Minutes from Friday, October 17, 2025
Sunrise Toastmasters
This week’s meeting started with a warm welcome from Toastmaster Anu Parvathaneni, starting the meeting with One World Many Voices opener by reminding me us that we are all part of the same human race and that while in the past “the pen” was society’s most powerful too it has now transitioned to “the phone.” This immediate feedback mechanism has empowered emotional response without thoughtful evaluation, before adding an opinion. She asked that each of us be mindful and take responsibility for ourselves when using this tool. This led us into our moment of silence in recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement and the ongoing struggle for racial equality. The introduction was concluded with reminders such as use of the bias flag as a tool toward becoming more conscientious speakers.
The meeting was then turned over to our Toastmaster of the Day, Toastmaster Melissa Dutmers. Melissa outlined the meeting structure for our guests Pauline and Martin, and established our word of the day “inclusive”, meaning to create an environment where all are welcome. She then led us through a quick round of introductions with each person stating from where in the world they were calling. We had quite a global representation with Toastmasters and guests joining us from Mexico, Pakistan, The Netherlands, Japan, Australia, and the US states of North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Colorado, and Texas (apologies for any missed site!).
Toastmaster Kerstin Haase introduced our first speaker, Toastmaster Norris Bass who gave a 5-7 minute speech entitled “Why Toastmasters?” Norris has been part of Toastmasters for about 8 years and described how we was first inspired by a therapist to join Toastmasters. Hehas a passion for helping people and experience with the need to advocate for Alex, his daughter with special needs. He recognized this suggestion as a tool that could help him become a better speaker, and ultimately benefit him in both of these roles. Norris said he was shaking in his boots at his first speech and also found the role of Evaluator challenging. Over time he has gained confidence and has been able to improve both his skills in preparing / delivering a speech as well as providing constructive feedback to others. Norris encouraged us all to use the tools Toastmaster provides to achieve personal goals.
Toastmaster Bettina Ross introduced our second speaker, Toastmaster Kendra Hiatt who was giving a 5-7 minute speech entitled “Traveling without a plan and unexpected benefits received”. Kendra spoke about her recent trip to Scotland as something she had looked forward to for most of her life, but that the chaos of life in the last year had suppressed any excitement she could attempt to muster. While well prepared in terms of plane tickets and places to stay, she didn’t even have a packing list 24 hours before departure! There were few plans made ahead of time. Kendra then explained why seeing Scotland was important to her, as her grandparents had immigrated from Dundee in the 1920s. She was able to find the home of her Auntie Lizzie and the gravesite of her great grandparents, which had not been anticipated as possible, and of course see the beautiful country. Upon arriving home, she has felt refreshed and continues to enjoy the lack of “weight” on her shoulders, which she had expected to come crashing back. Kendra credits the joy of finding some of her roots and the absence of a schedule as the source of this unexpected benefit.
Table Topics was led by Toastmaster Tom Asimos and the questions focused on our word of the day. Questions ranged from a life lesson that was learned the hard way, describing a time when you were the new person, a controversial opinion, to a time you took a risk and wished you had not. We were able to hear from Toastmasters Savvy Murphy, Syed Imran A Shah, Md Adnan, and Yuko Honda, and our guest Martin.
We then moved onto the Breakfast of Champions, speech and meeting evaluations. Toastmaster Matthew Choate served as our General Evaluator, turning it over to Kerstin to complete Speaker 1 evaluation and then to Tina Joe to complete Speaker 2 evaluation. Toastmaster Gulnera Askerova and Toastmaster Chang Yu filled the Timer and Grammarian roles.
Food for thought:
Life is full of taking risks.
Language is a key to inclusion.
Sometimes it is better without a plan.
(Paraphrasing) Try to get past the feeling that you are criticizing a speaker, and recognize you are providing constructive feedback (as an Evaluator).
Roles for Friday, October 24 are as follows:
Opening: Norris Bass
Toastmaster: Tina Joe
Speaker 1: Syed Imran A. Shah
Speaker 2: Stiles Burr
Table Topics: Melissa Dutmers
Gen Evaluator: Kehinde Eniola
Evaluator 1: Savvy Murphy
Evaluator 2: Kendra Hiatt
Timer: < timer >
Grammarian: Md Adnan
