August 4, 2008 Minutes
From Austin Toastmasters (Balcones, Club #3407)
- Jim Comer, VP Membership, opened the meeting using the help of the masses to guide him (and we weren’t bashful on offering him advice!)
- Cathy Lovelady led us in thoughtful prayer and pledge.
- Harry Savio served as our masterful Toastmaster setting the theme of the say as quick stories from our lives.
- Dan Naden timed us all to the second and reported no excessive violations.
- Karen Bondy counted “you knows” and “ahs” (except from first time table topic participant Pace!). The word of the day, “Saga” was used by Steve, Jim, Sonny, and artfully by Priscilla in her concluding statement.
Scott Perry, Table Topics Master, coaxed stories from participants by starting each story for them.
- Antoinette Griffin – 1:27 - told a “Once upon a time” story about Rudolph the red nosed reindeer.
- Cathy Lovelady – tied Best Table Topic – 1:40 – spoke of “A day I will never forget” when she adopted a cute baby corn snake.
- Pace Smith – tied Best Table Topic – 1:12 – “When I was young”. Page said she did a boring science project with mice and a maze. They started with 2 boys and 2 girls and ended up with 30 mice but learned nothing about mazes.
Priscilla Oehlert – Best Speaker – 5:31- “It's never too late”- Priscilla spoke of entrepreneurial spirit. In 1993 she married a fellow in Arizona dreamed of a business scheduling truckers. Then the created a business plan to create felt lined jewelry boxes with different decorations for all sorts of uses. Then her husband asked her “Have you made one yet?” and dashed her dream. Well the dream is not dead yet now she’s in Austin!
Anne Child – 6:53 – Most Improved - “The true value of a ram” – Anne told the story of a climber lost in the Pakistani mountains finding his purpose in life of building a school for a remote village and the technical and political battles he and the villagers faced.
Sonny Sonntag – 6:35 – “Fear in the jungle” – Unlike scientist today who spend most of their time in the office, Laid-back Charlie and Tight-Wad Bob tramped through the jungle in search of oil. Tight-Wad Bob spent a long night and day in his sleeping bag, frozen with fear of the Bushmaster snake who slithered in with him. Of course, Laid-back Charlie was full of bright ideas. The snake crawled out when eventually got warm and then Laid-back Charlie blasted it.
General Evaluator Jim Comer led the way to encouragement and improvement.
- Steve Gonzales – 1:25 - commended Scott for making the questions simple, clear and right on topic. We all learned from Antoinette about Rudolph. Cathy had a cute line about getting to feed the baby snake its very first mouse. Pace had names for her mice and then let them go!
- Mike Prentice - 2:42 - congratulated Antoinette on her well organized speech. He said she accomplished the goals of her lesson but missed some opportunities to add vivid descriptions.
- Jonathan Huizingh – tied Best Evaluator - 3:00 – Anne used good description and gestures (except for the thumbs up move) and effective use of voice. She got flustered a time or two and the project suggested he look for a twist in the story, but it was very subtle.
- Dugg Tankersley – tied Best Evaluator - 2:07 – Sonny’s pocket speech sounded like a comfortable conversation with a friend. He has an easy manner and good gestures. Sonny was planted in one place but still made effective eye contact with everyone.
