Oct 27th 2015 Theme: Warming Winter Spices

“Fenugreek, is Tuesday's spice, when the air is green like mosses after rain.” ~~ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Author of The Mistress of Spices

Welcome to the fourth meeting in October blog.

              Amritha was our toastmaster today.

The GAT(e) team comprised of: Grammarian – Jan, Ah Counter – Anisha, Timer – Linda.

Chizuko was the first speaker of the day. She completed her Speech #3 from the CC Manual - Get to the point. Her speech was titled “What I learned about from my mother and grandmother about education.” Duration of her speech: 5-7 mins.

Chizuko started her talk by introducing us to her grandmother who passed away 30 years ago. A hard worker by nature, she spent her entire life at home taking care of her family and household. She never got  a chance to learn to read and write. For the same reason, she was eager and curious when she saw her grandkids do their homework.

Chizuko's mom received schooling until middle school and then was later sent to dress making classes. Though Chizuko's mom was eager to pursue further education, due to financial reasons her family chose to educate her brother (because parents had more expectation on boys in that generation).

Today, Chizuko and her siblings are well educated with everyone having a degree from a college or university. As a mother of 2 teenagers of this generation, she strongly believes that in order to rightly educate our children, apart from sending them to just the right school, we must impart the essential life skills that will help them be better human beings.

Chizuko was voted the best speaker.

Lynne was her evaluator. She gave kudos to Chizuko for her detailed talk and for having shared the idea of education in her family for 4 generations. Having met all the objectives of the project, delivered her talk with great sincerity and confidence.

Our second speaker was Julie. She completed her Speech

#2 from the Competent Communicator Manual - Organize your speech. The title of her speech was “I'm going to Brainwash You.” Duration –  5 to 7 mins.

Julie started her talk by engaging us in a simple exercise which empowers our mind to think positive happy thoughts. Apart from being a successful realtor, she is also a trained clinical hypnotherapist. This added credential allows her to understand the human mind better.

She made a power point presentation comparing the similarities between brainwashing and advertising. Both of the techniques persuade, influence, and manipulate people (using stories or visuals) to achieve their end results. She states that any successful ad uses all the cues of a highly trained hypnotherapist.

She encourages us to use the above mentioned techniques for our own personal benefit. She calls it self-directed advertising or re-brainwashing - sending repetitive messages to our brain of what we want in our life. With a continued morning and evening practice of re-brainwashing one can change the thoughts in our brain and thus get the results we want.

Jean was her evaluator. Jean praised Julie's effective use of power point presentation to make her point. The exercise at the beginning as well as the positive quote print out that Julie brought for audience was well appreciated.

Our third speaker was Liz. She completed her Speech #2 from the Competent Communicator Manual - Organize your speech. The title of her speech was “What are you attracting?” Duration –  5 to 7 mins.

Liz drew our attention to the mindset that we usually have at the beginning of each day. With a focus on more good thoughts, one can achieve more good days. She gave us a 3 step process, the continued practice of which can enable us to get what we want in life.

Step1: Ask - It is important to ask the universe what you wish to receive with lots of detail in it.

Step 2: Believe - Once your wish is put forward, believe that it is possible. Do not focus on the negative thoughts instead think positive.

Step 3: Receive - Give thanks to the universe as if you already have it.

By asking what you want with lots of details, believing in your wish and with an attitude of gratitude it is definitely possible to attract what you want in your life.

Jim was her evaluator. He congratulated Liz on her speech, through which she gave the audience precise points to follow. To make it more memorable, he suggested using an acronym ABC - Ask, Believe, and Catch.

Jim was voted the best evaluator.

Pauline was our table topics master of the day. She had a rather interesting way of conducting this section - playing “Dear Abby” (which is an advice column) with 2 of our speakers Anisha and Lynne. The other 2 table topics speakers Linda and Jessica D. were given random questions.

Anisha shares her opinion of how important art is in anyone's life. Without making it the primary income source, one can definitely pursue art. If art is all one wants to do, she advices to just follow one's passion. Though it gets tricky at times with failures on the way, one needs to stay persistent to achieve success.

Lynne advices to approach our older generation with respect. Instead of finding fault with one's mother-in-law, try to find the good things that she has. By either asking for help with dishes or recipes, it is wise to get her involved as well.

Linda shared her experience as an Asian living in US. Generally speaking, Asian students are assumed to be more studious esp. good at math. Also, there is a general idea that all Chinese play ping pong - whether everyone plays or not, they love to cheer for their country.

When asked to talk about a place that she would love to visit, Jessica D chose to go to Belize. She heard about Belize from her friend who after a vacation could not stop raving about the place. When she went online to search, she found that Belize was filled with beautiful forests and scenic beaches with breathtaking views.

Lynne was voted the best table topics speaker.

There were 18 members and 5 guests at the meeting.

Members: Amritha, Anisha, Barb, Chizuko, Devi, Grace, Jan, Jean, Jessica D., Jim, Jingly, Julie, Linda, Liz, Lynne, Pauline, Rance, Robert.

Guests: Amruta, Collette, Jeng, Shreya, Yash.

Our active membership total currently is at 29.

Respectfully Submitted,

Amritha Imandi, Secretary

Public Speaking Northwest #9406