February 2, 2009 Minutes

From Austin Toastmasters (Balcones, Club #3407)

Jane Sanford artfully led her first time at Toastmaster of the day. Her theme was favorite rooms in our homes.

• Michael Giles led Prayer & Pledge stressing great qualities like sincerity.
• Mark Hicks – Grammarian - picked “inveigle (win over by flattery) as the word of the day. It was used by Michael, Gordon, Jerry and Sonny. He reported ums and creative language.
• Sonny Sonntag, Timerkeeper, kept particular track of all of us.
• Gordon Baker - One Minute Toastmaster - urged us to use an important tool in our toolbox, the pregnant pause. It brings the audience to attention and sets an expectation for what is going to be coming.

Glenn Nielsen coerced Table Topic participants to speak about words in use in our language that are not (yet) recognized in dictionaries.

• Dugg Tankersley – 1:00 – Dugg proposed cognitive dysplasia is that you don’t know what you don’t know that you don’t know.
• Antoinette Griffin – Best Table Topic – 1:12 - Antoinette assumed that phonecrastination is avoiding making those dreaded cold calls to potential customers because you know they’ll be as rude to you as you are to other solicitors.
• Charlie Cole – tied Most Improved – 1:10 - Charlie was most confused and puzzled by the word confuzzled and created a wonderful “Dr. Seuss” rhyme about it.
• Mary Buker - 1:11 – Mary expressed much enthusiasm about the Superbowl while using the non-word ginormous.
• Bruce Solberg - 1: 19 – Bruce urged us to be careful with the word snirt, that sounds like dirt but is not so nice.

Sylvester Levario – tied Most Improved – 7:50 – The World of Exports – Exporting is the movement of goods ensuring they arrive and are expected at their destination. The laws are controlled by the World Trade Organization. Everything has an identifying number that is matched up with the rules governing it. The U.S Census Bureau, the Office of Access Control and ITAR all monitor various aspects of imports and exports. He ended with a lovely quote from Woodrow Wilson that the best export from our country is the peaceful transfer of our constitution.

Jerry Barrett – Best Speaker – 7: 42 – Power in Numbers – Jerry entertained us with 3 stories of numbers. Warren Buffet, as a child figured, the longevity of the songwriters in the hymnal and decided there was no advantage to being virtuous. Ed had an encounter with javelinas when biking in the Davis Mountains. A mother was separated from her babies so she rammed his bike. There is power in numbers. David filled his cart at Wal-mart with lots of stuff then realized he didn’t really need any of it so left the cart. Then he decided to spend only $100 a month. But on a Sunday the sewage backed up into his shower. Realizing that would cost at least $200 he went to thrifty.com and found a 5-cent solution – warm water and Dawn dish detergent!

Dan Naden – 11:18 – The Borland Sales Approach / The Open ALM Story – Dan tried out the sales approach he’s developing for his new job at Borland, using a whiteboard instead of a power point presentation. Borland has a suite of Application Lifecycle Management tools for software development. They are used to measure and manage the business process. The challenges of the lifecycle include visibility of the product, predictability from year to year, staff productivity, product quality, and transformability. Demand management, project management, measurements requirement definition, quality management and change management are all effective tools to successful manage the entire process. Borland will evaluate your process and suggest tools that will help control your waste and costs.

Peter Ryon was General Evaluator. He noted that we started one minute late, Gordon has so much to teach us, Jane was a great Toastmaster and Pricilla explained an evaluator’s role.

• Jon Beall was Table Topics Evaluator – 4:40 – Glenn was well prepared with questions and victims picked ahead of time. Dugg was relaxed and a perfect straight man. Antoinette is so excited it’s contagious. Charlie’s presentation was an attention getter. Bruce got the toughest word but kept going. Mary had the best hand gestures and forward/backward movement.
• Priscilla Oehlert evaluated Sylvester – 3:00 – Sylvester’s project was on organization and his speech was organized with the definition, control authorities, partners, how it works in the US and quote at the end. He is obviously very knowledgeable on the topic. He could have use more vocal variety, he (like Priscilla) is not sure what to do with his glasses (leave them on), and wrung his hands. He had good eye contact, as he was confident in his topic.
• Jim Comer evaluated Jerry – Best Evaluator – 2:45 – Jerry used volume, body language and enthusiasm. He entertained us. The Ed/javelina story was vivid. Everyone will look up thrifty.com before the end of the day. But Jerry left us hanging with the Warren Buffet story. Don’t paint a story picture of an exciting moment and then just drop it and move to something else. Complete the story.
• Fred Maynard evaluated Dan – 2:50 – Dan did a good job speaking. He could have written neater. There is always the question of turning your back on the audience to write or looking at the audience as you write. Fred suggests the former so the writing is legible, then turn around and talk about it. He suggested Dan go over the gains Borland obtained for his two example customers, not just their issues. Dan had good eye contact and we all enjoyed learning about ALM.

• Jerry announced a membership drive. If we get 5 new members in February and March our club will get an award.
• Jim backed Jerry up saying he had spoken to a club with 4-6 members and it didn’t have quite the power of our well-populated club.
• Dugg reminded us that the speech contest is next week. He had handouts for all participants.

• Jason Boehle enjoyed the table topics and Jim’s “Lion in the jungle” analogy (Don’t paint a great story about a safari in the jungle with a bonfire and a lion standing on the perimeter… and then move on to Nairobi).
• Mike Carr – second time visitor – will definitely not go to Nairobi without dealing with the lion.