March 24, 2014 Club Meeting

The following is a summary of the minutes from our March 24th 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, Aditi Mishra, Suzanne Mulcahy, David Nazzaro, Martin Quan, Xin Tang, and Ruth Wadsworth.  There were two guests: Glenn, and Terry.

Samya inducted the new members:  Brenda Chung, Aditi Mishra, Xin Tang, Trey Zhou, and Martin Quan.

Eric was the Toastmaster; Brenda was the General Evaluator; Xin was the Timer, Lara was the Grammarian, and Martin was the Ah Counter.

Speaker #1:  Suzanne:  “Bullying Behavior Among our Youth”

Manuel:  #7   “Research Your Topic”

Suzanne gave the definition of bullying:  “Bullying is the use of force or coercion to abuse or intimidate others.”  She then gave the following statistics:

·       1.   56% of all students witness a bullying crime in their schools.

·       2.   15% of all student absences are from the fear of being bullied.

·        3.  71% of students report bullying as an ongoing problem.

·       4.   282,000 students report being attacked in high school each month.

Suzanne used visuals that showed a girl who was alone and could easily become a victim of bullying.  She also spoke about the dramatic increase in the suicide rate among children because of bullying. 

Suzanne concluded her speech with the following data:

·        1.  Bullying crosses all cultures and occurs in all communities.

·        2.  It is the strongest between the ages of 6 to 14 years.

·        3. 18% of preschool children are targets.

·        4. 17% of preschool children are bullies.

·        5.  Bullying behavior has a lasting impact.

Speaker #2:  David:  “From Solicitation to Attempt”

Advanced Manuel:  #1 “Speech to Inform”

David explained the distinction of an incomplete crime from a completed crime.  He went through the following processes:

·        1.  Thoughts:  Request that someone else will commit the crime on your behalf.

·        2.  Solicitation:  Meet with someone and have a meeting of the minds, reach an agreement.

·        3.  Preparation:  Low threshold of criminal conspiracy when two or more agree to commit a crime.

·        4.  Perpetration:  Make an attempt to commit the crime.

Evaluation:  Samya evaluated Suzanne.  She began by stating that the numbers of bullying behavior are “mind boggling”.  Suzanne’s speech was well researched, with good vocal variety.  She remained on topic through the entire speech. 

Samya recommended that Suzanne move a bit more and begin the speech with the definition to bullying behavior.  Samya was surprised with the facts that bullying was cross cultural and the enormity of the problem.  She said the speech was well delivered.    

Evaluation:  Martin evaluated David’s speech.  He stated that David gave a very good speech and very informative.  The subject was very complex but he used charts and gave us specific explanations so that we could follow what he was saying.

David remained on one side of his charts and perhaps he could have moved more to the other side; however, his speech was well written and flowed smoothly.  He definitely met his objective of speaking to inform.

The theme of the meeting was: “Spring” and the Word of the Day was “Spectrum”.  Ruth was the Table Topics Master.   

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

Meeting was adjourned at 7:25