Written by Eric Dunham, VP Education

What an interesting evening we had at the April 26^th meeting. Imagine for just a moment, closing a meeting before we ever got started. That’s exactly what happened at our first backwards meeting. Our club president Joanna Knott closed the meeting and thanked everyone for coming before any speeches. Our visitors were a little caught off guard…as were some of our members.

The Toastmaster for the evening was our president, Joanna Knott.

Attendees:  Audrey Bolema, Bruce Ekins, Bill Bevard, Bill Morgan, Cole Mayer, Eric Dunham, Nina Minary, Joanna Knott, Alissa Tenorio, Jodi Michael Horner, Martin Cobb, Nikita Kazakov, Sandy Marthaler, Santhi  Malasani, and Will O’Brien.
Guests:  David Bounds and Marcy Brack – Visitors from Simply Speaking Aurora, CO
Club Business: Bill Morgan provided a great overview of Parker Toastmaster’s Speakers Bureau scheduled to launch in June of 2012. The objective of the speakers bureau to give our members additional opportunity to speak, gain experience and grow. The bureau will also provide the club a great opportunity to expand the club’s name and Toastmaster brand in the Parker community.

Eric Dunham provided an update on the May 17^th special event and encouraged volunteers to speak and to provide refreshments for this event. The keynote address will be by Traci Brown, speaker and retired world class cyclist.

Debate night is May 10^th the speakers and debate topics are: 

Should the driving age be raised to 18? (Will O’Brien and Bill Morgan)

Do adopted children have the right to know their biological parents? (Cole Mayer and Nikita Kazakov)

The Olympics are a waste of money. (Bill Bevard and Sandy Marthaler)

The voting age should be lowered to 16. (Bruce Ekins and Alissa Tenorio

The evenings honors go to (again before any speeches were given):

Best Speech: Jodi Michael Horner

Best Evaluator: Cole Mayer

Best Table Topic: Santhi Malasani

Jodi Michael Horner was the Table Topics Master and changed things up a little. Using the format used at competitions, Jodi asked for three volunteers (Nikita Kazakov, Macy Brack and David Bounds) who were escorted out of the room and then brought in one by one to answer the following question:

“I never thought I’d…”

Nikita – Told about moving to Colorado. His parents loved the weather.
David – Talked about the “poster child” of incompetence.  He had us rolling in laughter.
Marcy – Told us about “something from the heart.”

We finally got to the speeches and WOW! They were great.

Martin Cobb (Evaluator: Sandy Marthaler): “I felt like a winner…but they called me a loser.”  Martin provided us some recommendations on how to win a speech contest. He leveraged his recent experience at the Areas International Speech Contest.  Focus on the “big dawgs” they are worth 50% of the score – structure, organization and supporting details. Focus less on the “piddly pooches”; they are only worth 20% of your score – purpose and audience.

Jodi Michael Horner (Evaluator: Will O’Brien): “Do you have what it takes.” Jodi provided the audience pointers to consider when participating in pageant.  In a serious but very humorous and entertaining way Jodi told how to focus on: shoes, swimsuit, evening gown, illusions (let’s just say, accessories that we really don’t see or know about) and attitude. You must have attitude to win!

Bill Bevard (evaluator: Cole Mayer): “How to say it.” Bill walked us through several examples of how to use fewer words in a speech and get to the point. The ideas and examples Bill shared with us are certain to help speakers get to the point and win the audience’s attention.

Bruce Ekins (evaluator: Alissa Tenorio): “We need to find a way”. This was Bruce’s third project from the Competent Communicator manual. It was very insightful speech were Bruce shared with us is disappointment is a number of recent articles, political in nature, that never really offered solutions; only partisan and diversionary views. Bruce suggests we give value to articles that spelled clearly a real problem and then clearly defines a solution. “What we need to do is….” Do NOT give credit or value to articles that are based on ideology, blame the other side (no problem is created by only one side), and an article trying to persuade the readers to take a side.

Roles:
Toastmaster – Joanna Knott
Grammarian and Ah-counter – Bill Bevard
Vote Counter – Santhi Malasani
Timer – Martin Cobb
Table Topics Master – Jodi Michael Horner
General Evaluator – Bill Morgan

Parker Toastmasters is honored to announce our newest member Audrey Bolema. Also we are honored to have Santhi Malasani become officially inducted with the reading of the Toastmaster’s Promise.

