Our phenomenal Vice President Membership, Anu Parvathaneni, opened this week’s meeting by noting that contemplation of all the world’s problems can make us feel very small and inconsequential, like a grain of sand. Remarking on how everyone in our group has contributed to making our club a safe space, Anu encouraged us all to think about what changes we can contribute to outside of Sunrise Toastmasters. She then led us into our usual minute of silence in support of the Black Lives Matter movement before turning over the meeting to the Toastmaster of the day, Tim Murphy.
We had 11 members in attendance. Tim chose newb (short for “newbie”), meaning a novice or newcomer, as his word of the day, and encouraged members to work that word into their talks. Tim then turned the meeting over to the only speaker of the day, Savannah Murphy.
Savannah presented a project from the Engaging Humor pathway. In her speech titled “Super Power” Savannah talked about her challenges with maintaining focus when trying to complete projects. She discussed the various aspects of that challenge and the different tools that she has used to try and work around her inability to stay focused. Savannah then shared that her “super power” is the antithesis of that challenge, an ability to hyper focus and understand concepts and learn material in a very condensed time frame. Unfortunately, that super power is not reliable, and so Savannah has discovered that she must work within the confines of her ability to focus, much like a sailboat traveling with the wind. John Doggett served as Savannah’s evaluator, noting that she started with questions for the audience, drawing them into her speech. John also complimented Savannah on not using notes, and her relaxed, laughing and animated delivery style.
In a most unusual turn, we only had one speaker this week. In place of a second speaker, Toastmaster Tim invited each member in attendance to spend 30 seconds to a minute talking about what they are grateful for, and how they are nurturing that or passing it forward. Our members expressed gratitude for a variety of things including self-awareness, family and pets, and living in a place with resources, opportunities and genuine people.
Tanuja Reddy served as Table Topics Master, and challenged the group with some interesting topic questions. Members talked about smells that reminded them of summer, busy May calendars, Mother’s Day considerations, Friday the 13th superstitions, being a better boss to themselves, and their idea of paradise.
Norris Bass served as the General Evaluator, and gave a thorough review of the meeting. Summer Murphy filled in as the Timer, and reported on times for the prepared speeches, Table Topics responses and speech evaluations. Amelya Black served as Grammarian, commenting on members’ filler words as well as some memorable quotes from speakers.
The next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting will be at 7 am, May 20 EST on Zoom.
The roles for that meeting are as follows:
Toastmaster: Greg
Speaker 1: Maria (1st Icebreaker)
Speaker 2: Alvin
Table Topics: Tim
Gen. Evaluator: Tanuja
Speaker 1 Eval: Angela
Speaker 2 Eval: Kerstin
Timer: Anu
Grammarian: Nereida
Share the love! Invite friends, family and co-workers to join us as a guest at our next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting.
