Our perceptive Treasurer, Dave Burr, opened this week’s meeting. Dave talked about the lack of support and representation that the people of Puerto Rico receive as a US colony. After our minute of silence in support of Black Lives Matter, Dave turned over the meeting to the Toastmaster of the day, Savannah Murphy.
We had 11 members in attendance. Savannah, chose camaraderie as her word of the day, linking it to Pride Month and sharing stories of support and inclusion among members of the LGBTQ community and their allies.
The first speaker of the day, Anu Parvathaneni, reflected on some of the things she has discovered about her speaking style during her time as a Toastmaster. Anu talked about some of the roadblocks she has worked to overcome in becoming a more effective speaker, and shared a personal anecdote about speaking up when she encountered bias. Karen Rhodes served as Anu’s evaluator, noting that her speech was well organized, and had relatable humor and a powerful closing.
John Doggett was the second speaker and delivered a talk about one of his adventures as an ultra marathon runner. With his usual humorous anecdotes, John described some of the difficulties he had to overcome while running a 100 mile race. From having trouble keeping down his food, to hallucinating a vision of “Snoopy,” he fought through and finished the race. John’s evaluator, Tim Murphy, gave John exuberant praise for delivering the speech without reading it, exclaiming that John was really communicating with his audience now.
Angela Marsh served as Table Topics Master, and posed questions taken from her “jar of good vibes.” Members talked about inspirational quotes and how they relate to their own experiences.
Norris Bass served as the General Evaluator, and gave a thorough review of the meeting. We had no bias flags raised today. Summer Murphy served as the Timer, and reported on times for the prepared speeches, Table Topics responses and speech evaluations. Greg Sutton served as Grammarian, and gave a detailed report on the filler words and phrases he noted for each member.
The next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting will be at 7 am, June 17 EST on Zoom.
The roles for that meeting are as follows:
Toastmaster: Summer
Speaker 1: Norris
Speaker 2: Tim
Table Topics: Amelya
Gen. Evaluator: Savannah
Speaker 1 Eval: Angela
Speaker 2 Eval: Alvin
Timer: Dave
Grammarian: Anu
Invite someone you know to start their journey toward becoming a better communicator and a more effective leader at Sunrise Toastmasters!
