Our insightful President, Kelsey Long, opened this week’s meeting by pointing out that eradicating racism in this country is a slow process requiring lifetimes of work. She asked us all to consider the importance of that work as she led us into our usual minute of silence in acknowledgment and support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Kelsey then turned the meeting over to the Toastmaster, Norris Bass.
We had eleven members in attendance, and Norris started off by announcing the word of the day, “enrich.” Norris then asked all attendees to introduce themselves and remark on something that has enriched our lives, or a way we have enriched the lives of others. While all members acknowledged that family and friends enrich our lives, some other honorable mentions included music, the writings of Rebecca Solnit, and, of course, Sunrise Toastmasters.
The first prepared speech of the day was presented by Karen Rhodes, who did a Level 3 project in the Visionary Communications pathway. In her speech titled “Peak Plan” Karen described the path she followed to create a communication plan for her workout group. Using a three step process, Karen considered several options for completing this pathway project, and then allowed the distraction of wanting to form a local workout network subgroup to become her motivation for finishing both the Toastmasters project and her workout group task. Karen concluded by encouraging us all to not be deterred by roadblocks when trying to accomplish something, but to just take the first step. Her evaluator, Kelsey Long, acknowledged that difficult prompts can feel constricting and congratulated Karen on working around that to address the prompt and accomplish her goal. Kelsey also observed that the speech was relatable and engaging and Karen did a great job of making her audience feel comfortable, like she was having a conversation with each of us.
Our second speaker, Kerstin Haase, presented a Level 1 project from the Presentation Mastery pathway titled “A Servant’s Heart, Becoming Lions.” In this talk Kerstin explained how a priest, her sister and a TED Talk led her and her husband to join a service organization. She spoke of her search for a good way to serve and help others in her community, and the people, prayers and insights that lighted their way to the Lions Club, an international group where the motto is “Those who can help, should.” She finished her talk with a reminder for her audience that in order for us to enrich the lives of others, we have to show up. Anu Parvathaneni served as her evaluator, and mentioned how clear and precise Kerstin’s talk was, and noted that the organization of her talk made it very easy to follow. Anu also remarked on how comfortable Kerstin seemed with her audience and that she felt enriched having heard Kerstin’s speech and having the opportunity to be her evaluator.
John Doggett served as Table Topics Master, and challenged members with a variety of thought-provoking topic questions. Our members offered astute answers about how old they actually feel, how much they like to talk, how it’s better to fail than not to try, and how they wish they could save time like they save money to have for a rainy (or busy) day.
Dave Burr served as the General Evaluator, and gave a thorough review of the meeting, including a suggestion that we make the group feedback portion a formal timed event to allow everyone time to appropriately review the prepared speeches. Summer Murphy was the Timer this week, and reported on times for the prepared speeches, Table Topics responses and speech evaluation. Savannah Murphy, serving as Grammarian, observed that when members are delivering prepared speeches they hardly use any filler words, but members all need to be more conscious of their filler words when talking off the cuff.
The next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting will be at 7 am, October 8 EST on Zoom.
The roles for that meeting are as follows:
Toastmaster: Kelsey
Speakers: (1) Norris, (2) Dave
Table Topics: Savannah
Gen. Evaluator: Karen
Evaluators: (1) Alvin, (2) Tim
Timer: John
Grammarian: Nereida
Join us at the next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting where a diversity of voices and talents are enriching our lives as we become more skilled speakers and more confident leaders.
