Toastmaster & President Kerstin Haase opened the meeting with an acknowledgement to the struggles against racial inequality in the U.S.A. Identifying with the complexity of urban culture and the ways in which language and identity evolve over time, Kerstin referenced the concept of Original Gangster (OG), a phrase that carries significant cultural weight and historical depth, particularly within American urban communities. Symbolically relating to the idea of us as toastmasters, having considerable influence and respect for each other, and in its broader application, as a marker of authenticity. From this sense, as members of this club, we hold a significant meaning across various cultural landscapes.
Kerstin 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.
Toastmaster of the day, Abdulrahman Albazie gave an overview of the roles for the session and introduced the “Word of the Day” (WOD), “Tackle,” meaning to seize, deal with, or confront something forcefully. Abdulrahman alluded to the notion that tackling challenges head on is essential for growth and development, and for stepping out of our comfort zones. For Toastmasters, tackling would also indicate seizing new speaking and leadership opportunities to improve our communication skills. Quoting Denis Whitley, “the results you achieve are proportional to the effort you apply,” Abdulrahman reminded us that great leaders are willing to take risks and tackle obstacles to ensure their efforts match the outcomes. Embracing discomfort, taking risks, and tackling challenges are indeed hallmarks of effective leadership.
Toastmaster Dave Burr introduced the first speaker of the day, Toastmaster Hema Kellet, to deliver her speech titled, ‘My cognitive bandwidth,’ highlighting the challenges to balancing everyday activities, understanding our emotional bandwidth and its role in influencing our behaviors, and developing an action plan to tackle the related challenges.
Toastmaster Dave appreciated Hema’s candid lay speech that started with a rhetorical question, persuading the audience to think. An introspective speech with reference to studies backing the technical details versus personal thoughts and experiences. Commending on Hema’s ability to balance the technical descriptions with personal ideas, Dave commented on the use of appropriate hand gestures and well positioning in front of the camera, thrusting fist into the palm to make a point, and maintaining purposeful eye contact. Also recommended giving the audience a few seconds time to think when posing a rhetorical question.
Toastmaster Norris Bass introduced second speaker of the day, Tina Joe Ross to present her speech on her summer internship experience with the Energy department’s Loans Program Office. Tina Joe used compelling PowerPoint for visuals to support her key main ideas including details of her experience enhancing her resume, the key focus of her experiences and lessons learned during her internship. From participating in cross-functional initiatives, new hire training, facilitating biweekly orientations, assisting with training series, interviewing, and compiling new boarding processes, Tina Joe shared her growth as an intern and her passion for what she does in her role as an LPO intern.
Toastmaster Norris gave strong feedback to Tina Joe on her presentation emphasizing her ability to present her experiences in key simple ideas clearly and using visual aid to show flow of key points. As an informative speech, Tina Joe offered details and examples to support her ideas, maintained purposeful eye contact, gestures and vocal variations. She was engaging and informative.
President Kerstin then led the Table Topics session using the word of day tackle, by inviting members to respond to various creative questions ranging from how to tackle a specific problem, to explaining the meaning of tackle perceived as a younger self, how one might tackle a problem, using tackle to describe when facing a challenge, to tackling procrastination, teamwork and more. Members shared their thoughts on the topics with a lot of drive and enthusiasm.
General Evaluator Savannah Murphy gave a quick overview of the meeting, and commended on filling the empty roles for the day quickly, for keeping communication going, reaching out to the team in time, and on the exceptional table topics. Also commended evaluators of the speeches for being specific on identifying the speaking challenge and actionable items.
Timer John Doggett shared the speaking times for all participants. Grammarian Anu Parvathaneni commended several members’ use of pauses at strategic places in their speeches and recommended paying attention to the use of fillers ‘ah,’ and ‘um.” While encouraging speakers on a few clean speeches, Anu also commented on the use of word of the day in the speeches and smacking sounds made during speeches. She also captured a few quotes as a reminder including ‘wind shows up when the wind shows up,’ and ‘You have to have your sails ready,’ to be prepared for any situation.
Toastmaster Abdulrahman recapped the roles for next week and passed the conversation over to President Kerstin for closing remarks. President Kerstin officially adjourned the session and commended on the nice flow of events during the session and her pride in being part of this group.
The next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting will be at 7 a.m. on August 16, 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: (Open)
Speaker 1: Dave
Speaker 2: Kerstin
Table topics: Tina Joe
Gen Evaluator: Saraswathi
Evaluator 1: Abdulrahman
Evaluator 2: Anu
Timer: Savannah
Grammarian: Kendra
