Meeting Recap for December 4, 2013

Today’s meeting was another fun one with lots of laughter. The theme was “Another 20 Days Until What???”  Our Toastmaster Cheryl E started the meeting with helpful tips on how to have a stress free holiday season.

Due to the parlous (WOTD courtesy of grammarian Rick S) driving conditions with snow and ice and cancellations on roles, there was a last minute shuffle of assignments.  Many thanks to new member Carmina L for stepping up to take the Table Topics Master role just 5 minutes before the meeting. Carmina did a fantastic job! *loud applause*

The first speaker Michelle A gave a very well researched speech on “Gay Adoption”.  Michelle presented arguments ‘for’ and ‘against’ allowing gay couples and gay individuals to adopt children. She gave research findings either backing up or refuting commonly held assumptions.

The second speaker Becky C gave a humorous impromptu speech on Santa’s Flying Reindeer, mushrooms, Coca Cola’s advertising campaign, and Santa’s rosy red cheeks. Who would have guessed why those cute little reindeer can fly so high!

For Table Topics, Carmina asked Gilbert G, “What is your professional aspiration for 5 years from now?” Gilbert’s answer was, “I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing now.” How many of us can say that? For the second Table Topics question, Carmina asked Dennis E,”If you were CEO of your company, what legacy would you like to leave behind?” The answer was, “A transcendental organization!” *just joking*

The evaluation portion of the meeting was led by Clair S, who stepped up for the role late this morning. Her evaluators were Rich S and Lorianne O who both gave helpful evaluations. Did you know that the Soviet Union changed the color of Santa’s coat from red to blue?
The Wizard of Ah’s was Dennis E, and the timer was Darius O. Vote counter was Kim I,
and grammarian was Rick S.

Remember to check the web site (www.slhardware.com) for your next role.

See you all next week!

Meeting Recap for December 12, 2012

Another wonderful meeting that was a lot of fun and we also learned a lot!  Dave S was our Toastmaster today and gave us a little introduction about the theme, National Geographic, 124 years of scientific exploration! Who doesn’t like the breathtaking pictures that have been sprinkled throughout that classic magazine over the years? Thanks for the fun theme and all of your NG knowledge!

We were honored to have one of our newest members, Steven E, give his Ice-Breaker speech titled: “Read National Geographic? I Live National Geographic!” And if memory serves me correctly, he was a substitute speaker that only had a couple of days to put such a speech together. Talk about a scary missionary experience! Hearing Steven’s speech was one thing, but our President, Kevin M, could also picture some of the beautiful scenery of that green foliage Steven mentioned about in his speech! Steven was awarded today’s best “Speaker-of-the-Week” award with his great speech!

Our second speaker, Oleg S, gave us a great speech about cell phones!  Of course he gave this speech in his usual, very humorous way, and we all got a great chuckle from the way he explains things to us. All I know is, I’m going to be particular about where I carry my cell phone from now on! He gave us a little history lesson on cell phones and we appreciate how well his English is coming along. We certainly look forward to hearing these speakers give more speeches in the future!

Clair S was our Table Topics Master and had some amazing questions that she would read off and you were thinking how grateful you were that she hasn’t called on you!  Fortunately, at the end of her reading the question, she would then simplify what she wanted you to respond to in a much easier sentence that didn’t scare the pants off of you! First up was Darius O trying to tell us what he would do if his life were to end in seven days.  Believe it or not, he thought calling in sick to work every day and playing video games was the way to go! Next up was Michelle A who had to tell us about her biggest fears, which I don’t think were all that uncommon – death and spiders!  Last up was today’s best “Table Topics Response-of-the-Week” winner, Candice C, where she was asked to tell us about a time when she camouflaged herself. She told us about a very fun and interesting situation where she needed to dress up like a boy that just didn’t work out!

The evaluation portion of the meeting was conducted by Becky C.  We appreciate Becky’s expertise and knowledge about Toastmasters and she did her usual great job despite starting out with a mind lapse!  She mentioned how wonderful it was to have all of our newest members involved in today’s meeting in some kind of role!  Evaluator #1 was LeeAnn D who did an excellent job of evaluating Steven’s Ice Breaker and passed along several improvement points for his future speeches.  Toastmaster veteran, Dennis E, captured today’s best “Evaluator-of-the-Week” award with his great assessment of Oleg’s speech, including using the whiteboard for a visual.  We always appreciate Dennis’ wit and humor in these evaluations!

