Welcome to the fourth March
meeting blog. On this day, we had 3
guests gracing our meeting room.
Pauline was our toastmaster and conducted a streamlined and fully
featured meeting. She quoted the
literalist Steven Wright: “Everywhere
is within walking distance if you have the time.”
The GAT(e) team was: Anisha as Grammarian (Resilient), Dave P. as
the Ah Counter, Jim as the Timer.
Grace
was our first speaker of the afternoon. She completed the 1st
project (The Icebreaker) of the
Competent Communicator Manual within 6 minutes. Her speech title was "Talking About Myself".
Grace offered her history and journey
of her life so far. In China, she was a Computer Guide for a hospital serving
the staff and also maintained the Software System for 11,000 users. She met the man
who was to be her husband there. He not only swept her off her feet, but swept
her to the United States within two months of being married. She had to start
to learn English.
Grace is a helper and
offers positive feelings to others. With these motivators, she trained and
became a realtor.
Jean
was her evaluator. Jean liked
that Grace showed a big smile,
friendliness and warmth. Prior to the onset of her speech, she showed great poise in
waiting for the Timer to start the timing. Reenacting dialog between Grace and
her husband to be was a highlight of this talk. Jean suggested that she slow
down her speaking pace for greater audience comprehension and impact of her
words.
Our second speaker, Kimberley, also completed her first speech, from the Competent
Communicators Manual (The Icebreaker)
within 6 minutes. The name of her speech was "Life Begins At The End Of Your Comfort Zone".
Kimberley was born in a small town near
Quebec, Ontario in Canada. Binoculars were a standard product used to find out
the latest neighborhood goings-on.
She describes her mother as enduring narcolepsy
and was a striking teacher of unconventional uses of household products: Toilet
papering a house or the precise amount of dish soap to introduce to a town
fountain.
Her dad was an Entrepreneur who traveled
regularly and unfortunately passed away last summer.
In her mid-twenties, she moved to Vancouver,
B.C. and spent some time surviving climbing rock faces. This was followed by a
stint as a Sea Kayak Guide. In one anecdote, she described her Kayak partner
Steve, as a man with odd reactions. A Bear sighting put him to sleep, yet
walking on and crunching a shell frightened him into wakefulness.
Later, she used a Hydrophone to simulate whale
sounds to other whales. A Baby Orca was curious and came to her, followed by a
male Orca, who looked her in the eye and splashed her with his tail.
She is now happily living (perhaps more
sedately) in Seattle.
Linda
was her evaluator. Linda liked
that Kimberley talked so openly about her background and threaded it with
humor. There was comprehension and suspense while describing the Orca incident
and the actual sound effect of a crunched shell was very effective. She liked
that Kimberley seeks out adventures
to have, grappling with nature. She suggested that a longer conclusion was
needed, perhaps involving her dad’s journeys to tie back to her opening
description of her family.
Linda won the best Evaluator award today.
Our third speaker, David A, completed the 6th speech from the Competent
Communicators Manual (Use Vocal Variety)
within 8 minutes. The name of his speech was "Have You Had A Pete Carroll Moment Lately?".
David started out recreating the Seahawks superbowl
cliffhanger atmosphere to bring out that we all could make use of a “Do Over
Rule” to neutralize catastrophic mistakes.
His daughter was a soccer player and injured
her lower back late last year. She was a model patient: wore a lower back brace
to help mend the stress fracture there and took part in physical therapy. At a
suitable time, she was weaned from the brace and the physical therapy. While
she was given permission to go back into sports, her doctor suggested a sport
whose season is just commencing, rather than one that is already in full swing.
She joined her team to play a semi-final soccer
game (Dave was the Team Coach). She played OK but had limited stamina. The team
won. So she played also in the Final game and while completing a penalty kick,
she re-injured herself in her lower back (but ultimately, much less seriously).
Dave was aghast at what happened and was
overwhelmed with remorse.
Dave A. was voted
best Speaker.
Naser was his evaluator. He felt
completely involved in the speech. The sports descriptions were very realistic.
There was great vocal variety. He suggested that Dave provide dramatic pauses
as in: “In the blink of an eye” – pause –
“it was over”.
Amritha was the
Table Topics Master today. She prepared in advance several printed questions
that volunteers were asked to come up and answer.
Sue F. responded to “What makes a person
beautiful?” : Talk, respect, offering feedback, and choosing to meet a lot of
people for finding beauty.
Anisha responded to “If you want to
offer a message to many people, what would it be?”: push yourself beyond your
comfort to grow; learn when to fight, flee or freeze.
Barb responded to “What life lesson
did you learn the hard way?”: Her first husband was unsuitable by popular
acclaim, but she married him anyway to prove that everyone was wrong.
Barb was voted best Table
Topics Speaker
Our humorist was Sue F, who told a story about an
employee seeking a recommendation from his supervisor and how the supervisor’s
letter could be interpreted both favorably and unfavorably.
Attendees were: Linda,
Lynne, Jean, Jim, Robert, Barb, Dave P., Anisha, Preston, Pauline, Kimberley, Grace, Dave
A., Alice, Jessica, Naser, Kathy, Amritha, along with guests: Chizuko Y., Hao W. and Sue
F. Chizuko Y. joined our club today. Our membership total is now at 27.
~~~~~
Respectfully Submitted by Robert, the Secretary [Speak in print or comment]
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