by Jodi Michael Horner

Ever watch an awards show where the recipient thanks their costars and crew by saying they feel honored to be part of such a professional & talented team of players? Parker’s “Talk of the Town” seems to provide that experience for its members. There isn’t a single person in our group who isn’t a key player; even those who don’t say a lot during the meeting contribute to the pulse of what is happening.

Our final official meeting for 2011 was fun and professional as always. The venue changed slightly, we met in a room on the main floor at Southeast Christian Church rather than upstairs in room 203. Many of us commented on how much more “cozy” and welcoming the room felt, although seating was a bit limited. The jury is out as to whether we will pursue the same location again–Madam President?

Eric Dunham, our VP of Education, served as Toastmaster for the evening. I recall his first run at the job several months ago and he did a stunning job on Thursday just as he did that first time. It was an example to me of how jumping in to new roles (and speeches) in the club can seem so big the first time but soon it becomes “routine” or at least more comfortable, which is the way we hope it will be. There’s a reason that we call one of the core manuals “Competent Leadership,” and it’s because Toastmasters produces competent leaders!

We had five excellent speeches on Thursday. It was a great way to sign off the year and  anticipate great things to come for 2012!

I started things off with my tenth and final speech of the Competent Communicator series. The topic was “friendship.” I applied some of the points from Bill Morgan’s speech last time regarding practice and prep. For me that meant not feeling like I had to write the perfect speech the first time. I put it “to bed” and mulled it over for a couple of days, then came back to it. I also practiced with the camera that I’d specifically purchased for practicing my speeches. Joanna Knott gave me the advice to do that a few times through. It definitely helped! For any of you who feel reticent to have yourselves taped I would strongly recommend you reconsider! Also, Joanna shared the blurb of a fellow toastmaster that, “There is the speech you write, the speech you rehearse, and the speech you deliver.” That is to say that we mustn’t be obsessed with perfection!

Parker Toastmasters has its own *Youtube page but I inadvertently posted to my own site this week. Here is my speech: Jodi Michael Horner CC #10*

Sandy Marthaler followed with speech number eight from the  Competent Communicator series titled, “Controlling Clutter.”  Her mnemonic of “SPACE” to help us remember the keys to cleaning up clutter was effective, as was the personal examples she provided–both in words and visuals! S is for “sort,” P is for “purge,” A is for “assign” (a space for the item), C is for “contain” (find a container), and E is for Evaluate the progress/situation to see if any further “SPACE”ing must be done. Video for Sandy’s speech: Sandy Marthaler CC #8*

Joanna Knott shared with us her interpretation of the story of Anne Frank. Joanna’s very personal experience made it all the more touching; she was born in the city of Auschwitz and grew up in Poland. Her family had first-hand experience with WWII and Joanna has been to the actual sites talked about in the book, “the Diary of Anne Frank.” No less touching was Stacy Hayden’s evaluation of Joanna’s speech. This writer believes that nothing is by coincidence and Stacy had just been to the house that Anne Frank’s family had lived in for the two years prior to being taken captive and sent to the concentration camp Auschwitz.

Nikita Kazakov presented a dynamic and funny speech called, “the Physical Art of Charisma.” This speech marked his midway point for the Competent Communicator manual. Nikita demonstrated his point both physically and comically. As always he left the group wondering how many Toastmasters groups he has belonged to in a former life! For Christmas I’d like some of his confidence in a bottle, please. Unfortunately I did not get all of Mr. Krazkov’s speech on video–but I did literally get 15 seconds. Here’s the take: Nikita CC #5*

Bill Morgan continued his Entertaining Speaker series with a speech on camping!  It was very humorous and filled with visuals that some of us will always remember, and others perhaps hope to forget! That Finnegan boy will be hard to forget, however…

After the speeches for the evening we moved into the Table Topics, hosted by Joanna. She threw us for a bit of a loop by introducing a fictional story that we were all to build upon. Her first segment was a random comedy so we attempted to follow that path! It turned into a rhapsody of dreams, never to be recreated.

Best Speaker for the night was Joanna Knott.
Best Evaluator was Bruce Ekins.
Best Table Topic was Jodi Michael Horner.

