Capital City Toastmasters Meeting Recap - September 2, 2010

Submitted by Chris Richter

Today's Theme: Fond Memories of Time with Your Parents

Meeting Recap: September 2, 2010

Sergeant at Arms Andrew Soloninka called the meeting to order at 7 a.m. and introduced our toastmaster, Matt Markowitz. Matt had all meeting participants recall the fondest memories of something one of their parents did with them or for them growing up.

Chuck Roylston served as invocator and provided the following quote: "Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or gazelle -- when the sun comes up, you'd better be running." Our word of the day, courtesy of Dennis Smith, was "progenitor." Dean DiLillo provided the joke, and Ariel Ward served as timekeeper.

Bob Crump was the morning's first speaker. In his talk, from the advanced story telling manual, Bob recounted a wilderness and rafting trip he took down the New River when he was a counselor at a camp for troubled boys.

Cherry McRae talked about setting goals in her speech from the Competent Communicator manual. She laid out a guide to follow as you set goals and talked about how important it was to have specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely (SMART) goals.

Andrew Soloninka gave an entertaining and energetic talk about his love of coffee and how he has had to make changes in his coffee consumption habits in recent years. His enthusiasm for the subject was infectious.

Trey Bason asked Tanya Hunte and Dorsey Riddick to talk about motivation for the Table Topics portion of the meeting.

Jason Grimes gave the Grammarian's report and noted that none of the speakers used filler words. Brian Simpson provided a general evaluation for the meeting and reminded evaluators to avoid "should have" when talking about different approaches speakers could have used.

Matt presented the best speaker award to Andrew and the best evaluator award to Sara. Best Table Topics went to Tanya Hunte.