Minutes from Friday, May 30, 2025
Sunrise Toastmasters
This week’s meeting started with a warm welcome from our President, Toastmaster Kerstin Haase. She mentioned the Big Beautiful Bill that passed by a slim margin in the U.S. House of Representatives and the visual demonstration by one of the speakers in the House as to what $6 per day for food represented, a can of beans and salsa. She noted how passage of this bill could disproportionately affect people of color, leading us into our moment of silence in recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement and the ongoing struggle for racial equality. She concluded with reminders such as use of the bias flag as a tool toward becoming more conscientious speakers before turning it over to our Toastmaster of the Day, Toastmaster Tim Murphy. TIm welcomed our guest Kehinde Eniola and led us through a round of introductions. He introduced a dark word as our word of the day, “malevolent,” defined as having, showing, or arising from intense ill will.
Toastmaster Kendra Hiatt introduced our first speaker, Toastmaster Savannah Murphy who delivered a speech entitled “Milgram and Malevolence”. Savvy asked the question, have you ever read about an event in history and been left asking yourself, how or why this could have occurred? Referencing historical events through modern day and global examples of atrocity, how do regular people get pulled into the mindset? The social scientist Stanley Milgram considered this topic, finding unexpected and disappointing results through social experiments which routinely showed 65% of participants committed unbelievable acts but dropped to 10-20% when there was support or ability to be more clever in avoiding it. Savvy concluded by reminding us of tools we can use in the act of resistance- be careful and gather your supporters and when necessary drag your feet.
Kerstin introduced our second speaker, Toastmaster Bettina Ross who spoke on the topic “Life be Life’ing but You have the Keys”. Tina Joe reminded us that at times when the world feels like it’s spinning like a top, you have the tools to manage it. She relayed recent challenges she had experienced that led to a personal revelation that she had let someone “hijack my keys!” Tina Joe reminded us that we need to not allow ourselves to be dragged down by the past, but to actively seek out good moments and be grateful for daily victories. Power is found in how you choose to respond to your challenges… no matter what life be life’ing!
Table Topics was led by Toastmaster Dave Burr whose questions thematically incorporated our word of the day. Kim Robinson noted the malevolent character of Scar in “The Lion King” ends up being a sympathetic character in the newer movie “Scar”, and that we do not know the challenges people may have experienced that led them down dark paths. Toastmaster Matthew Choate felt that he could improve his hometown by connecting with the local government to improve infrastructure for mountain biking and cycling and would benefit the community as well. Toastmaster Stiles Burr shared that if he could go back in time to change an event, he would be a better support for a friend who was bullied, but also noted that he was taking the action he could now by reconnecting with him. Toastmaster Summer Murphy described her work experience as a woman in the Air Force, serving from 1986-90, and the many challenges she faced as a result of this.
We then moved onto the Breakfast of Champions, speech and meeting evaluations. Summer served as our General Evaluator, turning it over to Kendra to complete Speaker 1 evaluation and then to Kerstin to complete Speaker 2 evaluation. Stiles served as Timer and Matthew as Grammarian.
Food for thought:
It’s not Toastmasters, it’s the people (that get me here).
Malevolence is great for theater, not so great for real life.
The anchors that keep you grounded when storms are raging.
In the words of Mr. Rogers, find the helpers.
Roles for Friday, June 6, 2025 are as follows:
Toastmaster: Stiles
Speaker 1: Norris
Speaker 2: Anu
Table Topics: Matthew
Gen Evaluator: Kerstin
Evaluator 1: Tim
Evaluator 2: Tina Joe
Timer: Kendra
Grammarian: Savannah
