Toastmaster, Savannah Murphy, opened the meeting with an acknowledgement to the struggles we all go through and around the world. Savannah referenced the disturbing incident that occurred in New York City during the week involving police shoot out in a predominantly black neighborhood over a $3.00 subway fair and possession of pocketknife (legal in New York City). The incident highlighted the failure of the system to protecting people from such senseless act that could have been prevented. She called for a moment of silence and invited us to consider the crime policies in our areas, the kind of training provided to the officers, and to anticipate things that might occur.
Reminding us of the bias we experience and demonstrated in speaking situations, Savannah asked us to hold a peace sign when recognizing a bias, acknowledge the speaker and move on, in order to help each other become better speakers.
Toastmaster for the day, Tim Murphy, leading the session while still visiting New York, related to the shared incident and the surreal experience of learning about the incident while visiting the city. Tim introduced the roles for the day, and then the “Word of the Day” (WOD), “Chockablock,” meaning, “brought close together,” or “very full i.e., shelves chockablock with books.” Never having heard the use of this word before, Tim was pleasantly surprised to hear a stranger mention this word during a casual conversation in New York. In addition, Tim shared his theme for the day, the notion of moving from “I have to” vs “I get to” in order to practice being grateful.
Savannah introduced first speaker of the day, Styles Burr, to deliver his pathway speech, “How superstition exists in sports and in life, and Yet not a very successful approach to life.” Relating to his own experience as a former athlete, Styles shared about the great length he went to practice his superstition of putting his left skate first over his right skate and the feeling of a loss or a pending catastrophe if he did not follow his superstition. Referencing the classic song Superstition by Stevie Wonder, he also shared his observations of others practicing their superstitions and how those superstitions gave them a sense of control and an extra layer of confidence in themselves. Leading with the quote ‘uncertainty leads to much more fulfilling outcome than otherwise,’ Styles concluded his speech with the idea that we believe in things we don’t understand and that it is not rewarding to follow superstitions. Superstitions are comfortable yet crippling.
Savannah shared her feedback on Style’s performance on what he did well and where he can improve. She was grateful for receiving an introduction to the speech and the project he is working on prior to the meeting as it helped her with the evaluations. Weaving the song, Superstition, by Stevie Wonder into the speech was clever and wished Styles had sung the song to add more color to his speech. Savannah commended on the explanations and examples offered on the topic to provide more insights on superstitions to familiarize the topic for the audience, and the use of quote, uncertainty leads to more fulling outcomes, to show relevance of superstitions in our lives.
Summer Murphy then introduced second speaker for the day, Hema Kellett, to present her pocket speech, titled, “My life in the last few days. I am in” to showcase the myriads of engagements and choices she had to make to get through the week and how making an affirmation, “I am in” helped her commit to what she was doing and push through the tasks. Using the analogy of challenges, choices, and outcome, Hema shared the various engagements she chose to participate in given the challenges she had to get through and accepting the outcomes as they occurred. Weaving through various activities by choice made her happy because she felt grateful “to be doing them” rather than “had to do them.” Her closing aligned with the theme of the day “I have to” vs “I get to” shared by Tim, in that when we make a choice to do something, we are more likely to accept the outcome and ourselves.
Summer applauded Hema for showing up and giving her speech. Pocket speech is a skill organized without any preparation or practice. Summer appreciated Hema for taking us all on her journey and making us feel the challenges, and the pressure come through in her voice, body language, and doing what needed in order to take care of herself. Summer commended Hema on staying with the allocated time and suggested maintaining eye contact with audience when thinking of what to say next versus looking away from the screen, to improve.
Tina Joe then led the table topics ranging from personal, professional, philosophical, to community, and urged members to expand on them using the theme and word of the day into their speeches. Members shared many personal examples on the topics and were strategic in using their personal experiences and showcase on the lessons learned, skills used every day, imperfections they are grateful for, community they find inspiring, and more, in their short speeches.
General Evaluator, John Doggett, appreciated the smooth running of the session, and clarified on the use of “guys” in his table topic presentation to clear any bias perceived when addressing the audience, and encouraged everyone to continue to watch for use of biased words, statements, or thoughts in our conversations and presentations. John highlighted key thoughts or ideas from every member presented to acknowledge what they did well before transitioning to the timer.
Timer, Kendra, used her colorful objects to give us time cues, and gave a quick overview of speech times to show how we performed with our speech times. Grammarian, Tim, gave a shout out to Styles and Hema for their clean speeches, commended participants on referencing the word of the day into their speeches, and reminded us to be cognizant of using ‘ahs,’ and ‘ums,’ as fillers.
Toastmaster for the day, Tim, acknowledged all speakers on their participations and previewed the roles for next week before transitioning to Savannah for her closing. Savannah officially adjourned the meeting with her closing remarks.
The next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting will be at 7 a.m. EST on September 27, 2024. If you would like to join our meeting as a guest, contact us for the meeting link.
Toastmaster: John
Speaker 1: Summer
Speaker 2: Tim
Table topics: Dave
Gen Evaluator: Abdulrahman
Evaluator 1: Kerstin
Evaluator 2: Open
Timer: Anu
Grammarian: Stiles
