June 23, 2014 Club Meeting

The following is a summary of the minutes from our June 23rd meeting.

Meeting Location:   San Mateo City Hall, San Mateo, CA     6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

Attendees:  Randy, David, Aditi, Ruth, Fernando, Samya, Brenda, Barbara, Suzanne, Leif, Vishal, Martin and Glenn.

There were three guests: John, Shashi, and Jack

Samya started the meeting with a warm welcome to all of the guests and asked each one to speak about what brought them to Toastmasters.

The new officers were voted into office by a unanimous vote by the members:
Martin Quan: Vice President of Membership
Fernando Albayeros:  Sgt. of Arms
Lara Miller: Secretary Assistant

Samya was the Toastmaster; David was the General Evaluator; Shashi was the Grammarian; Randy was the Ah Counter; Martin was the Table Topics Master; Glenn was the Vote Counter; and Brenda was the Timer.

The theme of the meeting was: “Vacation”; The word of the day was: “Holiday”.

Speaker #1:  Barbara:  “Ice Breaker”

Competent Communication Project 1:  

Barbara spoke about how to be “on track” with your purpose; “What am I passionate about?”.  She then told us about meeting a woman from “Women for Women International” and how she became inspired to begin a fund raising effort on their behalf.  This organization helps women from war torn countries rebuild their lives.

Barbara spoke about her 10 years in New York City where she taught meditation.  She helped her students discover that their happiness “comes from within”.  

Barbara then moved to California where she wanted to find a “new vision”.   She acquired a new career and soon became aware of her true calling, which was to assist others in regaining their self-esteem.  She helped them by giving step by step guidance.  Barbara discovered her passion in allowing others to live successful lives.

Evaluation:    Aditi evaluated Barbara’s speech.  Aditi said that Barbara “did a fantastic job”.  There were so many things she liked.  Barbara’s body language was good as was her tonality.  She conveyed her message with such passion and had great eye contact. 

Aditi gave the suggestion that Barbara make her transitions a little clearer and pause to allow the audience to catch up with her.  Overall, it was an inspiring message that was vocally very clear.

Speaker #2:  Vishal:  “Ice Breaker”

Competent Communication Project 1:  

Vishal gave an inspiring speech about his philosophy of life.  He began with the powerful quote: “80% of life is just showing up”.  Vishal then gave us two significant examples of this by relating it to his life experiences. 

The first example was when he chose to fill a last minute vacancy in a race.  Vishal had not trained as the rest of the runners had but he ended up winning the race anyway.  His second example was when he needed to find a job and found one at Mac Donalds.  

Vishal was new to this country and was not familiar with the menu, but he still managed to be promoted in just three months to the manager of the drive through.  Vishal enjoys “just showing up and putting himself out there”.    

Evaluation: Suzanne evaluated Vishal’s speech.  He appeared relaxed, confident, and outgoing in front of the audience.  Vishal introduced his topic with a strong quote that immediately got the audience engaged.  He gave two excellent examples to illustrate this point.  These examples were from personal stories that also gave us a chance to know him better. 

The suggestion given was to spend a little more time in summarizing his speech and have an equally strong ending, since the beginning was so powerful.  Overall, Vishal gave a great ice breaker speech.  It was well organized and on point.  He also used good eye contact. 

Table Topics:  Martin was the Table Topics Master.  Almost everyone had a chance to respond to the table topic questions.    

Samya asked the guests to give their impressions of the meeting and then closed the meeting.

Meeting was adjourned at 7:30