TASC Toastmasters » Meeting Summaries

The "How Do You Do That?" Meeting

Wendy Daunheimer — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:36:18 +0000

We had a terrific meeting today! Though the “how do you do that” theme from this month wasn’t overtly mentioned, everyone learned something they could take away with them. Rich Scanlon delivered an entertaining and information speech on Body Language, based on project 5 from the Basic Communication manual, Your Body Speaks. The next time a visitor arrives, take a look around the room and notice which members have their eyebrows raised as they say Hello – those were the members who applied what they heard at this meeting! Joe Short led us on a storytelling adventure and made several of us in the audience shed a tear over his speech titled “My Favorite Teacher”, based on project #4 from the advanced Storytelling manual (project name, The Touching Story). Finally, Frank DiBartolomeo led us through a systematic approach to increase our productivity and reduce our stress through prioritizing our to-do lists with a methodology used by Andrew Carnegie. I got so involved that I’ve forgotten which manual project his speech was based on!

Several members in today’s meeting asked for a copy of the PPT file that Frank used to illustrate his points, and here is a link to the file: areyoulistless. I don’t know if you need to be a registered member to access that link or not, so if any of you try it out and discover that you can’t get to it please let me know.

We didn’t have a chance to do table topics today since two of the speeches were advanced speeches and took more time than normal, but we’ll make up for it (hopefully!) next week. Come join us! Oh, and we had two new guests visiting us today – Roland and Kimberly. I can’t remember their last names, but they did sign the guest log and we hope they will return and join!

Have a terrific week!

April 1st Meeting Summary

Wendy Daunheimer — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:48:16 +0000

Today’s meeting was so much fun! In honor of April Fool’s Day, our TOTD Diana Crandall announced that our meeting would be a “backwards meeting”. In case you don’t know what that is, it means that all events are held in backwards order – the reports are given at the beginning of the meeting, the evaluations are given before the speeches, the opening announcements are given at the end, etc.

I hadn’t experienced a backwards meeting before, though I had heard of them, and was surprised to find it so much fun … and challenging! Those of us who thought we knew our meetings backwards and forwards were surprised, I think, at how getting out of the routine threw us off.

We also had a guest in our midst, Rich Rosenthal, who is thinking of joining us to earn PMP credit. Who knows what he thought of all the chaos, but I did invite him to visit us again during one of our regular meetings before he makes his decision.

Mar 25 Meeting Summary

Wendy Daunheimer — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:07:31 +0000

There is no question that everyone who attended today’s meeting found it valuable (even though there was dissent among the ranks about whether Joe deserved to be tarred and feathered or not!). We learned about the process and benefits of Lean Six Sigma from Black Belt Lisa Beatty (who knew?). Then we saw evidence of persuasive speaking in action as Tom Comeau convinced us all that our youth needs additional resources for building life skills. This was followed by a Table Topics session that allowed us to practice persuasive speaking first hand as Joe brought up victims and contentious topics and Tom flipped the coin to determine their position of argument (for or against the controversial topic).

We often describe our meetings as a “learning laboratory” environment, and today’s meeting was strong evidence of that! Sonya and Steve worked on building their evaluation skills, and Phyllise entertained us as General Evaluator by playing the
name game (inside joke for those who attended).

Mar 18 Meeting Summary

Wendy Daunheimer — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:00:12 +0000

Thanks to all for an engaging meeting today! I don’t think any of us will forget Dorothy’s AIG speech for a while – what a passionate example of creative speech techniques! Sonya lifted us up out of anger with a reminder speech that emphasized steps toward more positive thinking, and Rich continued that theme with his Four Levels of Happiness that used language to paint pictures we could all relate to. Joe, thanks for dealing with the chaotic beginning and keeping us on track – the ultimate TOTD in action. Tom, the table topics were imaginative and spanned the spectrum from technical to entertainment in nature, and Frank, we appreciate your stellar job of keeping us on track and organized. I won’t go further or else this paragraph will turn into a book, but thanks to all who participated in the meeting today! (Special thanks to Foster who brought a singing bowl from his recent travels and literally set the note for our dynamic meeting!)

I will ask one more thing of you – if you know Dorothy, please join me in wishing her well on her new job assignment in MA through December. Dorothy will not be joining us in meetings anymore (unless she has some spare time before she leaves), but hopes to continue on our mailing list and we hope she will rejoin when she returns in the New Year.