March 10, 2014 Club Meeting

The following is a summary of the minutes from our March 10th meeting.

Meeting Location:   San Mateo City Hall, San Mateo, CA     6:00 p.m. – 7:15 p.m.

Attendees:

Present at the meeting were: Samya Boxberger Oberoi, Brenda Chung, Eric Jones, Randy Lee, Lara Miller, Suzanne Mulcahy, David Nazzaro, Sharon Pappas, Martin Quan, Xin Tang, and Ruth Wadsworth.  There were four guests:  Aaron, Anna, Glenn, and Ting.

Suzanne was the Toastmaster; Ruth was the General Evaluator; Brenda was the Timer, Samya was the Grammarian, and Randy was the Ah Counter.

Speaker #1:  Lara:  “Gimme Five”

Manuel:  #7   “Research Your Topic”

Lara began her speech by asking the question, “Why do we shake hands in Toastmasters?”

After giving us many examples and researching this topic, she broke it down to three main reasons for shaking hands that has been done throughout the ages, which are the following:

·        -  Demonstrates respect for the person.

·       -  A form of passing the power, or the podium.  In a class it is similar to “passing the stick”.

·       -   Demonstrates confidence and competence.

Shaking hands also releases a chemical that brings confidence and trust; “a happy chemical”, into the brain, called Oxytocin.  A genuine handshake has been proven to increase the trust and confidence in the exchange of the participants.  It can be very beneficial for nonprofit organizations in fundraising programs.  Lara demonstrated this handshake for the club members and let us practice it on each other.

Evaluation:  Eric evaluated Lara.  He opened by stating that Lara “surprised him”.  It was such a simple title and he could not imagine what she would say about this.  “She fooled me.” 

Lara’s speech was well organized and thoroughly researched.  The audience was completely engaged.  Lara did an excellent job of condensing the research into a manageable format.  We now feel more energized in focusing on our greetings to and with people, in the form of a handshake.

Lara may have given this topic even more time, but she was under the time constraints of the speech rules.  Throughout the speech, Lara walked around the room comfortably and at ease.  She had the audience with her from the beginning to the end of her speech and used humor well.  Lara also demonstrated excitement and enthusiasm for her subject.

Speaker #2:  Samya:  “Toastmaster Club Contest”

Advanced Manuel:  #1 “Speech to Inform”

Samya gave a speech to inform the club members about the upcoming speech contest.  She held up power point pages that held an overview of what she had to say.  Samya went over the following items:

·        The rules of the contest:

·        -The eligibility of each of the categories of speeches; (1) Tall Tales, and (2) International speeches

·        - The time limits for each category

·        - The roles the participants had volunteered to take and the speakers

·        - Asked for any new volunteers 

·       - How the contest would be organized

·        - The agenda and the time limitations of using the room

Samya was a last minute substitute for one of the members that could not attend and was scheduled to speak.

The theme of the meeting was: “Technology” and the Word of the Day was “Communication”.  Martin was the Table Topics Master.   

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

Meeting was adjourned at 7:15