Fast Forward / Rewind – February 7, 2025

Minutes from February 7, 2025

Sunrise Toastmasters

This week’s meeting started off with a warm welcome from our Vice President of Education, Toastmaster Abdulrahman Albezie.  He commented on the polarization that we are seeing globally that crosses political, social, and personal spectra. This led us into our moment of silence in recognition of the Black Lives matter movement and the ongoing struggle for racial equality.  He concluded with reminders such as the use of the bias flag (peace sign) as a tool to help us become better speakers before turning the meeting over to the Toastmaster of the day, Toastmaster Savannah MurphySavannah introduced the word of the day “hoodwinked”which is to be deceived by false appearances, and proceeded to lead us through a great meeting interweaving ethos, pathos, and logos as tools of audience persuasion.

Toastmaster Norris Bass introduced our first speaker, Toastmaster Tim MurphyTim spoke on “The Evaluation: Before, During, and After,” explaining the purpose of and the process that he uses when providing an evaluation of a speech.  He touched on tools that help with this such as a pro/con list, and use of the sandwich method to book-end any room for growth with positive feedback.  He reminded the group that while the evaluation is delivered to the audience as a whole, it is for the individual and their personal growth as a speaker.  

Toastmaster Bettina Ross introduced our second speaker, Abdulrahman whose presentation was titled “A Path to Authentic Living.” He spoke of the importance of trust as a foundation in any relationship.  He cleverly incorporated the word of the day into this topic, emphasizing the need to value integrity and honesty over short cuts and shared some powerful words from Maya Angelou and Warren Buffett.

Table Topics was led by Toastmaster Summer MurphySummer had recently celebrated her 60th birthday  and the questions had a birthday theme.  They covered quite a range, from favorite gifts given and received to whether you would prefer to host a party for 30 toddlers or 30 chihuahuas!  We were all able to share some remote nostalgia and laughter this morning.

We then moved onto the Breakfast of Champions, speech and meeting evaluations.  Toastmaster Dave Burr filled the role of General Evaluator, immediately leading us into Speaker 1 evaluation by Norris and Speaker 2 evaluation by Tina Joe.  Toastmaster Kerstin Welch and Toastmaster Kendra Hiatt kept us honest by serving as Timer and Grammarian.  Dave then wrapped up the meeting before turning it back over to Abdulrahman to close us out for the week.

Some thoughts to take away from today’s meeting:

  • Significant doesn’t always mean positive.
  • The best thing about giving is what you receive in return.

Roles for Friday, February 14, 2025 are as follows:

Toastmaster- Dave

Speaker 1- Summer

Speaker 2- Norris

Table Topics- Kerstin

General Evaluator- Abdulrahman

Evaluator 1- Tim

Evaluator 2- Kendra

Grammarian – Tina Joe