It was a great meeting with great speeches and great people in attendance. Our next club meeting is May 10, 2012.

April 12, 2012 Meeting

Post author: Sandy Marthaler

We had another fun and exciting meeting with 11 members present and one guest, Audrey Bolema. We used our new Toastmaster banner for the first time.

Members attending:  Joanna Knott, Bill Morgan, Bruce Ekins, Martin Cobb, Bill Bevard, Sandy Marthaler, Alissa Tenorio, Santhi Malasani, Nikita Kazakov, Cole Mayer  and Will O’Brien.  Will and Santhi became new members.

Award ribbons went to: Joanna for Best Speech, Bill M for Best Table Topic and ACG, Will for Best Evaluator and Sandy for CC.

The speeches were entertaining, touching, thought provoking and educational.

Bill M — Project 4: Interpretive Reading Manual; Title: The Importance of Being Earnest.  Evaluator: Bill Bevard

Joanna —Advanced Manual: Touching Story, Title: I Corinthians 13. Evaluator: Will O’Brian

Sandy — Speech 10, Competent Communicator Manual, and Title: Life is Short, So Listen Up! Evaluator: Alissa Tenorio

Martin – Title: The Q12 Index Manual. Evaluator: Joanna Knott

Martin was also in charge of Table Topics asking to describe a bad boss you’ve had.  Bill M, Bill B, Alissa, Will and Nikita participated.

Other roles:

Timer: Santhi, Grammarian: Nikita (malleable was word of day with Martin using it 3 times), Vote Counter: Audrey, General Evaluator: Martin and Bruce as our Toastmaster with living in Colorado as the theme.

Joanna discussed club business reminding us to attend the Area Speech Contest Sunday, April 22 at 1 to 4  p.m. at the Parker Public Library  where Sandy and Martin will be among the many featured speakers.

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Each Thursday that our club meets we enter with the expectation to learn, support, and stretch ourselves. The meeting last Thursday was no exception as I believe our group experienced all these things.

In the role of the evening’s Toastmaster was Caroline Nguyen. This was her second outing as Toastmaster and she showed us her increasing acumen in the job. There were several curve balls thrown her way at the get-go with speakers unable to attend or having to arrive a bit late. She handled things with aplomb by reassigning roles and maneuvering the schedule to work.

Irini Dobeck gave the first speech of the evening. She shared the remarkable story of Juji the snake and its quest for change through a hunger strike; Irini solved the situation with the help of a pet psychic! I never thought I would be moved to tears by a story of a snake, but I was.

New member Alissa Tenorio grabbed the ice pick and broke through her first speech with the theme of “blooming.” She impressed us all with her vivid stories and great “stage” presence. I am looking forward to her future speeches as I am sure others are too.

Bill Morgan delved into history by sharing his interpretive reading of a speech called “Every Man A King.” by Huey Long. It was an interesting peek into the past and intriguing as how fitting it was for much of what our country is experiencing still today.

Joanna Knott rounded things off with a visual presentation diabetes. She opened with the intriguing question, “how many of you have had a dream that has actually come true?” She shared her personal story of her father-in-law’s new plight with his health and gave us all great notes for keeping our health in check.

Sandy Marthaler stepped into the Table Topics Master role at the last minute and came up with a challenge befitting the first week of spring: Tell About Your Top Three Favorite Things of Spring. It got our minds rolling down green meadows, hiking up tall mountains, camping…golfing…

Our club had the wonderful pleasure of hosting some first time visitors! Delroy Edwards II and Will O’Brien said they were actively seeking to improve their public speaking and Marcy Brack is keeping her eyes peeled for a possible new Toastmasters “home” closer to her real home. We hope to see all of them again soon! Delroy, Will, and Marcy all participated in the Table Topics for the evening and Marcy, a veteran of the process with her three years membership already in the Toastmasters International organization, even gave a speech evaluation for Alissa.

Honors for the evening went to:
Irini Dobeck for best speech
Eric Dunham for best evaluator
Marcy Brack for best Table Topic

Please remember to utilize your role toward your Competent Leadership Award!