Timer: Martin Cobb
General Evaluator: Bill Bevard
Grammarian: Caroline Nguyen
Vote Counter: Sandy Marthaler

*All video content for speeches at Parker Toastmasters Talk of the Town are recorded and posted with the express permission of the speakers featured in each segment. Speakers who do not wish to be videoed will not be. It is not a requirement for our club but a service we provide to assist in personal and professional development.

Parker Toastmasters’ last meeting on November 17 was very busy, with six speeches and an educational topic.

Stacy Hayden gave a top-notch icebreaker with a speech titled “How I went from Zero to Hero in Four Years”. It was an inspiring speech about Stacy’s recent career developments, along with her raising two young children. You guessed right – Stacy is a busy woman.

Nikita Kazakhov gave a great speech about time management called “Your Brain Ain’t a Storage Closet”. Nikita’s insights into the maze of tasks everyone has to attend to and how the use of a digital voice recorder can organize them effectively were well-received by an attentive audience.

Jodi Michael Horner used “Rock, Paper, Scissors” to help us to understand more about the importance of marriage.

Nina Minary provided visual aids along with an effective speech titled “Effective Coaching in the Workplace.” Besides a well-crafted Powerpoint, Nina interacted with the audience well to illustrate her points.

Bill Morgan told us stories of his late father and uncle, both WWII veterans, in “The Morgan Boys and Veterans Day.” One brother served in the Pacific, and the other in Europe, and were away from home for years before returning home to the states to raise families.

Sandy Marthaler entertained us with “Promoting the Pomegranate.” She demonstrated with real pomegranates how to cleanly prepare them, without making too much of a mess. She also taught us about the many health benefits of this beautiful and delicious fruit.

Bill Morgan gave an educational speech on Preparation and Practice. He illustrated different techniques to get from a simple topic to a fully fleshed out and prepared speech.

Bill Morgan served double-duty as both Toastmaster and Grammarian/Ah-Counter and the word of the day was “Uncanny”. Joanna Knott was our General Evaluator. Stacy Hayden was our Vote Counter. Jodi Michael Horner was our Timer.

Kudos to Joanna, Nikita and Stacy for incorporating the word of the day into the the meeting.

Nikita Kazakhov won Best Speech while Bill Morgan won Best Evaluator. Morgan’s educational presentation was his final requirement to achieve Advanced Leader Bronze (ALB).

Parker Toastmasters would also like to thank Irini Dobeck and Shari Thayer, our guests for the evening. We hope to see you at our next meeting!

It was a busy week for this temporary ex-pat Toastmaster in Dublin Ireland.

I had a great visit with Area Governor Niamh Gourlay’s home club on Thursday – Tara Toastmasters in Stillorgan Park. Stillorgan Park is a suburb about 6 miles south of Dublin.

President Robert Dunne and his club members made me feel very welcome.

It was a lively evening with a great opening by the Poetmaster Bill
Sadler who retold a part of JFK’s speech to the Irish Dial (Parliament) given on June 28, 1963.

There were three speakers. Neil D’Souza gave his seventh speech on The
Miracle Drink. Not Guinness, but green tea – it has live-extending properties, and Neil’s speech was enhanced by his effective use of a cup of tea as a prop.

Evangeline Leonard taught us about Social Entrepeneurship (Speaking to Inform #5) and Niamh Gourlay gave us An Overview of Coaching (Specialty Speeches #4) which was enhanced by a lively role-play by her and Jacqui Gilbourne who both played their roles to the hilt.

Pat Cowley as General Evaluator both introduced the evaluators, let them
provide their evaluation, and then gave her own review of the evaluation. I really liked this as an evaluator, because the feedback was immediate and useful. Our club doesn’t have the general evaluator specifically critique the speech evaluators, but we might consider it to improve our own evaluations.

Toastmaster Niall O’Shea emphasized the evolution of the club’s motto
to “I Can and I Will Succeed”, and spoke of how he and others have personally benefited from their commitment to Toastmasters.

I wholeheartedly agree that the Tara Toastmasters exemplify their
tagline – “Where Friends Help You Succeed”.

I like that Tara Toastmasters meetings are in a hotel. Right after the
meeting we walked a few feet to the lounge where we shared an adult
beverage, along with a pleasant conversation on all things Irish, American and Toastmasters.

If I can, I will try to visit the club November 3rd, their next meeting.

Next post – I will recount my impressions of the District 71/Division C Humorous Speech and Table Topics contest!

Photos by Jodi Michael Horner