“Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will
come.” ~~ Chinese Proverb
Welcome to the second meeting in August blog. Today, we had 2 guests attend our
meeting.
Linda was our toastmaster of the day.
The
GAT(e) team was: Grammarian – Dave, Ah
Counter - Julie, and
Sepideh as the Timer.
Jessica
was our first speaker.
She completed Speech#1 Ice Breaker from the Competent Communication Manual. The
title of her speech was “Deep River – A Journey with History.” Her speech
duration was 6 minutes.
Jessica started her
speech describing in a very picturesque manner the place where she moved with
her family at 7 which soon became her home – a small town called Deep River
located near Connecticut River. She shared with us few historically significant
facts about Deep River - the oldest and largest parade of fife and drum
participants is held here and the Yale University (one of the foremost
institutions of higher education in US) was founded in this small town.
As she grew up, she soon
found her first love – history. She pursued a degree in history, became the
president of 4 different organizations and at the time was also the youngest
member of Deep River Historical Society. Her desire to study Chinese History
brought her to Seattle. She is currently a student of UW, Seattle.
Towards the end, she
mentions that her history is still a mystery. Deep River, her home town,
instilled in her a sense of passion and curiosity and made her who she is
today.
Jessica was voted the best speaker.

Barb was voted the best evaluator.
Our
second speaker was Alice. She
offered her Speech 7 from the Competent Communication Manual– Research Your
Topic. The title of her speech was: “Fear Inside Out”. She completed her speech
within 7 minutes.
After
mentioning how humans in general tend to avoid pain and unpleasant feelings,
she described how sometimes when she signs up for a speaking role, questions
start popping, fear starts talking from within and tries to find reasons and
excuses for not attending the meeting.
She
took the example of the movie Inside Out in which human emotions are simplified
and created into characters. Through the book “Inside Out” she and her son had
a great learning – whatever fun and adventurous things fear says not to do, instead
of listening to fear one should do the thing.
Pointing
to the advantages that fear provides, she mentioned that fear could be
considered as an indicator to the path to follow, it could be our ally if used
correctly and can transcend to joy if one tackles a challenge long enough.

Amritha was our Table Topics
Master today. She chose few pictures of products and services from magazines.
The speakers had to try and sell them.

Naser tried to persuade us
to get geico insurance. He involved the audience by asking them if anyone was
interested in saving money and why. He mentioned that by switching to geico one
could save money and get that dream vacation.

Dan Dan tried to sell us a
ticket on an airlines. She spoke about how airlines enables us to travel from
one corner of the world to another and see various places. She mentions that for
people living far away from their home country travelling in airlines is both economical
and time saving.
Naser was voted the best
table topics speaker.
Robert was our humorist today.
While an elderly couple were out for a walk in a park, a pigeon flies over the wife’s
head and leaves a deposit on her head. Feeling disgusted, she screams for a
toilet paper for which the husband replies “Why now? The pigeon is probably a
half mile away.”
Our members attending numbered 15 and were: Alice, Amritha, Andrew, Barb, Dan Dan, Dave,
Devi, Jessica, Julie, Jung, Linda, Naser, Pauline, Robert and Sep.
We had 2 guests
attend our meeting today and were: Jan.
and Yasmin.
Our active membership
total currently is at 35.
Respectfully
Submitted,
Amritha
Imandi, Secretary
Public
Speaking Northwest #9406
I missed Jessica's talk and am pleased you shared it in your blog, Amritha. Finding out what happened when I couldn't attend it is the next best thing to being there. Thank you so much.
ReplyDeleteAnother great meeting described in vivid prose by Robert. Well done.
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