Toastmaster: Caroline Nguyen
General Evaluator: Bill Morgan
Timer: Joanna Knott
Grammarian: Eric Dunham
Table Topic Master: Sandy Marthaler
Speech Evaluators: Marcy Brack, Jodi Horner, Eric Dunham, Bill Bervard

Someone may say: another ordinary meeting.  No, no, no! There are no ordinary meetings at Parker Toastmasters. And last night was no exception.  Five speeches, including an Icebreaker, and Table Topics Irish-style, this Club has always something new, refreshing and exciting to offer.

Bill Bevard, or I should say Braveheart, showed us how Toastmasters can change one’s life. As a first-time Toastmaster of the Day, he led the meeting with poise, competence and in an orderly fashion, making sure we finished on time, which doesn’t happen that often. Way to go Bill! You made us proud and proved that Toastmasters program works!

Cole Mayer, brand new to the Club, presented his Icebreaker and delivered a very moving and powerful speech titled: “What made me”. Mayer took us on a journey to a small, farming community in South Dakota, where he grew up, played sports, met many foreigners and eventually his future wife at his high school. His story was very personal, in particular when he talked about losing his father, shortly after he graduated from college and moved to Denver. Cole shared with us his life experiences and what shaped him as a man, husband and a father of two beautiful, little girls. As Bruce Ekins (Best Evaluation Winner) summarized: “Amazing first speech and we look forward to hearing more speeches by Cole”!

When Michelle Devore enters the stage, we all know it is going to be good. As a member of Toastmasters since 2004, Devore delivered more than handful of excellent speeches. And this time was no exception! In her speech, “Be Assertive”, Michelle eloquently explained what assertiveness is and how we all can benefit from it. Do you want more freedom? Be assertive! Michelle provided real life examples of being assertive in a non-aggressive way and armed us with four steps on how to be assertive:

1. State the problem
2. State your feelings
3. Propose solution
4. Explain benefits

Michelle, very natural on the stage with no signs of nervousness, concluded with a role play assisted by Sandy Marthaler. Both Michelle and Sandy received a positive feedback and many good suggestions. This presentation made Michelle Devore the Best Speech Winner. Congratulations!

Joanna Knott evaluated Michelle’s speech with enthusiasm and pointed out a well-organized and perfectly delivered presentation.

Well, well, well! Looks who is back: Nina Minary! And she did it again! Minary delivered another thoughtful, positive and inspiring speech. In her project #9 from the Competent Communicator manual titled “Gratitude – Do it every day”, Minary told us how important it is to be grateful every day, not only around Thanksgiving, and how sometimes hardship, or a bang on a head must happen so we can realize how many good people and things surround us. Nina presented each Club member a gratitude rock to help us remember that we ought to be thankful, and not take things for granted. Nina is one speech away from completing her Competent Communicator manual, and we will celebrate when she reaches her goal. Good luck Nina!

Michelle Devore’s evaluation of Nina’s speech was very thorough and insightful.

Joanna Knott started her presentation with an arts and crafts activity, handing each person in the audience a piece of paper and a crayon. “My first origami” was a demonstration project from the Speaking to Inform manual, one of two advanced manuals Joanna is working on towards her next goal: ACS. When the audience finished their simple origami, Joanna explained that many people learn by observation and imitation. If you strive to be a good manager, instructor or parent, make sure your employees, students or children get hands-on experience, so they can learn in a more efficient way. This is what we do in Toastmasters too – we practice communication and leadership. Sitting in the audience and observing is great, but being on the stage and practicing is even better.

Bill Morgan evaluated Joanna’s speech and this time gave her a decent grade.

Would you like to work on a more challenging project? Are the advanced manuals you picked boring? Talk to Bill Morgan. His monodrama presentation from Love’s Labour’s Lost by Shakespeare was one of the most difficult projects we have witnessed in a long time. Morgan said: “I was pretty lost on what to pick. Monodrama is hard because there aren’t many pieces out there with duration as long as required – Shakespeare tends to have long-winded ones. The first bit was funnier than I read it, and the second bit was much more whimsical and happy than I showed. Sandy Marthaler did a great job in her evaluation – I think the strangeness of the language and my nervousness did not connect me to the audience and I think everyone felt that”.  Kudos to you Bill, for selecting such hard, but very poetic, romantic, and inspiring piece. We don’t get to experience Shakespeare that often!

