April 13, 2015 Club Meeting

Chamber Speakers Circle Toastmasters

April 13, 2015

Attendees: Annamarie, David K, Lara, Lefteris, Randy Lee, Samya and Martin

Guests: Sergio

Theme of the day: Comedy

Word of the day: humorous

Samya spoke about the EC meeting that will take place following this meeting.  Samya also noted that a decision will need to be made regarding club meeting frequency. 

David K was the General Evaluator, Sergio was the Ah Counter and Grammarian, Randy was the Vote Counter and Martin was the timer.

Speaker:  Martin

Speech: Travel, Travel Travel, Project #2 Organize your Speech

Lara introduced the objectives.

Martin spoke about his recent trip to Cambodia, Vietnam and Korea.  He started off by asking the audience if they loved travelling, inviting people to raise their hands with a gesture.  When one person didn’t, Martin asked why and the member said he never had many opportunities.  Martin shared his perspective about tours versus self-guided exploration.  Martin spoke about experiencing another culture and how he realized he was a guest and the importance of respecting another culture’s values and rules.  

Martin used body language to share his experience learning how to cross the street in Vietnam, tying it to his main idea of learning another culture’s rules.  Martin concluded with a story about speaking with a Korean person and how the Korean person didn’t like the messiness of America but really appreciated the freedom of expression.  Martin encouraged everyone to travel, to help understand other cultures as well as appreciate one’s own.

Speaker:  Annamarie

Speech: Never Give Up, Storytelling Project #5 Bring History to Life

Annamarie summarized the objectives from her missing book.

She spoke about Abraham Lincoln and his attempts to run for office, how he was often defeated and continued to run.  He helped the oppressed and those who were enslaved.  He made courageous decisions and drafted the Emancipation Proclamation that would free men from slavery.  One hundred years later, Martin Luther King Jr. showed courage in Selma Alabama. 

Annamarie personalized her speech by sharing her experience listening to a speech at church.  She wondered if she would take action and stand up for the oppressed.  Annamarie spoke of more recent events where people of color were victims/oppressed.  Annamarie spoke of “Black Lives Matter” and how a fear of failure would prevent her from moving forward and that she had to make a decision to be courageous.  Annamarie summarized by asking the audience if they would stand up to fear when faced with the decision to be courageous.

Table Topics:  Samya led Table Topics, on the subject of comedy.  Martin, David K, Lefteris, Sergio, Randy, Lara and Annamarie participated.

David called on his team of evaluators.

Evaluator #1:  Lara on Martin’s speech: Travel, Travel, Travel

Lara said Martin met his objectives.  Lara observed the speech was well-structured and Martin immediately engaged the audience by asking audience members to raise their hands with his own gesture.  He interacted with members based on their responses, which drew the audience in more.  Lara noted Martin shared his personal perspective on the travel tours he went on as a child and how he found his own way of travelling as an adult.  

Lara noted Martin incorporated a lot of gestures in his speech to illustrate the experiences he had during his vacation.  Lara mentioned that adding vocal variety could enhance the “storytelling” aspect of Martin’s presentation, though his voice was fine for this speech.  Lara noted Martin’s strong conclusion: that by travelling and experiencing other cultures, one can also develop an appreciation for their own culture as well.

Evaluator #2: Round table on Annamarie’s speech: Never Give Up

Lefteris said he found Annamarie’s speech engaging and how she highlighted having motivation and communicated effectively.  Lefteris thought Annamarie could have balanced facts about specific historical figures. 

Samya asked if the speech was about the development of a historical event and if the speech objectives should be more about a historical event rather than multiple historical figures.  Samya thought it was a fascinating and well-developed speech and encouraged Annemarie to focus on one event or historical figure. 

Randy Lee noted that Annamarie keeps getting better and better.  Randy Lee expressed that mention of events in Ferguson kind of turned him off to what the topic of the speech was, the focus was spread out. 

Sergio thought Annamarie’s speech was great and felt the topic was on a person and noted how the topic shifted.  Sergio said he came away with the impression that she was encouraging people to find courage.

Lara said it was magnificent, a strong speech that was well-expressed.  Lara noted the use of facts and acknowledged the challenge of remembering and using facts as evidence for this particular project.

David K said Annamarie’s speech was very well written and that she efficiently expressed the topic of having courage and how it related to fear.

Martin admired Annamarie’s powerful projection and agreed with others that the story shifted focus. Martin noted Annamarie’s topics focus on the same topic: Activism.  Martin encouraged Annamarie to try other topics to develop skills.

Annamarie won the Table Topics contest.

The meeting ended at 7:20

 Roles for the next meeting on 4/20:

Toastmaster: Annamarie Theme:  

General Evaluator:  Lara

Speaker 1: Samya

Evaluator 1: David K

Speaker 2: Aditi

Evaluator #2: Lefteris

Table Topics: Randy Lee

Grammarian: OPEN   Word of the day: _______

Timer: OPEN

Ah Counter:  OPEN

Vote Counter:  OPEN