Reminder/Teaching Moment of the Week:

• Remember to keep your speech focused on a specific point and purpose.

“If you can’t write your message in a sentence, you can’t say it in an hour.”     — Dianna Booher

If you have something you think we could all benefit from to make the Salt Lake Hardware Club even better, then please send to Craig and we will tell the group in above reminder/teaching moment!

We really appreciate the great job everyone did today in making the meeting so enjoyable!

See you all next week!

Meeting Recap for December 5, 2012

A great meeting today that I really enjoyed and I hope you did too!  Scott P was today’s Toastmaster and introduced us to “The Bermuda Triangle and Other Mysteries” for today’s theme.  I especially liked all of that ‘stuff’ he mentioned about Darius O – that was so funny and what a memory!

Today’s speakers were doing presentations in a most unusual manner, but for something totally different it was really a lot of fun!  Becky C started off by giving a television speech titled “Tips on Preparing a Speech.”  This speech was being recorded for television purposes and the evaluator was to make his/her notes by watching the TV monitor and not the actual speaker – at least not the one in the front of the room.  Talk about a mystery!  We all learned something from Becky’s speech that we can use in our future speeches – as well as how difficult speaking in front of a television camera can be.

Our next speaker, and today’s “Speaker-of-the-week” recipient, Rich S, gave us all the rundown on getting our money’s worth with his speech titled:  “Products of Value”.  I don’t know about you, but I learned more about blender product value in 7 minutes than I’ve known my entire lifetime!  After Rich’s ‘smooth’ speech, I even know what a “Blendtec” is – I also know I can’t afford one!  Rich did a great job and we appreciate his passion for getting his money’s worth!

Craig M conducted Table Topics and asked questions about Christmas present receiving.  We had four wonderful respondents, though no volunteers!  First up was Cheryl E and she got to tell us why she was so happy with a “Cheesy Candle” when she bought her sister a $169 Cashmere sweater!  Next up was our very funny Lorianne O, who was trying to thank her super skinny mother-in-law for buying her an exercise video for fat people.  Oleg S tried his best to explain the joys of receiving a 79¢ backscratcher instead of some nice $30 gift card!  Last but not least, and the recipient of today’s “Best Table Topics Response” was, Dave S.  Dave got to read us the letter he wrote to his father after receiving one of his most joyous Christmas gifts of all – a stuffed Elmo doll!

The evaluation portion of the meeting was conducted by Darius O.  He kept the meeting on time and did a great job.  His first evaluator was our president, Kevin M, evaluating Becky’s speech.  He did a great job for something that I don’t think we have ever seen before in our club – evaluating from watching the speech on TV!  Our second evaluator, Ellen C, had the pleasure of evaluating Rich’s blender speech!  She nailed the review right on the head and told Rich everything he did good and not so good, short of throwing him in the blender!  Ellen captured today’s “Best Evaluator-of-the-Week award!”

Reminder/Teaching Moment of the Week:

• To follow up on one of Becky’s excellent points – A thought from Sims Wyeth &  Co. Blog –  When reading a written speech…
  “You’re reading written prose, so you will sound formal and more distant.  We don’t speak in complete sentences, and the rhythm of formal prose is very different from the cadences of spontaneous speech.  Actors train for years to be able to make written scripts sound ‘real’ or conversational.  Few people outside of the theater have this ability.”

“There are only two types of speakers in the world. 1. The nervous and 2. Liars.”     — Mark Twain

If you have something you think we could all benefit from to make the Salt Lake Hardware Club even better, then please send to Craig and we will tell the group in above reminder/teaching moment!

We really appreciate the great job everyone did today in making the meeting so enjoyable!

See you all next week!