You were probably wondering what the Table Topics Irish-style look like. No, there was no alcohol involved, as we meet at the SE Christian Church. When visiting Toastmasters clubs in Dublin, Ireland, Bill Morgan was inspired by the level of questions that were being asked, and decided to test it out in our Club. The questions touched on politics, history, taxes, community work, traits of character of former US presidents. It was decided that our Club needs to move to the next level when it comes to Table Topics; no more fuzzy and simple questions. Table Topics are about impromptu speech and you never know when you may be asked a difficult question in front of others. Practice makes master, and again, Parker Toastmasters in the best place to learn.

Participants in these challenging Table Topics included: Everett D’Anjou, newest member of the Club; Michelle Devore, Irini Dobeck (Best Table Topics Winner); and Bill Bovard.

The meeting would be incomplete without these important roles:

Timer – Irini Dobeck

Ah Counter / Grammarian – Nina Minary

Vote Counter – Cole Mayer

General Evaluator- Joanna Knott

We missed a few Club members, including Jodi Michael Horner who is getting ready for the Mrs. Colorado Pageant as I write this, and we wish her all the best on Saturday, February 25^th. May she charm the judges and the audience with her brilliant and witty answers. Good luck Jodi!

So, if you are still on the fence whether you should join Parker Toastmasters or not, come and visit us on March 8^th which is the International Speech and Table Topics Contest Night. You will not regret.

Truly yours,

Joanna Knott

President

Let’s pretend you’re sitting on a plane and relaxed, waiting to hear what the dinner will or movie will be for your journey by jet aircraft across the country. What do you do when you find out that the person who is supposed to be flying the plane isn’t in the cockpit? You turn to your your experienced co-pilot and flight crew until she arrives.

Such was the scene last Thursday when the scheduled Toastmaster, Jodi Michael Horner (gulp–me!), ran into a bit of traffic. President Joanna Knott started things off with her classic professional demeanor and threw the ball to Immediate Past President and current Treasurer Bill Morgan. I state his titles to highlight his leadership experience which helped to operate the “plane” in a smooth manner.

Bill Morgan bumped up his planned presentation to the beginning of the meeting and delivered a 15-minute speech on Giving Effective Feedback and its importance. Everyone, it seemed, was taking notes about this key element to public speaking–and all areas of the learning experience, for that matter. A most useful and appreciated presentation.

At this point the Toastmaster had arrived. But what do you do when your “pilot” gets into the cockpit only to discover she has forgotten her flight plan? Once again you thank your lucky stars that a member of the flight crew has a copy of the “flight plan” i.e. Agenda saved on his laptop which was just used to present. Thank you Bill Morgan for helping me with that situation! The Agenda was projected onto the screen for the duration of the meeting.

I kicked off the remaining proceedings by sharing the theme for the evening, “Happy UnBirthday.” It was no one’s birthday but we visited the idea of our birthday by hearing about items from respective members’ birthdays. Martin Cobb shared about his cup, Cole showed a photo of himself with his brother and father, Michelle DeVore showed us her July birthstone ring, a ruby, and provided some very interesting insight to the ruby and its lore. Eric Dunham talked about his bronzed baby shoes, Sandy Marthaler brought a giant sea shell vase to represent the fact that she’d been born in Puerto Rico, and I (Jodi) brought my birthstone ring as well, a blue topaz for December.

We proceeded with the planned speeches for the evening. All three speakers had already achieved the Competent Communicator Awards so each speech was from an Advanced Speaker Series. Eric Dunham went first and gave a first-rate presentation on Cold Calling. His lovely assistant Michelle DeVore acted as the recipient of the call and together they showed us the best way to make a cold call successful. His evaluator, Bruce Ekins, had experience with making cold calls and so was especially interested in this speech!

Our second speaker was Bill Morgan. He read ancient poetry and many of us were moved by his rendering from “Greek and Latin Classics.” Jyoti Jain gave her first-ever evaluation for the club on Bill’s presentation; she expressed her delight and made many positive remarks.

The third and final speaker for the evening was Joanna Knott. Her presentation was titled, “Let’s Talk Trash” (possibly her 10-year-old’s idea inspired by the song with a similar title.) Joanna used projected visuals to help explain the importance of “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle,” and encouraged everyone to apply the principles to their lives. Eric Dunham evaluated Joanna and complimented her use of graphics and the judicious use of print in her slides.

