Fast Forward/Rewind – September 27, 2024
Toastmaster & President Kerstin Haase opened the meeting welcoming our guest, and shared a family story acknowledging education is not accessible for everyone seeking it. We shared a minute of silence in support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Kerstin also reminded us that one of the ways to bring change as Toastmasters, is to continue to acknowledge the unconscious bias we may demonstrate when speaking and encouraged us to support each other to become competent speakers by addressing those biases.
Toastmaster of the day and new membership officer, John Doggett, greeted members and our guest as we started around of introductions to welcome our guest Danny who is a former Toastmaster. John gave an overview of the roles for the meeting and shared the “Word of the Day” (WOD), “Celebration,” defined as:
- to perform (a sacrament or solemn ceremony) publicly and with appropriate rites.
- to honor (an occasion, such as a holiday) especially by solemn ceremonies or by refraining from ordinary business.
John shared he was celebrating the 28th year wedding anniversary with his wife, which was the inspiration for selecting the Word of the Day.
Toastmaster Kerstin introduced the first speaker, Toastmaster Summer Murphy, who delivered an exceptional speech defining goals for the next pathway and embarking on a journey, becoming an author of children books advocating for transgender awareness.
Toastmaster Kendra Hiatt introduced our second speaker, Toastmaster Tim Murphy. Tim shared a thought-provoking speech about the Happiness University, and the life raft this free course became during the COVID pandemic.
Toastmaster Dave Burr led the table topics session and engaged fellow Toastmasters members with questions, inviting them to respond on their personal experiences and thoughts on mindful routines.
General Evaluator Abdulrahman Albazie applauded the smooth running of the meeting and reflected on the continued learning and growing together as Toastmasters. The breakfast of campions portion of the meeting began. Toastmasters Kerstin and Kendra shared advice and complements during the speaker evaluations, to help our speakers grow on their journey to greatness.
Timer, Anu Parvathaneni, sharedspeaking times for all participants and Grammarian, Savannah Murphy pointed to the occasional use of filler words to help us grow as Toastmasters.
Toastmaster John recapped the roles for next week and thanked everyone for going with the flow this morning, before passing the meeting to Kerstin for her closing remarks.
The next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting will be at 7 a.m. EST on October 4th, 2024. If you would like to join our meeting as a guest, contact us for the meeting link. Roles for next week are:
Toastmaster: Savannah
Speaker 1: Abdulrahman
Speaker 2: Tina Joe
Table Topic Master: Kendra
GE: Tim
Eval 1: Hema
Eval 2: Stiles
Timer: Summer
Grammarian: Dave