Meeting Recap for November 28 2012

A nice meeting today despite missing several of your smiley faces! Dennis E was our Toastmaster today and chose the theme of: “Themeless!” I believe he said it had something to do with procrastination but he wasn’t sure? Dennis was his typical funny self and we do enjoy his great sense of humor! He told us that he promises to be a better Toastmaster from now on! We’ll hold him to that, but he did a fine job!

Cheryl E gave her 6th speech in the Competent Communicator Manual – ‘Vocal Variety’ – titled: “Funny Things Happen on the Way to a Family”. It’s amazing how much she has progressed since her first speech and we truly enjoy her conversational tone (borrowed from her evaluator, Dave S). Great stories about “Do you remember when …”.

Next up was Kathy D giving us her 7th speech from the same manual – ‘Research Your Topic’ – titled: “Sweet Perils”. Her speech told us all about the perils of, yes, sugar! I think we all have a better understanding of this highly addictive substance that most all of us simply can’t live without! Let’s all try to be a little sweeter, but not by consuming sugar – and this coming from the club’s Chocoholic!

Cheryl captured today’s Best-Speaker-of-the-Week award for her great speech!

Our president, Kevin M, volunteered to be our Table Topics master and chose the TT theme of, what else – Marijuana!  First up was one of our newest members, Steve E, who did a great job telling us why Marijuana should be legalized and the benefits thereof! He was followed by Michelle A, who IS our newest member and she too had lots to say about the “feel good” drug of choice. Darius O was the last of the volunteered contestants and expressed how we should all be able to do our own thing, including smoking Marijuana, as long as it doesn’t affect others! Steve was today’s Best-Table-Topic-Response award of the day!

Darrell V was our General Evaluator and always does a great job and we appreciate his quick wit/humor as well. His first evaluator was Dave S, evaluating Cheryl’s speech. Dave continues to give his great evaluations and we all appreciate his balance of praise/instruction! Becky C was our second evaluator, and gave us the low-down on Kathy’s speech. Becky is one of our club’s best evaluators and she also did a great job today and earned the Best Evaluator-of-the-Week award!

Reminder/Teaching Moment of the Week

A couple of things we can’t stress enough!

• If you know in advance (before you are scheduled) you will be unable to attend a particular week be sure and let the VP Education (Scott P this year) know so he/she can enter this information into the computer and it won’t schedule you for any roles on those days.
• If you are already scheduled for a role and something comes up where you can’t attend that meeting, be sure and let the Toastmaster know ASAP and reach out to the club for possible volunteer replacements (this doesn’t work real well with speeches).

If you have something you think we could all benefit from to make the Salt Lake Hardware Club even better, then please send them to me and we will tell the group in above reminder/teaching moment!

The club has another new member!  That’s right! Michelle A took the Toastmaster plunge today and is the club’s latest member and we wish her the best in building her speaking and leadership skills with us! She was unanimously voted in at today’s meeting!

We really appreciate the great job everyone did today in making the meeting so enjoyable!

See you all next week!

Meeting Recap for November 14, 2012

A fantastic meeting today with a very nice turnout, including two guests! Lorianne O was today’s Toastmaster and introduced us to today’s theme about “Dreams” by telling us about those scary things that go through our minds each and every night – though fortunately, most of them we don’t remember!

Clair S was giving her “Ice Breaker” speech  titled “A Competitive Spirit”. That’s two weeks in a row we’ve had an Ice Breaker!  Like I mentioned last week, we just love to hear Ice Breaker speeches as they reveal so much about the person, as well as his/her current level of speaking.  What’s most exciting is to see these same speakers, say, 4-5 speeches from now and the improvement that takes place in between them! We certainly got to see/hear all about the competitive swimmer that Clair has been throughout her life.

Our seasoned veteran, Scott P, was our second speaker and he delivered project #2 Speaking in Praise from the advanced “Special Occasion Speeches” manual with his speech titled “An Ordinary Hero”.  This speech was a very touching story about his heroic sister who was killed while serving others.  We always enjoy listening to these advanced speakers and the great way in which they conduct themselves up in front of us.

Clair captured today’s Best-Speaker-of-the-Week award with her Ice Breaker! Scott went a little long in his speech and was disqualified.

