We had a very full meeting today!

We welcomed three guests – Donnette, Luis and Casey.  Donnette turned in her application today!

Aimee held a brief business meeting where we elected a new Treasurer and Vice President Membership.

Rhonda Sternberg will be completing the year as our Treasurer and Lois Margolin will be completing the year as VPM.

Please welcome them to their positions and be ready to assist where needed.

We had three speakers today:

Shakeem Lewis gave us his Ice Breaker on Patience and was evaluated by Peter Palmer.  Congratulations, Shakeem!

Matt Kinsey gave his 1^st speech in level two about learning your communication style and his title was “Who Should Adapt?”  He was evaluated by Greg Fuchs.

Jeanine Kinsey gave her last speech in level one incorporating feedback from her previous speech and her title was “You Can’t Please Them All.” She was evaluated by Lois Margolin.

Brandon Kinsey provide a look back at History for Table Topics.

The first topic was about all of the countries that were admitted to the UN on this day in history. Benjamin Yen was asked what club he would join if he could.  He answered that he would join this club all over again.

The second topic was about the horse that beat the Tom Thumb Locomotive and Peter Palmer was asked to tell us what happened.  Peter spoke as the designer of the engine and was quoted as saying “sometimes you have to suck to get better, and that day we sucked.”

As a wrap up for the meeting, Brandon said:

“Ben told is that if he could join any club it would be this one and Peter said that you have to suck before you can get good. If that isn’t the best way to promote Toastmasters, I don’t know what is!”

Don’t forget that our Humorous Speech Contest is next Tuesday and we still need contestants and other roles filled.

The Area Contest will be on October 13^th from 1-4PM and the Division Contest is November 3^rd.

From Shakespeare and Star Wars to mysterious CIA pens… we had a lot of fun today!

We started the meeting with our words of the day “accurate vs. precise,” and then voted in our newest member Shakeem.

Our speaker today was Brandon Kinsey working on “The Play” project from the Interpretive Reading Manual.  This was his last speech for his ACG!  The title of the speech was “A Long Long Time Ago.” and was a Shakespearian style play about Luke and Darth Vader from the Start Wars trilogy and the scene in Cloud City when Luke finds out who his father is.  Brandon came in Jedi garb and even made the Darth Vader breathing sounds.

Table Topics were unique and started with Matt practicing his farewell speech to the Board which he will do next week in Chicago.  They continued with Eric having to explain how a CIA.gov pen ended up in Brandon’s computer bag.  Ben, Dick, Shakeem and Peter answered various questions about “going to get the keys out of your wife’s purse….,” “why you need to carry a tranquilizer dart gun…,” “the most unusual thing you ever saw in the x-ray machine as a TSA agent…,” and “tell us about a woman you know that would win the purse game and why.”

Peter won Table Topics.

Brandon talked about why you should compete and introduced our club contest dates:
September 11 – Evaluation Contest
September 25 – Humorous Speech Contest
Please let him know if you want to help run one of them, or compete in either or both.

We had a great meeting today, and missed those who were sick and traveling.

Our Toastmaster and Theme Master for the day was Dick Lineham and our word of the day was “Lectern, not Podium.”

We had two speakers:

Zarraz Quick gave a speech on “Visualizing Your Thoughts” which was the Demonstration Talk from the Speaking to Inform Manual. We learned how to map out our thoughts in preparation for a speech, meeting or event.  She was evaluated by Andy Bern.

Jeanine Kinsey gave a Competent Communicator Manual, Persuade with Power speech titled “Participate in the International Convention.”  She shared here experiences from four conventions, why we should consider going to a convention, and how we can participate in this year’s convention even if we cannot travel to Chicago.  She was evaluated by Matt Kinsey.  If you want to purchase the On-Demand programs, check out the options at https://www.onlineevent.com/toastmasters.

Table Topics were run by Benjamin Yen and kept us all on our toes.

Brandon Kinsey spoke on “I’ve never thought about…” and ended up telling us to defeat an Artificial Intelligence invasion/takeover by asking a computer this same question.

Rhonda Sternberg answered the question “I doubted…” and talked about how she doubted her confidence in Toastmasters and at the gym, but doesn’t anymore because she knows she will get there in her own time.

Miko Liou was given the topic “It convinced me that…” and talked about how joining Toastmasters and watching other people convinced her that she can improve and become a better speaker.

Sonali Ravindrakumar also talked about “It convinced me that…” and talked about raising her son on a milk free diet.

Our Table Topics winner was Brandon Kinsey.

Brandon talked about the Distinguished Club Program and how each of us plays a role in the club goals.  If you did not reply to his email from a couple of weeks ago with your goals, please do so as soon as possible.  He shared that he expects at least 4 people to achieve a Level 1 and 4 people to achieve a Level 2.  As part of the conversation, several people indicated that they plan to get all the way to Level 5.  Aimee challenged them all to be first and has a Gold Medal for the first person to get to Level 5.

Aimee spoke briefly about our next social event and it was agreed to do something in September.  This might be mini-golf.  There was also discussion about doing a Cultural Dinner with Table Topics as a family fun event.

We had one guest today, Shakeem Lewis, who put in his application to join.

We look forward to seeing you all next week!

If you weren’t there today, we missed you!  And you missed a fun meeting!

Dick gave a speech from the Storytelling Manual, Let’s Get Personal project title “Negative Energy.”  We learned about his Grandfather and mother, and he added humor to share some of the challenges of growing up with negative attitudes and how they may him stronger as an adult.  Great job!

Lois gave a speech from the Leadership Development Pathway, Level 2: Learning your style – Managing Time project titled “When is $10,000 worth more than $10,000?” Lois shared the story of the Star Wars Toy development and how not paying a contract for several years cost a major toy company a lot more than $10,000 a year to keep the rights to the “Intergalactic Empire” of Star Wars Toys.

Table Topics ran the gambit from Star Wars to Star Trek, favorite episodes to technology, and rebuttals too!  Speakers were Matt, Aimee, Brandon, Lois, Greg and Jeanine.  Lois won for her rebuttal of Brandon’s topic.

Aimee evaluated Dick and Matt evaluated Lois.

Be sure to watch the videos when Ben posts them to see the fun, and we look forward to seeing you next week!

If you are planning to attend the TLI on Saturday at Broward college, be sure to register before Midnight on Thursday to get the $10 price.