Sunday, August 31, 2014

August 26, 2014 Theme: Judging

Barb was our toastmaster today and she picked the theme "Judging" because we were having our Table Topics contest. She shared that the most important thing about judging is fairness, which is using the same criteria and standards in scoring each of contestant's performance. 

Before the contest started, Anna was our first speaker. She gave a toast as the maid of honor at her best friend’s, her sister’s, wedding. She pretended we were the wedding party with the bride and groom. Anna did a fine job expressing her happiness as she gave her blessings to the newlyweds.

We had 3 contestants for the Table Topics competition, Robert, Linda and Jim. Each of them got the same topic and gave a speech on ‘what natural phenomenon they would like to see if they could witness it in a safe place.’ They all did a good job. Robert won the second place award and our winner, Jim, will represent our club and move on to the Area Table Topic Contest that that will be hosted on Sept 17th.

We had two guests, Sherry and Adriana. We were very glad to have them and hope they can come back in the future. 

Thursday, August 21, 2014

August 19th, 2014 Theme: Health Tips

Linda was our toastmaster today. She picked the theme "Health Tips.” Linda had observed her friends' different life styles as they returned to school from their different countries. This made her look into some helpful ways for improving people's health with both food and lifestyle tips. 

Barb was our first speaker. She did the 1st Project from the Advanced Manual "Interpretive Reading" and her title was "The Cat That Walked by Himself". The story was from the book The Just So Stories written by Rudyard Kipling. Barb used great vocal variety to closely draw our attention to the wild cat who walked by himself.

Jean was our second speaker. She finished the 4th Project from the Competent Communication Manual by sharing how to use the Competent Leadership Manual. Jean showed us how our duty roster, our gold star chart, and our Competent Leadership Manual work together. Her goal was to help us get leadership credits for each of our weekly roles.


Jerry was our third speaker. He finished his 9th speech from the Competent Communication Manual. Through his power point demonstration, Jerry showed us different categories of fire and what type of extinguishers we need to put them out. He noted that the fire extinguisher outside our room at the Seattle Times Building is a universal extinguisher and can put out any type of fire.

We had one guest, Grace, who was invited by Alice. She enjoyed our meeting very much and decided to join our club. So let’s welcome Grace for being part of our toastmaster family! 







Thursday, August 14, 2014

August 12th, 2014 Theme: Anniversary


Jim was our toastmaster today and he picked "Anniversary" as the theme for the meeting. He spoke of some special anniversaries such as everyone's birthday, and to him particularly today is the wedding anniversary with Jean, congratulations! Also Jim did research on anniversaries that have a positive significance such as Columbus finding the new land in 1492 and a negative anniversary such as 9/11 in 2001.


Alice was our only speaker. She talked about her favorite restaurant "Tao Ban Woo" in Taiwan and what she observed after many visits that made this restaurant successful. She believed that this restaurant not only has yummy food, prompt customer service, and clean environment, but also simple pricing on the menu and unique company constitution that set it apart from its competitors. 



We had a good time sharing our experience and comments on different anniversaries during the Table Topics time. We're glad to see Jerry again and have him share his 25 years of service anniversary as a fireman in Bothell. 

We had one guest Damian join us; we would like to see him return in the future. 

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

August 5th, 2014 Theme: Summer Strolls- The HooDoos

Jean was our toastmaster today. She picked "Summer Strolls along the HooDoos" as her theme. She told us the formation of Bryce Canyon, according to scientists, is based on centuries of erosion.  According to an Indian legend, the god, Coyote, froze the selfish people into the tall circular rocks known as the "HooDoos."

Kathy was our first speaker. She finished her #4 speech in the Technical Advanced Manual. Her topic was about chemostat production of ALD403, which is very technical to her field of study. She pretended the audience was her coworkers and did a fine job reporting her result on chemostat research. 

Linda was our second speaker; she also brought her cousin Jinhao as our guest. Last week they went to Wild Waves Amusement Park and rode on the roller coaster. This gave her the idea for her speech describing how different the roller coaster is in China where Linda came from. She also spoke about the roller coaster as a metaphor for life with its ups and downs.

Like the word of the day, we hope everyone has a good time enjoying the green and freshness of these summer days.


Friday, August 1, 2014

July 29th, 2014 Theme: Ice


Barb was our toastmaster today. She picked "Ice" as the theme and compared winter ice, ice skating, and breaking the ice to our toastmaster term “The Ice Breaker". It is the first speech new toastmasters give in the Competent Communication Manual. We see it as a sign of accomplishment when a new member ‘breaks the ice’ by giving their “Ice Breaker.”

Sue was our first speaker. She accomplished her 1st project, “The Ice Breaker” which was to introduce herself to our club members. She shared stories of when she was 16 and made us laugh about her "adventure" of raising 36 chickens and getting a puppy with the money she earned. 


Robert was our second speaker. He finished his #2 speech in the Advanced Interpretive Reading Manual. His goal was to convey the emotions of 2 poems by recognizing their rhyme, cadence and rhythm. Robert used humor as he read about a strange case involving a family tree.


Today we had three guests join us and two of them were family members of our club members. We were very happy to see our club member, Linda, bring her dad who came to visit her from China. Our second guest was Alice’s son, Ivan. Our third guest, Linda, believes Toastmasters is a great place to improve her English. We hope she will become part of our toastmaster family.