Capital City Toastmasters Meeting Recap - January 20, 2011

Submitted by Jillian Bowlin

Today's Theme: Why I'm Here

Mike Eaves called the meeting to order at 7 a.m. and introduced toastmaster Jillian Bowlin. Jillian shared each participant’s story of why they first decided to attend a Toastmasters meeting. Dean DiLillo gave the invocation and encouraged everyone to find passion in their current jobs, rather than waiting for the perfect job. Chuck Roylston provided the day’s joke and Uzoma Nwasu introduced “Rapscallion” as the word for the day. Rapscallion is a noun meaning rascal, or ne’er-do-well. Bob Crump served as time keeper and explained the set up for today’s speeches.

The meeting did not follow the typical sequence of orders. Tom Presley gave two speeches, both from the Leadership Excellence Series. Rather than speaking back-to-back, table topics was split with one given before and one after Tom’s second speech. Tom began with “motivating people,” a 10-12 minute speech on proper motivation techniques. Mike Eaves then called upon Charles Gupton in table topics to take a stance on whether he though support groups were important. Tom jumped right into his second speech about how to converse with a stranger. It was a 3-part speech in which he described how to make small-talk, demonstrated a conversation and then concluded with an open dialog with the audience on what worked well and what could have been done differently. Mike resumed table topics and asked for a volunteer. Guest Angela Chavis stepped up and described a time when she had to be persuasive.

Chris Richter evaluated Tom’s first speech and provided very specific feedback on areas of improvement and what worked well. Chuck Roylston evaluated Tom’s second speech but due to time constraints provided the feedback after the meeting adjourned.

Matt Zylstra gave the grammarian’s report. Carrie Karcher evaluated the toastmaster and the meeting in her role as general evaluator. Jillian presented awards to the following participants:

Best Table Topics: Charles Gupton
Best Evaluator: Chris Richter
Best Speaker: Tom Presley

Six visitors attended today’s meeting: Angela Chavis, Leif Kolflate, Garrett Anderson, Andrew Clark, Shedra Rakestraw and Chris Duncan.