July 26, 2016 - Awards Party!

"Awards are lovely and always welcome." - Max Von Sydow

Welcome to a very special meeting of Public Speaking Northwest – our annual Awards celebration and potluck! We started off the meeting with some refreshments and lively conversation. Then, Jean Tracy, our emcee for the day, called the meeting to order.

Our club President, Julie Hutton, gave an inspiring speech which included about 15 distinctions that make our club successful and unique. She presented this 8-10 minute speech entitled, “We’re Going for Even More” from the Competent Communicator Manual, Speech #10 – Inspire Your Audience. Julie showered us with gratitude, explaining how our club has fostered a culture of love, communication, and friendship. It was the perfect speech to lead into the main part of this special meeting: the awards!

Jean personally introduced and recognized our members for their hard work this past year. Our Toastmasters Club is a President’s Distinguished Club. In order to achieve this high honor, we only needed 10 club points throughout the past year. Points are gained for completing speech manuals, leadership manuals, high-level projects, and taking leadership roles in the club while completing manuals.

 

While we only needed 10, we ended up getting 17 points! This is due to our active membership as well as the leadership of Barb Katz, Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM), who alone earned 5 points! For her hard work, she was awarded the Star Achiever award! Another amazing member, and former secretary of our club, Amritha Imandi, was recognized for her leadership not only in the club, but beyond. She is the new Area Director, and for her dedication, hard work, and high achievements in such a short period of time, she received the Spark Plug award! Below are our members who were recognized for contributing points to our club over the past year.

• Chizuko Yokota, CC
• Warren Lewis, CC
• Amritha Imandi, CC, ALB
• Linda Yunjie Li, ALB
• Abdul Naser Kutty, ACB
• Kathy Nishihara, CC
• Robert Katz, CC
• Kathy Nishihara, CC
• Jean Tracy, CC, CL
• Barb Katz, CC, CL ALS, ACG, CC, LDREXC, DTM

We also said a very heartfelt farewell to Linda Li, former President of our club. Linda, a recent graduate of the University of Washington, has accepted a marketing position in California and will no longer be able to join us. We wish her much success in the future and in whichever new Toastmasters group she chooses next. She has a very bright future ahead of her!

 

After the presentation of awards, we held a Table Topics session lead by Amritha. She had contestants draw questions from paper bags, in which they had to enact situations in non-human form. This exercise really stretched our imaginations. The Table Topic speakers for the day were Warren, Nancy, and Randy.

  

Every week, those who bring their leadership manual are entered into a drawing that is held once per month. This month, the drawing was for a book on Ted Talks. Julie drew Jim Tracy’s name out of the bag – he was our proud winner for the day!

Finally, the meeting adjourned . . . but it was not over! People lingered for several minutes afterwards to chat, take photos, and of course, enjoy some more food!

 

  

We had 14 members in attendance at our last meeting, including Amritha, Barb, Jean, Jessica, Jim, Julie, Jung, Linda, Lynne, Nancy, Pauline, Randy, Robert and Warren, as well as 4 guests: Dana, Uliana, Yash and Shreya. We hope to see you again next week!

Respectfully Submitted,

Jessica DiPietro, Secretary

Public Speaking Northwest #9406