The following is a summary of the minutes from our December 2nd meeting.
Meeting Location: The Hillsdale Mall, San
Mateo, CA 6:15 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Attendees:
Present at the meeting were: Maia Ashkenazi, Samya
Boxberger-Oberoi, Lara Miller, Suzanne Mulcahy, David Nazzaro, Sharon Pappas,
Venkat Senapat, Xin Tang, and Eric Yan.
Guest was Joseph Chu. (He was
also the guest speaker.)
Maia was the Toastmaster; Sharon was the General Evaluator;
David was the Grammarian; Eric Y. was the Ah Counter; Samya was the Timer; and
Venkat was the Vote Counter; and Suzanne was the Table Topics Master.
The theme of the meeting was: “New Year’s Resolutions”; the word
of the day was: “Commitment”.
Speaker #1: Joseph Chu - “A Gem in You”
Manuel Series – Project #9
Joseph began his speech by engaging the audience in asking for
the gems we were wearing. He then asked
us if we had gems within us and all of us raised our hands. Joseph then explained how the gem had been
formed. First we have a stone and then
by cutting and polishing and adding pressure, it becomes a gem.
Joseph took this example and related to Toastmasters. We start as stones and with polishing and
pressure, we can become great speakers.
He emphasized that we joined Toastmasters by choice and all have asked
for this process for our own growth, to go from a stone to a gem.
Joseph then went into the benefits of Toastmasters and passed
out information of how we could benefit from joining Toastmasters. Each role in which we participate as well our
giving speeches enriches our abilities to become better speakers. Joseph also emphasized taking on additional
leadership roles.
Evaluator: Group Evaluation
The evaluations began by saying that Joseph used pauses very well. When he said something profound, he used “the
golden silence” to complete his message.
Joseph used good symbolism, by using the “gem” idea as well as
explaining the benefits of Toastmasters.
He started with the real gem, then went into the ideology of gems, and
then into Toastmasters.
The suggestions stated that Joseph could use more vocal variety
but it was a great speech. He engaged
from the beginning as well as later. His
speech was inspiring, and attention grabbing.
It made us all feel comfortable.
Table Topics: Suzanne hosted the Table Topics. Sharon won the ribbon for the best Table
Topics speaker.
Samya closed the meeting.
