Nov 3rd 2015 Theme: Did you know….

“While necessity may be the mother of invention, ignorance is definitely the father of adventure!” ~~ Unknown

Welcome to the first meeting in November blog.

             Lynne was our toastmaster of the day.

The GAT(e) team comprised of: Grammarian – Dave, Ah Counter – Jingly, Timer – Jean.

Our first speaker was Amritha. She completed her Speech #8 from the CC Manual - Get comfortable with visual aids. Her speech was titled “Answers to my daughter’s questions.” Duration of her speech: 7-9 mins.

Amritha started her speech with a conversation that she had with her children Shreya and Yash about exhaust gases, how they pollute our environment and what people could do to help reduce their impact on environment. The second part of her talk was an attempt to answer Shreya’s question “How different would the world be if everyone drove an electric vehicle (EV)?” 

She shared her experience of how by owning an EV, her family not only gets 80% zero emission miles; it tremendously benefits them monetarily. Towards the end of her talk, she encourages the listeners to give EVs a try if they are in the car market to purchase a new car. By doing so, one can contribute to keeping our planet cleaner for us and our many future generations.

Linda was her evaluator. She appreciated the information that Amritha shared about EVs using visual aids along her family stories. As a suggestion, she offered her not to refer to paper notes and bring in move body movements.

Our second speaker was Jessica D. She completed her Speech #5 from the Competent Communicator Manual – Your body speaks. The title of her speech was “The benefits of stretching.” Duration –  5 to 7 mins.

Jessica started her talk by sharing with us her personal story of how she was benefited by stretching. About a year ago, she fell on her spine while hiking with her friends. Though the impact was minor on the day she fell, once she resumed her physical activities a year later, she started experiencing a mysterious shocking feeling on her right thigh which grew in intensity and eventually turned into numbing pains.

A visit to her chiropractor solved her problem. After twisting her like a pretzel to correct her spine, and massaging her thigh, Jessica was recommended a stretching exercise to be performed every day for 2 mins. Along with a bunch of vitamins, and the stretching exercises, Jessica completely recovered from her shocking pain within 2 weeks. Towards the end of her talk, she taught the audience 2 stretching exercises that we could benefit from.

Barb was her evaluator. Barb gave kudos to Jessica’s organization of her speech, facial expressions, body movements - all incorporated with lots of humor.

Both Jessica and Barb were voted best in their respective categories.

Julie was our table topics master of the day. The table topics speakers - Dan Dan, Naser, Warden L and Robert shared their opinion about the questions that were given to them.

When asked to pick one member from our club who has inspired her the most, Dan Dan spoke how every member of our club has inspired her a lot. Since the question was to pick one, she chose Amritha. She finds Amritha’s personal stories weaved into her talks with the moral values very inspiring.

Naser shared his opinion about how success is different for every person. Just by taking part in club activities, one is successful from a toastmaster’s perspective. He mentioned about one toastmaster in his previous club who was played an important role in getting Naser back to the club meetings again and again.

Warren Louis shared his goals with toastmasters which is a recent development for him. Having retired from Microsoft few years back and having given up few of his volunteering activities, he is looking for opportunities where he can talk in front of a group of people as he did in his work earlier, possibly provide education and develop new friendships along the way.

Robert shared his views on what he loves most about toastmasters. He admires the persistent nature of members who show up consistently. He shares how he has developed one to one and one to many friendships over the course of last few years.  Also, he finds it very gratifying to make others laugh which he successfully does during the meetings.

There were 15 members and 2 guests at the meeting.

Members:  Amritha, Barb, Chizuko, DanDan, Dave, Jean, Jessica D., Jim, Jingly, Julie, Linda, Lynne, Naser, Pauline, and Robert.

Guests: Emily H. and Warren L.

Our active membership total currently is at 29.

Respectfully Submitted,

Amritha Imandi, Secretary

Public Speaking Northwest #9406