Table Topics was conducted by Oleg S – we love our local Ukrainian! He had one of our guests, Casey S, get up in front and try to sell us a gavel. Casey was very brave to be “volunteered” into this role, without even knowing much about what he was supposed to even do!  Jennifer S (welcome back!) was the only other TT invitee and she captured today’s Best-Table-Topic-Response award of the day by telling Oleg why they call him a turkey at work!

Our president, Kevin M, was today’s General Evaluator and we always appreciate Kevin’s fun and humor he brings to our club. His first evaluator was Darius O (who is, in my opinion, a fantastic evaluator) and he was evaluating Clair’s speech. He did a great job of praising her speech and gave a couple of pointers to help her improve on her next speech.  Kathy D was evaluator #2 and we had the pleasure of listening to her critique Scott’s speech.  She also did a great job and we appreciate the points she brought out about Scott’s presentation. Darius captured today’s Best Evaluator of the Week award for his impressive evaluation.

Reminder/Teaching Moment of the Week:

• When writing a speech. Start by clearly defining your purpose. Write one or two brief sentences that clearly define your point. As you write the speech work to include only what will move the audience toward that point. Edit out anything that doesn’t help your purpose – even if you really, really like it.

“If you don’t know what you want to achieve in your presentation your audience never will.”  — Harvey Diamond

If you have something you think we could all benefit from to make The Salt Lake Hardware Club even better, then please send them to me and we will tell the group in above reminder/teaching moment!

The club has a new member! That’s right! Steven E took the Toastmaster plunge and is the club’s latest member and we wish him the best in building his speaking and leadership skills with us! He was unanimously voted in at today’s meeting!

We hope that our guests, David H and Casey S enjoyed themselves at today’s meeting!

We really appreciate the great job everyone did today in making the meeting so enjoyable!

Remember, Because of the Thanksgiving holiday
we won’t be meeting next week

Enjoy and we will see you all in two weeks!

Meeting Recap for November 7, 2012

A great meeting today and hopefully everyone enjoyed themselves and learned something!  Cheryl E was today’s Toastmaster and started today’s meeting off by telling us a little bit about Veterans Day and her grandfather who was a veteran.  She did a great job and we appreciate the leadership skills that Toastmasters helps us try to improve upon each and every week!

Candice C was our first speaker today and we all got to enjoy her Icebreaker speech, titled “A Lesson Before Lying”.  We love to hear Icebreaker speeches as we all get to learn more about the personal side of the author!  It’s also the new member’s first speech, and it’s exciting to get a feel for their delivery and style.  Candice said she was so nervous that she’s never coming back – O.K., that’s a lie, I was just checking to see if you folks actually read this stuff! 

Our second speaker was Dave S who is working on the advanced, “The Entertaining Speaker” manual.  This was the 3^rd project in this manual and Dave’s speech goal was to make them laugh, which he certainly did by talking to us about how “Kids Say the Darndest Things”, which was the title of his speech.  Dave did a great job and he shared the Best-Speaker-of-the-Week award with Candice.

LeeAnn D was today’s Table Topics Master and had questions related to Veterans day, so you know she was in tune with today’s theme.  Her first volunteer was Oleg S, who had to answer a question related to a date having a special meaning.  Knowing I didn’t have a role meant that I was for sure going to be called on to do Table Topics and was wondering why I didn’t get that question to answer.  I got my question next and had to talk about visiting any kind of special war memorial or such.  Kim I (welcome back!) then had to talk about a Veterans Day Parade and did a fine job, however, she was way too excited to be done after 50 seconds!  Oleg and yours truly captured co-Best-Table-Topic-Response of the day awards.

Toastmaster veteran Scott P was today’s General Evaluator and did his usual great job in that role.  Our first evaluator was Liz M who was filling in at the last moment and we always appreciate when people volunteer for roles like she did.  She did an excellent job and wasn’t too hard on Candice, after all, it was her first speech!  Guest evaluator, Oscar M, then evaluated Dave speech and we appreciate him coming down to our club – Scott inviting him, of course.  Oscar just recently captured 1st place in the District 15 Evaluation Contest!  That means he won his club, area, division and the district contest!  Oscar captured today’s Best Evaluator of the Week award for his impressive evaluation.

