June 24, 2013 Club Meeeting

The following is a summary of the minutes from our June 24th 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, Ron Kasper, Lara Miller, Suzanne Mulcahy, Sharon Pappos, Venkat Senapati, Jim Spath, Ruth Wadsworth, Eric Yan, and Tom Zucchelli.  There were three guests; Paula, Kannappan, and Wendell.

 

Venkat was the Toastmaster; Suzanne was the General Evaluator; Sharon was the Grammarian; Ron was the Ah Counter and the Vote Counter; and Jim was the Timer.

Speaker #1:  Kannappan:  “How to Prepare for a Contest”

Guest Speaker: 

Kannappan shared the three phases of preparing for your speech.

1.    Incubator Phase – Nurture your mind, body, and soul.  Think outside of the box.  Take a walk, pause, breathe, relax and the ideas will come.  Choose a topic you know, a topic you love, and a topic the audience cares about.

2.    Developmental Phase – Use the tools you have. For example; 52 speaking tips, look at youtube for prior winners, etc.

3.    Delivery Phase – Tighten your speech, not more than 720 words.

Kannappan’s speech not only told us how to prepare for a contest but how to prepare for any speech or presentation.

Evaluation:  A group evaluation was given for Kannappan’s speech.  He received many compliments regarding his speaking.  He was well organized, used great vocal variety, had good beginning and concluding comments, and the body was articulated well and concise.

Speaker #2:  Eric .Y:  “High Octane Gas for the Ultra Life”

Manuel:  #2   “ Organize Your Speech”

Eric gave a inspiring speech about how running 100 mile marathons gave him lessons that he applied to his life.  He used the anachronism GAS, which stood for goals, authenticity, and start.

Goals:  Clearly define our goals.  Give deadlines and write down our goals, monthly, weekly, and daily.  We choose our goals and we can choose to make the commitment to complete them.

Authenticity:  Be authentic.  Love ourselves and follow our own needs.  What works for other people may not work for you.  Listen to yourself.

Start:  Take action.  Just do it.  We learn by doing.

Evaluation:    Ruth evaluated Eric’s speech.  She said that it was a great speech and Eric knew his topic well.  He was able to bring out the humanness of running so we could all relate to the topic.  Ruth loved the term GAS and how it was used in the speech.  It is something we can all remember and apply to our own lives. 

Ruth suggested that the beginning was a little weak but after about 30 seconds, Eric tightened his speaking up very well and captured our full attention.

The theme of the meeting was: “Independence Day”; The word of the day was: “prosperity”.  Lara won the ribbon for the best table topics speaker.

    

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

Meeting was adjourned at 7:20