Sunrise Toastmasters, Greensboro, NC

Hello Sunrise Toastmasters Members and guests! Welcome back from the Thanksgiving holiday.

Rewind from December 4

This meeting was held at Moses Cone Memorial Hospital in the North Tower (Room NT102A) and started at 7:00 AM with 10 members present.

President Summer Murphy opened our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. She then reminded everyone about the Special Toastmasters End of Year Holiday Celebration Meeting at 7:00am, December 18^th , where club members and guests alike can enjoy a catered continental breakfast and all the festive joy this season has to offer. Be watching for a communication and request for RSVPs for this meeting very soon. Next, she handed it over to Esther Khoury to lead us as Toastmaster for the morning. She called on us to consider change. From the minute to the momentous, users adapt this word (and all its synonyms) to fit a contextual meaning. Therefore, Esther creatively challenged the use of this word and any of its synonyms as the Word of the Day.

The first speaker, Dave Burr, completed an advanced project on his way to the Distinguished Toastmaster™ certification, titled ‘Autumn Harvest.’ In his evocative lament of the recent, horrific mass shootings, Dave commended James Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, for his responsive leadership to the Port Arthur massacre in the 1990s. Howard – who, by bringing stringency to firearm ownership and use, removed 2 million unlawfully-acquired firearms from his country’s streets in 6 years’ time – presents a valuable lesson that America must consider moving forward. The second speaker, Phil Stringer, surprised the audience with a pocket speech about ‘Honeybees.’ As a beekeeper-in-training, Phil exalted the remarkable insect for its intrigue, tenacity, and vital role in agriculture. The audience shamelessly hopes his appreciation for beekeeping yields tasty results for purchase in the months ahead!

Summer Murphy led the club in an intellectual Table Topics themed around ‘change.’ The club enjoyed 5 rounds of table topics before moving into evaluations. Thanks to Lolita Henley and Walt Abele for serving as evaluators, to Jenna Willingham for evaluating the meeting in general, and to Lisa Zimmerschied for serving as Timer/Grammarian.

Just before the club adjourned, Vice President of Education Esther Khoury introduced four new, exciting changes coming to Sunrise Toastmasters in 2016. In short, the club can anticipate (1) a three-speaker agenda, (2) an improved mentorship program, (3) special TableTopics-themed meetings, and more! 

Fast-Forward to December 11

Please see the slated roles below