had a response. Abe was wrongfully targeted, accused of attempted murder and shot at 6 times and reported being hit once. Abe fled for his life, and he was innocent. This uphill climb amplifies the challenges targeted people have with police. “Incarcerated for life” was a statistic used by the Little Rick Arkansas Police department. If charge wouldn’t stick the person was let out of prison, yet the incarceration event would stay on their permanent record, marking them incarcerated for life. This practice is unforgivable.
Kerstin welcomed the club back and encouraged us, as Toastmasters, to continue to acknowledge the unconscious bias we may demonstrate when speaking, address those biases, and support each other to become competent speakers.
Our VP of Public Relations Savannah Murphy was Toastmaster today, stepping in to support our VP of Education Abdulrahman Albazie. Savannah gave an overview of the roles for the session, which literally just surfaced prior to the start of the meeting. Members on the call also adjusted their roles for the good of the club. Members’ quick ability to improvise and adapt their roles showed the impact of this club and shined a spotlight on the strength of our members as a whole. Savannah introduced the “Word of the Day” (WOD), “Improvise”, meaning to create and perform, spontaneous without preparation, to produce with what’s available. Savannah reminded us how appropriate this word is, given all the role changes implemented quickly today, including the choice she had to make to step into the Toastmaster role.
Toastmaster Norris Bass introduced the first speaker of the day, Toastmaster Dave delivered a speech from the presentation mastery storytelling pathway titled, ‘The Ship That Changed the World.’ Dave’s speech took us through the evolution of how perishable food came to cross the seas from New Zeeland to the United Kingdom in 1882, for the first time, as complements of the Dunedin ship. The remarkable speech shared a story of driven people leveraging revolutionary technology, the Coleman refrigeration machine, never used before on the seas. Dave shared important dates, milestones and left us all knowledgeable of the birth of a global marketplace that has grown in the last 150 years. The Dunedin is a beautiful ship if you haven’t seen it!
Toastmaster Anu Parvathaneni introduced the second speaker of the day, President and Toastmaster Kerstin, who delivered a speech from the presentation mastery pathway titled, ‘Lessons learned from writing a book.’ The speech focused on the leadership role taking on a project, and the value of a lessons learned meeting. Kerstin shared both the challenges and rewards achieved working together with her siblings on a Story worth project honoring their mother, Amy. “Would we do this again”? “Yes, was the answer”. “Would we change anything”? “Another positive answer of yes”. Kerstin learned the importance of being a leader and listening to others sharing feedback and ideas. It is important to discuss with others how you can improve upon something, it is how we evolve and grow.
VP of Marketing, Toastmaster Tina Joe Ross led the Table Topics session using the word of day as her guide, and invited members to respond to various creative questions by selecting a number from 1-2000. All question were listed in a book Tina Joe scored. Questions were simple in nature, some more challenging than others, and all responses were appreciated with enthusiasm.
General Evaluator Stiles Burr gave an overview of the meeting, and complimented members on filling the empty roles for the day quickly, for keeping communication going, and reaching out to the team. There was also thanks to the exceptional speeches and table topics portion, allowing everyone an opportunity to participate.
Toastmaster Norris provided a thorough evaluation of Dave’s speech, sharing the strength’s by presenting facts, and the brilliance of facial gestures to emphasize emotion during this well-done speech.
Toastmaster Anu provided a insightful evaluation of Kerstin’s speech, highlighting the importance of posture and the strong tone used to convey confidence during this insightful speech.
Toastmaster Kendra Hiatt served as the meeting’s Timer and kept everyone informed visually of their speaking time to keep the meeting on track. Toastmaster Anu took on a second role as the meeting Grammarian, bringing awareness to the use of fillers ‘ah,’ and ‘ums’ during the meeting.
Toastmaster Savannah recapped the roles for next week and passed the meeting over to Kerstin for closing remarks. President Kerstin officially adjourned the meeting, wishing everyone another wonderful week and shared her pride in being part of this very special and supportive group.
The next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting will be at 7 a.m. on August 23, EST. If you would like to join our meeting as a guest, contact us for the meeting link.
