September 9, 2013 Club Meeting

The following is a summary of the minutes from our September 9th meeting.

Meeting Location:   The Hillsdale Mall, San Mateo, CA     6:00 p.m. – 7:45 p.m.

Attendees:

Present at the meeting were: Samya Boxberger-Oberoi, Lara Miller, Suzanne Mulcahy, David Nazzaro, Sharon Pappos, Venkat Senapati, Xin Tang, Ruth Wadsworth, and Eric Yan.  There were four guests;  Andy, Deryk, Melisa and Marga.

This evening was the club’s first speech contest, “The Humorous Speech Contest” Samya was the Toastmaster; Lara was the Timer; and Eric Y. was the Ah Counter.

Contestant Speakers:

Speaker #1:  Venkat:  “A Few Funny Differences Between India and the United States” 

Venkat gave a speech on the humorous differences between the cultures of the United States and India based on his own personal experiences.  He described five specific experiences.

·        He asked a friend to bring the snacks to his home party.

·        He described shopping in India.

·        How friends phoned each other.

·        The return policies of purchases.

Venkat was able to describe various cultural differences with the use of humor rather than the seriousness that is usually given to this subject.  He emphasized our own ability to laugh at ourselves.

Speaker #2:  David:  “Ghosts of Toastmasters Past”

David created three tales using Toastmaster members as the main characters in each of his stories.  He was very creative in how he integrated Toastmaster members into the tales as he told them.  David invented stories about hippies, Donald Trump, and Al Capone.  He told them with vivid images and made them all believable.  David kept the audience mesmerized as he held a straight face until the punch line where we all realized the joke he had intended.

Speaker #3:  Ruth:  “Find Domesticated Animals”

Ruth gave a story about her two cats and the many moves she had taken.  Her younger cat had a problem adjusting to the latest move in which she had to move in with a friend of her’s that had her own cat.  This cat had difficulty bonding with the other cat in the house.  Ruth allowed us to experience this contentious relationship with clever gestures and created vivid imaginary visuals.  She ended her speech with a list of a veterinary bill of over 500 dollars for this vet’s diagnosis of a “cat with an attitude problem”.  “I paid over $500.00 to learn that my cat was pissed off.”

The evaluations were given by Eric for Venkat’s speech, Lara for David’s speech, and Marga for Ruth’s speech.

 The contest winner was Ruth but she was disqualified because she was over the time limit for her speech.  David’s was awarded the first place prize and Venkat the second prize. 

The speech contest was successful and everyone enjoyed the experience. 

Samya closed the meeting. 

Meeting was adjourned at 8:00