Reminder/Teaching Moment of the Week:

• When evaluating remember you have a lot of experience being in an audience and listening to presentations.  This qualifies even a beginning Toastmaster to evaluate an accomplished speaker.  Even a professional speaker can learn from your feedback.  Always give suggestions that can help the speaker improve.It is unnecessary to send the group an e-mail if you can’t make it to a particular meeting if you DON’T have a role

“Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.”     — D. H. Lawrence

If you have something you think we could all benefit from to make the Salt Lake Hardware Club even better, then please send them to me and we will tell the group in above reminder/teaching moment!

We hope that our guest, Steve E, enjoyed himself at today’s meeting!

We really appreciate the great job everyone did today in making the meeting so enjoyable!

See you all next week!

Meeting Recap for October 31, 2012

Another fun and very enjoyable meeting today on this Halloween afternoon! Darius O, came dressed as a modern-day cowboy, complete with some kind of assault rifle in his holster as today’s Toastmaster and he did a great job!  The theme was, duh, “Halloween!”

Today’s first speaker was Jared S who gave us a very appropriate speech for today called:  “Cloak of Invincibility.”  This is project #5, Your Body Speaks, from the Competent Communicator Manual.  He did a fine job in telling us this – Best Speaker of the week – spooky story complete with his black cloak!
Dennis E was our second speaker and he was brave enough to give us a technical briefing from the advanced Technical Presentations Manual titled:  “Solutions Performance Management.”  Let’s just say there’s a reason why I haven’t delved into such a manual – yet.  It is not easy to liven up topics that just aren’t all that much alive.  Dennis still did a good job with the topic he was trying to present and we appreciate his effort.

Liz M was our Table Topics Master and presented the following tough questions for the following individuals:

Question	Table Topic Person
The first Jack O Lanterns were made from turnips.  If you had to decorate and carve turnips for Halloween, how would you do it?	Rich S
Halloween is the second highest grossing commercial holiday after Christmas.  Please comment.	LeAnn D
Scottish girls believed they could see images of their future husband if they hung wet sheets in front of the fire on Halloween.  Other girls believed they would see their boyfriend’s faces if they looked into mirrors while walking downstairs at midnight on Halloween.  If you were, say, 13, whose face would you have seen – tell us about your boyfriend at that time and/or whose face would you have wanted to see?	Cheryl E
The Village Halloween parade in New York City is the largest Halloween parade in the U.S.  The parade includes 50,000 participants and draws over 2 million spectators.  Assuming this parade gets postponed this year, would you agree or disagree with this decision and why?	Candice C
If Halloween was not coming to your town, would you muster up a mini-celebration and how?	Dave S
Tell us what Sanhainophobia means?	Kevin M
Only 11.5% of the people will dress up their pets.  Have you ever dressed up your pet and if so, as what and how did it go?	Craig M

Members then voted for their best Table Topic Response and the winner was our President – Kevin!

Dave S did his usual professional job of being our General Evaluator and was very positive about today’s meeting! Our first evaluator was Scott P who is really becoming a great evaluator.  He evaluated Jared’s speech with some great examples of things that were done right and things that could be enhanced for future speeches.  Darrell V had the assignment of evaluating Dennis’ speech.  Darrell does an excellent job coming up with interesting ways of saying what he feels! Scott captured today’s Best Evaluator of the Week award for his frightening good evaluation.

Reminder/Teaching Moment of the Week:

“Avoid the tendency to go on, and on, and on.  Craft a coherent message and then be quiet.  Rambling on will only weaken your overall speech”  — Andrew Dlugan, Six Minutes Speaking and Presentation Skills blog.

“Fear is not a foe but a friend – a familiar companion that nagged me to do my best. Don’t think of fear as a deterrent.  It’s a kick in the rear to prepare”  — Helen Hayes

If you have something you think we could all benefit from to make The Salt Lake Hardware Club even better, then please send them to Craig M and we will tell the group in the above reminder/teaching moment.

We really appreciate the great job everyone did today in making the meeting so enjoyable!

See you all next week!

