Written by Maria Lalla

Toastmaster Vivienne kicked off the meeting discussing the theme “Springtime Revolution” and how it’s full of inspiration everywhere you look. Vivienne had come across a few street artists over the last weekend who were painting a mural and pointed out how Toronto is now embracing street art. From restaurants to festivals around the city highlighting collaborative artists who are bringing inspiration to life within our city environment. Vivienne encouraged everyone to take notice of street artists and as well artists in local galleries during this wonderful spring season.

First Speaker: Luke Brodie
Title: Welcome to the Toronto Base

Luke presented a speech to 75 flight attendants he will be addressing within his workplace this coming week. While welcoming new employees to the Toronto base, Luke outlined expectations while also offering important support services. Luke highlighted professionalism and how representation of the company is important when putting yourselves in customers shoes, you can realize how to continually excel customer expectations. Orientation program was mentioned to orient new attendants into the company culture working within the Toronto base. Luke ended off with a question and answer period which provided the new attendants with advice and opportunities to address any concerns they may have.

Second Speaker: Bing Lee
Title: Balls of Fury II

Bing evoked our emotions with a personal story involving a recent corporate Ping Pong event she had partaken in. Bing described how she had been soured from playing ping pong, as a result of playing with a competitive coworker at last years event. Corporate events are normally friendly and supposed to build team spirit or rapport. But for Bing playing with her competitive coworker made her uncomfortable and reluctant to partake in this years event. With some encouragement though Bing agreed to play again as her new opponent seemed less competitive, which in turn made playing more enjoyable. Bing and her new partner were playing so well that they ultimately made it to the semi-finals, where they were matched up to play against her former competitive co-worker. Bing played her best with a great team spirit though she ultimately lost to her competitive counter part. In the end Bing realized that if winning was so important for him then she was happy to let him win.

Bing left the audience with a chinese proverb to think about if ever caught up in a similar situation – “Holding anger in your heart is like holding a hot coal in your hand – you are the only one getting burned.”

Third Speaker: Arvind Karir
Title: Hot or Not

Arvind delivered a speech to a group of investors related to a product he wanted them to invest in. Arvind used powerpoint to provide information on the product and what it can do for data transferring and how it compares to current industry products. He discussed the benefits of the much smaller size, cost effectiveness, hardware and software ease of use, and making it accessible to everyone. Arvind as well showed the milestones achieved in developing the product and what the future plans are as well to inform investors. Projections and a revenue graph was also provided to show investors what their return on investment would be ultimately. Arvind left listeners with a quote related to business by Steve Jobs – “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”

Table Topics by Craig

In following the theme of the meeting Craig provided a story about David Choe who has himself created a revolution with his valuable street art. Leading into asking table topic speakers to speak about about something unique they prepare or do to get ready for spring time. Craig’s spring time memory is the picture of his grandfathers farm every spring with the fence around it to keep the cattle on the farm. Our winner for table topics was Jay with his unforgettable and creative speech on watching a ufc fight on a hot summers night with friends.

The meeting concluded with a very insightful and beneficial evaluation session including weekly reports on grammar, filler words, Jay’s quizmaster questions regarding the content of presentations and meeting timing. Overall amazing evaluations were delivered by Ted, Ian and Ram. which focused on providing constructive feedback and offering advice for future improvement to speakers.

Great turn out as always. As well wonderful speeches and evaluations look forward to next weeks meeting!!