September 14, 2015 Club Meeting

Chamber Speakers Circle

September 14, 2015

Attendees: Annamarie, David N., Lara, Marina, Saurabh, Lefterris, Bacher and Samya and Eric and Aditi

Guests:    Gustavo

Theme of the day:  Challenges

Word of the day:   Craft

 Samya noted the club will not be using the Miller room consistently for future meetings, but will take place each week at the Chamber of Commerce building.

Saurabh was the Toastmaster, Annamarie was the General Evaluator, Gustavo was the Vote Counter, Eric was the Timer, Lefteris was the Grammarian and Lara was the Ah Counter.

Speaker #1:  Marina

Speech:    Show and Tell  Project #1 Ice Breaker

Samya introduced the speech’s objectives.  Marina started off by discussing her high standards.  Marina spoke about being a writer and how writing is more difficult for writers.  Marina spoke of the speech criteria, which was similar to a personal essay, how she approached writing this speech and how she came up with the format “Show & Tell”, since it is the way we started off in preschool.  

Marina showed the audience the “Family Fun” magazine because it shows her “mom” side.  She spoke on writing a story about a trapeze school in Oakland and how she took her family with her to have this experience to write about.  There was a photographer with her and she had to take notes on the whole experience and also be a mom and have the experience.  Marina noted the photographer, at one point, confiscated her notebook in order to photograph Marina as a participant.  She concluded with “what looks easy, isn’t always easy”.

Speaker #2:  Bacher

Speech:   Untitled Project #1 Ice Breaker

David introduced the speech’s objectives.  Bacher spoke about his career and the job that had the most impact in his life.  Bacher went to school for philosophy and genetics.  He dropped out of Berkeley right before graduating in order to pursue religion for a few years.  He became interested in computers, then started a job as a systems administrator for Visa.

Bacher noted how he delved into systems administration, working 15 hour-days, 6 days per week.  He spoke about the data center that was being set up in Japan and how he would go to Japan to work 48 hours in the center, without leaving each trip and he did this for 3 trips.

Bacher spoke about his coworker who went with him and had a heart attack during one of the trips.  He decided to resign to stop being a workaholic, because it was having a negative impact on his personal life.   Bacher said his experience at Visa had the most impact because it taught him such an important life lesson.

Table Topics:   Aditi led Table Topics with the “Table Talk” card deck.  Eric, Annamarie, David N., Lara and Gustavo participated.

Saurabh called on his team of evaluators:

Evaluator #1:  Samya evaluated Marina’s speech.   

Samya noted Marina’s confidence and comfort with the audience.  She noted that we got to know Marina as a writer.  Samya noted Marina showed us the magazine she wrote for as well as other topics.  She noted Marina spoke clearly and that Marina had a good opening and good flow.  Samya expressed that Marina looked confident and comfortable when she was speaking.  Marina didn’t use notes.  She suggested that Marina use her manual on her next speeches, since it is a useful tool for evaluating and providing project guidelines.

Evaluator #2:  David evaluated Bacher’s speech.  

David spoke about Bacher’s gestures, how he started in one pose but opened up as he spoke.  He said Bacher didn’t use the notes he carried.  David thought that the term “workaholic” summed up his speech and experience.  He would have loved to hear more about how others could deal with similar challenges.  David thought it was an intelligent and relatable speech.

The meeting ended at 7:12.

Local Only Speech Contest and Open House 9/21/2015

Toastmaster: Samya
Humorous Speech Contest		Evaluation Contest
ROLE	NAME	ROLE	NAME
Contestant	Annamarie	Contestant	Aditi
Contestant	Lefteris	Contestant	Bacher
Contestant	Sergio	Contestant	Saurabh
Judge	Aditi	Test Speaker	Eric, project #4
Judge	Lara	Judge	Annamarie
Judge		Judge	David
Timer		Judge
		Timer