Meeting Recap for October 24, 2012

A very interesting and enjoyable meeting today full of fun and learning!  Kathy D was our Toastmaster and she did her usual stellar job of conducting today’s meeting with her theme of: “The Debate!”  Of course everyone has an opinion of the debates, even if that opinion is “what debates?”, so that led to a very lively meeting.

Darius O was our only speaker today and his speech titled: “Toastmasters and the FISTS of Friendship”. He was truly entertaining and fun to listen to!  FISTS standing for:  Filler, EvaluatIon, Sign, Time & Segue.  He was filling in for a missing speaker and we really appreciate his willingness to do this just for all of us.  This was speech #5 in The Entertaining Speaker manual, and it was also Darius’10^th advanced speech, which means he has now earned the Advanced Communicator Bronze award.  He joins five other club members that have also earned this award.  Congratulations,Darius!  And by the way, he also captured today’s “Best Speaker of the Day” award!

With only one speaker, that left us plenty of time for Table Topics.  I’m sorry that I can’t remember most of the responses to these questions, as I was trying to gather my thoughts about Darius’ speech as his evaluator – multi-tasking not being a strong suit of mine, apparently.  Let’s just say I believe they were all political debate-type questions, and we had the following pairs of individuals give an answer and then either a rebuttal or also an answer to the same question.  In speaking order they were:

RESPONSE	REBUTTAL
Ellen C	Lorianne O
Scott P	Kevin M
Merrill B	Michelle A
Melissa B	Dave S
Darius O	Kathy D

People then voted for their best Table Topic and the winners (a tie) were Michelle and Dave!  Both were awarded the “Best Table Topic Response” award for the day!  We must mention that this was Michelle’s second time in as many weeks doing Table Topics and she’s still only a guest (for now).  Merrill, our other guest, also participated in his first TT session and did a great job!

Oleg S conducted the evaluation portion of today’s meeting and we appreciate the great job our local Ukrainian is doing!  Craig was the lone evaluator.

Don’t forget next week is Holloween.  
If you would like to come in costume – do it!  
If you want to bring goodies – do that too!  
Also if you have a role next week don’t pretend it snuck up on you.
You have been warned!

Reminder/Teaching Moment of the Week:

• If you know in advance that you won’t be attending on a given Wednesday, be sure to send our VP of Education, Scott P, an e-mail so he can mark you out for and not schedule you for any role that particular week (or weeks).

If you have something you think we could all benefit from to make the Salt Lake Hardware Club even better, then please send them to Craig M and we will tell the group in the above reminder/teaching moment.

See you all next week!

Meeting Recap for October 17, 2012

Congratulations to all our potential new members for attending today’s Open House!  We really hope you enjoyed your visit and we look forward to seeing you again soon! We meet every Wednesday from 12:05 – 1:00 P.M. (except the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the last two of the year).  Don’t be afraid to call or write if you have any questions.  You’re also welcome to visit the club and/or our website (www.slhardware.com) as often as you would like before taking the Toastmaster plunge – which isn’t all that scary, especially when you consider what you get out of it!

We also had a couple of distinguished guests visit our club today!
Billie Jones, DTM, currently serving as our Area D2 Governor, joined us and we were thrilled to have her visit the Salt Lake Hardware Club for the first time!  Billie turned out to be one of our key contributors to the success of our Open House!  We’re assuming Scott P had something to do with her visit and we appreciate you inviting her!  We also got another visit from Oscar M  You may remember that Oscar was our “Target Speaker” for our club Evaluation Contest in August.  He is all the way down from Logan!  We even put him to work as today’s Ah Master!

For those club members that weren’t able to make it today (and  there were a lot of you), you missed a really good meeting and the opportunity to meet 13 people that usually aren’t at our club – though we’re hoping all of them soon become members and join our little family of fun and learning!  We appreciate the great job Rich S did in helping organize this event!

Our one and only speaker today (we did it that way on purpose so that we would have plenty of time to let the visitors share their thoughts) was our current president, Kevin M, who was giving speech #7 from the Competent Communicator manual – Research Your Topic.  His speech was titled “Not Normal” and it was perfect for today’s meeting.  Hearing some of Kevin’s stories, we could probably label him – Abby Normal!  Seriously though, we appreciate him taking on the assignment of speaking today AND running the portion of the meeting that he always does as our president!  He did win today’s “Best Speaker-of-the-Day Award” with his great speech!

