April 14, 2014 Club Meeting

The following is a summary of the minutes from our April 14th meeting.

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

Attendees:

Present at the meeting were: Fernando Albayeros, Samya Boxberger Oberoi, Brenda Chung, Glenn Low, Lara Miller, Suzanne Mulcahy, Xin Tang, Terri, Ruth Wadsworth, and Try Zhou.  There were no guests. 

Trey was the Toastmaster; Xin was the General Evaluator; Suzanne was the Timer, Samya was the Grammarian, and Lara was the Ah Counter.

Speaker #1:  Glenn:  “Ice Breaker Speech”

Manuel #1:    “Begin speaking before an audience and to discover your speaking skills.”

Glenn began his speech by describing getting “butterflies” in his stomach, a situation with which we could all easily identify.  He then took on a journey of his childhood experiences in Singapore.  Glenn gave us some statistics about Singapore and used San Francisco as a frame of reference.  It again made it is easy for us to relate with and gave us a real feeling for Singapore. 

Glenn went into the culture, financial center, and the food as well as giving us a history of the British and why they spoke English, then Chinese, followed by other languages. 

Glenn gave an excellent first speech and gave a very colorful impression of his country.     

Evaluation:  Glenn’s speech was given a group evaluation.  Some of the highlights from this evaluation and as follows:

1.    Started with a quote about butterflies, which was very effective.

2.    Asked questions of the audience and brought us into the speech.

3.    Knew his topic very well.

4.    We got to know Singapore and its rich culture.  He also used the visual of a map of Singapore.

5.    He did not use any notes.

6.    His transitions were very smooth.

7.    Glenn used good examples.

8.    He used very few filler words.

The suggestions for future speeches were:

1.    Glenn could pause between breaks in his ideas.

2.    Slow down his delivery a little.

3.    Interject a few personal stories.

The theme of the meeting was: “Self-Improvement” and the Word of the Day was “Commitment”.   Brenda was the Table Topics Master.  

Samya closed the meeting. 

Meeting was adjourned at 7:15