Martin Cobb then stepped in to facilitate the Table Topics. Keeping in line with the theme for the evening: Funny Baby Stories! It seemed the group was ready for the direction of baby excretions and projections–enough said on that! Six of the attendees got up to share their stories of their children or their own baby experiences.

Vote counting concluded (thank you Joanna for stepping up to that role) and the results were:
Best Evaluator: Eric Dunham
Best Table Topic: Bruce Ekins
Best Speech: Joanna Knott

Roles for the evening were held by:
Timer: Irini Dobeck
Grammarian/Ah Counter: Sandy Marthaler
Table Topic Master: Martin Cobb
General Evaluator: Eric Dunham

As a final note, Joanna Knott’s speech included some great links to visit in order to help cut down on your junk mail. They are listed below.

http://www.container-recycling.org/facts/all/
http://ecocycle.org/ecofacts

https://ecocycle.catalogchoice.org/howitworks
http://www.wm.com/residential.jsp

The first meeting of 2012 for Parker Toastmasters was a great success. We had 10 members present, as well as three guests: Cole Mayer, Les Crosby, and Nathan Bolema.

President Joanna Knott opened the meeting with our customary Pledge of Allegiance. Joanna then did a great job of introducing our three guests to the club.

Kellan Stephens took over as Toastmaster and shone brightly in his first foray behind the podium. Not only did Kellan present himself well in a friendly and composed manner, he did an excellent job in offering encouraging words to every one in his transitions on the stage.

We had three speakers tonight – Kellan, Eric Dunham and Bill Morgan. Eric and Kellan shared the Best Speaker Award for the evening.

Our Speakers

Kellan Stephens – Speech 2 Competent Communicator [Organize Your Speech], “Why Exercise?”
Kellan did an excellent job in making the case for exercise. His points were delivered in good humor and were encouraging. He made a strong impression in helping us understand how impactful regular exercise is for every one of us. His finish was memorable – he pointed out that we each have 1440 minutes in a day, and that giving yourself 30 minutes a day three times a week isn’t really daunting in terms of all the time we have available.

Eric Dunham – Speech 1 Advanced Manual Persuasive Speech [Persuasive Speech] “The Persuasive Sales Process”
Eric had a challenging assignment which had three elements: 1) a short illustration of the sales process 2) a role play with Kellan to demonstrate the sales process (selling him a toaster) and 3) facilitating a short Q&A session at the end of speech. Eric’s mastery of the material and his confidence shone through in all three dimensions of his speech, and Kellan provided a good foil in the role play. Eric completed his toaster sale to Kellan by delivering him an unforgettable toaster with rainbows AND polka-dots.
Bill Morgan – Speech 1, Advanced Manual Interpretive Reading [Read a Story] “The Dead”
Bill read excerpts from James Joyce’s short story “The Dead”, from the book Dubliners. Bill’s speech was solemn and serious, ending with Joyce’s brilliant “he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

Bill Morgan evaluated Kellan’s speech, Bill Bevard evaluated Eric’s speech, and Eric evaluated Bill’s speech. Bill Morgan won Best Evaluator.

Table Topics was very memorable. Table Topics master Joanna Knott had her 9 year old daughter Veronica help select topics, and there was good participation.

Kudos to guests Nathan and Les for participating. Nathan scored a rare coup – being a guest and winning Best Table Topics! Great job Nathan – we were all impressed on your view of pollution. Les, Bill Bevard, Eric and Michelle also participated in table topics. And thank you Veronica Knott for helping us think more about important subjects including smoking, healthy eating, drinking and driving, and why shaking babies is something we will never do.

Joanna Knott did double-duty as Grammarian/Ah-Counter and the word of the day was Recognize. Let us RECOGNIZE our guest Les Crosby and member Sandy Marthaler for using the word of the day!

Eric Dunham was our Vote Counter, Sandy Marthaler was our Timer and Michelle Devore stepped up as our General Evaluator – great job everyone!

Overall it was a meeting with lots of energy and excellent participation, especially by our guests!

Members Attending: Joanna Knott, Sandy Marthaler, Eric Dunham, Caroline Nguyen, Bill Morgan, Stacy Hayden, Michelle Devore, Jyoti Jain, Kellan Stephens, Bill Bevard.

Post author: Bill Morgan