Table Topics was conducted by Dennis E who was filling in at the last moment for two straight weeks!  Oscar was the first volunteer and had to come up with his favorite governmental conspiracy theory!  Rich S was next but adroitly avoided telling us who he thought won last night’s Presidential debate.  Billie was then asked to talk about style over substance, straight from last night’s presidential debate.  Craig M had to come up with a way to make peace in the middle east – not easy in 45 seconds!  Last but not least, Michelle A – the only guest who volunteered – had to speak about her favorite part of being in the military!  In the end, it was the veteran, Billie, who captured today’s best “Table Topic Response of the Week!”

Darrell V conducted the evaluation portion of the meeting and we appreciate him volunteering at the last moment as well.  First up was our only evaluator of the day, LeeAnn D, who did a great job in evaluating Kevin’s speech.  She seems to be getting real comfortable in front of us and did a fantastic job, walking away with today’s “Best Evaluator” of the week award!

Reminder/Teaching Moment of the Week:

• Try bookending your speech.  That is, include a common element in both your opening and closing to provide Symmetry and make it more memorable.  (See “Bookending Your Speech: A Master Technique” on the  Six Minutes blog for more information on this technique.

“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”     — Mark Twain

If you have something you think we could all benefit from to make the Salt Lake Hardware Club even better, then please send them to Craig M and we will tell the group in the above reminder/teaching moment.

We really appreciate the great job everyone did today in making our Open House so successfull!

See you all next week!

Meeting Recap for October 10, 2012

This recap should not be abstruse, and hopefully you are all better off by attending today’s great meeting!  Our Toastmaster, Ellen C, picked an interesting theme for today’s meeting – “Legends of the Fall” – where she delivered some great stories that were downright scary!

Our opening speech by LeeAnn D was titled “Keep it Snappy”, which is project #3 in the Competent Communicator manual.  She went into detail on how we can deliver better elevator speeches whenever we have the opportunity to go beyond, “What do you do for a living?”  We all know what the acronym:  “SHNAPPS” stands for, right?  Veteran Darius O was our second speaker today and entertained us with the 4th project in the advanced Entertaining Speaker manual – titled “Change in Salina”.  Darius did his usual great job and kept us all on our seats waiting to see whether he was going to fall off that roof or not!  He captured today’s “Best Speaker of the Week” award with his outstanding presentation.

Rich S was today’s Table Topics Master, where he asked our President, Kevin M, what character in Camelot would he want to be and why?  Kevin chose the dragon because of all the hot air that comes out of him according to his wife.  Dennis E (welcome back!) was asked what kind of monster he would like to be and why?  It wasn’t easy for Dennis to decide on such a mean spirited beast, which just goes to show you what a big softy he must be!  He doesn’t want to be a mean monster, but the gentle, kind man, that he is!  Scott P was the next person that got volunteered and he had to decide on what character from the Wizard of Oz would he want to be and why?  He thought about being a Munchkin, but settled on the scarecrow, citing a brain is much needed to be involved in the crazy world of I.T.  When the votes were all counted, it was Kevin who captured the “Best Table Topic Response” award of the day!

We got to hear some nice assessments from our evaluators.  Dennis E, who volunteered for us at the last minute, was evaluating LeeAnn’s speech and did a great job!  He was followed by our local Ukrainian,Oleg O, who evaluated Darius’ speech.  Oleg has an interesting way of delivering information that’s always fun and different and we appreciate the progress he’s making as a speaker on a weekly basis!  Oleg’s nice review also captured today’s “Best Evaluator” award!

Reminder/Teaching Moment of the Week:

• Introductions are a great way to let the club know a little bit more about you!  Be pro-active in getting your intro to the Toastmaster or the General Evaluator.

If you have something you think we could all benefit from to make the Salt Lake Hardware Club even better, then please send them to Craig M and we will tell the group in the above reminder/teaching moment!

Don’t forget next week’s “Open House” – Bring Guests!
Also remember to bring any food items you signed up for!

See you all next week!