Toastmaster Savannah Murphy opened the meeting on behalf of President Kerstin Haase. Welcoming the members to the session, Savannah acknowledged society’s continued struggle against systemic racism, and reminded us of the challenges faced by multigenerational families, especially, in housing segregations, as an example. She explained that in the need to be around people who look like us, we move into more segregated communities, and once created, we are less likely to move, unless we are unhappy. Thus, we reinforce certain biases. Parable of Polygons suggests that we can create the idea of desegregating our communities to foster diversity by moving into more desegregated communities.
Toastmaster Savannah called for a moment of silence to recognize the struggles by people of color, reinforced the need to support each other become better speakers, and help address our biases by holding up peace signs, acknowledge the bias, and continue. She reminded us that by becoming aware of our biases, we avoid unintentionally alienating our audiences.
Toastmaster of the day, Stiles Burr, greeted members, shared the agenda for the session, and introduced the “Word of the Day” (WOD), “Supernova,” meaning “the explosion of a very large star in which the star temporarily gives off up to one billion times more energy than the sun.” Stiles then called upon Hema Kellett to introduce the first speaker of the day.
Hema introduced Dave Burr, to deliver his satirical speech about marketing gone out of control, titled, ‘Clearly, There’s a Correct Choice? Sort of, May be?” Highlighting the power marketers have over their consumers, Dave explained two different products, by juxtaposing their strengths in terms of natural versus processed, their nutritional value, how we consume them, and ways marketers reinforce the nutritional value of processed food over a natural ingredient. Using clever rhetorical questions, Dave emphasized the need for us to think about what we consume, how we receive the marketing messages, and make an educated decision accordingly.
Hema appreciated Dave’s inspiring speech revisiting our understanding of what is being marketed in terms of what is said versus what is not, what is correct and what is not. He reminded us that looks can be deceptive and that we ought to use our discretion and knowledge when we decide on making purchases based on what is marketed. Hema commended Dave’s extemporaneous delivery, demonstrating excellent grasp of the content, vocal variety, and vocal variations, coupled with appropriate hand gestures. Overall, it was an exceptional speech with a well thought out structure and research on the content.
Tina Joe introduced second speaker of the day, Summer Murphy, to delivery her pocket speech titled, “Navigating the Gatekeepers.” Summer’s pocket speech was a personal anecdote based on her own experience of wanting to return purchased good only to miss the 30-day window. Opening with a rhetorical question, she captured her audiences’ attention for the duration of her speech by navigating various ways to get around corporate policies rather than skirt around them, by being authentic vs manipulative when interacting with customer service professionals, by researching others’ approach in similar situations, and finally, by sharing a note of thanks and positive review of the services received.
Tina Joe acknowledged Summer’s well-prepared speech that was interesting and beneficial. Pointing to the detailed explanations offered, Tina commended Summer’s genuine approach to sharing her personal experience with credibility and care for her audience. Summer showed her natural ability as a speaker by keeping a calm and composed demeanor and maintained appropriate facial expressions and hand gestures throughout her speech.
Savannah Murphy then led the table topics session using the word of the day Supernova and engaged members with space and astronauts’ metaphors including one-liners, action-based statements, awe inspiring pictures, new and exciting things found on Mars, etc. Members responded with equal enthusiasm and energy and made personal connections to the topics discussed.
General Evaluator Norris Bass thanked everyone for sharing their personal experiences, appreciated the thought-provoking speeches, the meaningful and useful evaluations, and finally, for building speeches based on previous presentations and speakers. Norris expressed pride in noting the fact that the more seasoned were the speeches, the harder it was to evaluate with a suggestion to improve, since speakers had done an exceptional job overall.
Timer, Tim Murphy, highlighted generous speakers with their times and sharedspeech times for the remaining participants. Grammarian, John Doggett,pointed to the occasional use of fillers ‘ah,’ and ‘ums,’ and commended participants on referencing the word of the day into their speeches.
Toastmaster Stiles then thanked everyone for their participation and reviewed the roles for next week before transitioning to Savannah for closing. Savannah officiallyadjournedthe meeting with her closing remarks.
The next Sunrise Toastmasters meeting will be at 7 a.m. EST on September 13, 2024. If you would like to join our meeting as a guest, contact us for the meeting link.
The roles for the next meeting are as follows:
Toastmaster: Tina Joe
Speaker 1: Saraswathi
Speaker 2: Kendra
Table topics: Open
Gen Evaluator: Tim
Evaluator 1: Stiles
Evaluator 2: Summer
Timer: Abdulrahman
Grammarian: Norris
