Capital City Toastmasters Meeting Recap - February 4, 2010

Submitted by Brian S.

Dean D. -- our Sergeant at Arms -- wrapped the gavel and called our meeting to order right at 7am. He introduced us to today's Toastmaster, Wade H.

Wade reminded us that Valentine's Day is just 10 days away, then he gave us the theme of today's meeting,

“Will you marry me? (Stories of the Big Q. and other love tales).”

Jason G. gave us the Invocation, presenting a quote by Saint Francis of Assisi and inspiring us all.

David K. served as Jokemaster and got everyone laughing at his rabbit joke. If you missed this one, you'll have to get him to tell it to you later! (And it's the first joke I've ever heard with a double punch line. Terrific!)

Wordmaster Carrie K. gave us our word of the day, obstreperous, meaning noisily and stubbornly defiant; or aggressively boisterous. This was a tough one (in my opinion), but our members stepped up to the challenge and used it several times throughout the meeting! Well done!!!

Dean also served as Timekeeper, and he gave us the time parameters for the assigned roles. He encouraged us to finish within the time limits, lest we get "the hook" as he called it (better known to Toastmasters as "polite applause," which encourages us to wrap it up and indicates that we have been disqualified from the voting portion of the meeting).

Dean welcomed our guests (many of which are now members). Guests are always welcome at Capital City Toastmasters!

We had 3 terrific prepared speeches from Kerry L., Colleen S. and Martin R. Kerry gave a speech on computer shopping (from the Research Your Topic project), Colleen gave a speech on lessons she learned while living in France (from the Your Body Speaks project), and Martin gave an advanced project speech on giving effective speech evaluations.

Gwen V. was our Table Topics Master today. Rookie members Cameron, Sara and Bruno participated in Table Topics. They were required to speak for a set amount of time and use the Word of the Day. Only Bruno qualified for voting, so he was our automatic winner!

Lesley C., Mike E. and Richard K. gave excellent speech evaluations, mixing praise with opportunities for improvment.

Kelly L. served as Grammarian and reminded us of many terrific words and phrases that were used in today's meeting. Simon then gave the General Evaluator's report, summing up the meeting well.

Our one true guest at today's meeting commented,

"This is a great group of people here, and it will be fun to come back."

Ribbon winners were:

Best Table Topics: Bruno

Best Evaluator: Mike

Best Speaker: (Tie) Colleen and Martin