August 5, 2013 Club Meeting

The following is a summary of the minutes from our August 5th meeting.

Meeting Location:   The Hillsdale Mall, San Mateo, CA     6:00 p.m. – 7:15 p.m.

Attendees:

Present at the meeting were: Samya Boxberger-Oberoi, Eric Jones, Lara Miller, Suzanne Mulcahy, Sharon Pappos, Venkat Senapati, Ruth Wadsworth, and Eric Yan.  There were five guests;  Jennifer, Zora, Will, Miles, Mandy, and Xin.

Samya was the Toastmaster; Eric Y. was the General Evaluator; Mandy was the Grammarian; Sharon was the Ah Counter and the Vote Counter; and Lara was the Timer.

Speaker #1:  Ruth:  “Informal Speaking”

Advanced Better Speaker Series:  “Interpersonal Skills”

Ruth spoke about the value of knowing how to answer spontaneous questions and how often it can come up in our lives.  She acknowledged the importance of having the Table Topic questions at our meetings.  Ruth gave us some tips for responding to these types of questions.

·         LISTEN:  Make sure that you hear the question correctly.  When you listen closely, it shows respect for the person asking the questions and says that they are important.  You can often hear the answer in their words.

·         PAUSE:  This gives you a few more seconds to get your thoughts together.

·         TELL THEM:  You can use a cause/effect type of response, give opinions, put the topic into components, or change the topic using a related topic, and don’t apologize in your answer.

·         STOP:  Be sure to speak only 1 to 2 minutes.  Do not go on and on with your answer.

     Evaluation:    Suzanne evaluated Ruth’s speech.  She said that Ruth was very clear about the subject she was discussing.  Ruth referred to her notes only once and used humor to transition over to the table.  She organized her speech into “tips” and made it easy to follow.  It was suggested that she could have used a visual as an outline for her key topics and would not have had to refer to her notes.

Ruth used good vocal variety,and used personal experiences to allow us to understand the topic better and what to do and not do.

Speaker #2:  Venkat:  “Eureka Moments”

Manual Project #4:  “How To Say It”

Venkat gave a very humorous speech describing the process that he underwent to find a topic for his speech.  He followed methods he had heard from experienced speakers as well as those suggested in the manual.  Venkat went through the following methods:

·         Know your audience.  Venkat knew his audience liked hearing personal experiences, but could not think of any.

·         Take long walks.  He took long walks, but did not get an inspired idea.

·         Socialize more and ideas will come.  Venkat socialized and came in at 2:00 a.m., but did not come up with an idea.

·         Look at anything, like magazines, books, or the internet.  He tried these, but did not get an idea.

·         Try mind-numbing tasks.  Venkat watched “zombie” movies and still did not get an idea.

·         Travel.  He tried traveling and broke his pattern of traveling with others and went alone.  He did not get any ideas for his speech.

Venkat ended his speech by saying to be persistent and not give up.  His “Eureka” moment was right in front of him.  He simply had to follow his thoughts and his speech was written.

Evaluation:   Eric J. evaluated Venkat’s speech.  Eric stated that Venkat was very humorous and gave good examples for all of the attempts to find an idea for his speech.  He even envied some of the experiences.  Venkat made it personable and gave vivid verbal pictures for us, like watching “zombie” movies.  “The audience was hanging on to the next story.”

Eric suggested that he might have given us the structure of his speech in the introduction but not to give away the story surprises.  Venkat met his goal of connecting with the audience.  

Miles gave a final practice of his best man speech and sang his song.  He has really improved his speaking in just the three times he has rehearsed it.  Miles appeared more confident and gave an excellent performance.  

The theme of the meeting was: “Back to School”; The word of the day was: “Schedule”.   Table Topics were not presented as the meeting had three speakers.    

Samya asked for the guests remarks and then closed the meeting. 

Meeting was adjourned at 7:35