Meeting Theme: Surprises
Word of the Day: Ubiquitous

Toastmaster Ted kicked off the meeting tonight speaking about surprises. Surprises that we encounter throughout the daily news, when we think to ourselves who would have known? Surprises can be life altering, challenging, and exciting such as when we meet that special person in our life. Ted left us with a great statement to think about “Be Surprised.”

First Speaker: Craig
Title of Speech: The Future of Energy in America

Craig made a very passionate speech about various sources of energy around our world. Specifically Craig spoke about the energy sources that Canada is looking into and how they are cleaner, cheaper and better sources. Craig enlightened us on the main sources we currently use and how they are detrimental to our environment for various reasons. In closing Craig left us wondering will America be the next energy super power?

Second Speaker: Mark
Title of Speech: A Game in the Life

Mark has been a basketball coach for 10 years to teen boys and his speech took us through a typical game while coaching. Mark loves to see his team succeed but most of all at the end of a game he gives encouraging praises for players efforts. As well he assess their attitude and ultimately overall wants to ensure they all have fun. Mark left listeners with many reasons as to why he loves coaching through his expressive body language and funny reflections on his role as a basketball coach to teen boys.

Table Topics Session

Tonights Table topics session was replaced by an informative Table topics workshop led by John Kjar. Being a star table topic speaker himself John Kjar. led listeners through a workshop session in where he helped us all realize how table topics doesn’t have to be so frightening to take part in. This workshop was a follow up session to a first part workshop he had done in the past. John informed both new and old members what table topics is all about and when the skill can come in handy in real life situations. What happens when you can’t think on the spot? If you have no idea what to talk about John offered some important pointers:

1) Talk about what you don’t know
2) Tell a non-joke or a joke
3) Quotes – tell one that means something to you
4) Tell a story you know
5) Use an anecdote

John then took us into an table topics session in which we had many willing participants. Too bad we didn’t have enough time for everyone to get up and speak! We had many great speakers which included current members as well as new guests who all gave winning speeches on the spot.

Beneficial and informative evaluations were given as well by Andrew, Ram and John Kris. The evaluation team as well gave their reports on timing, grammar, filler words, and quizmaster Francisco tested our listening skills based on the meeting content. Thank you everyone for your input and efforts we look forward to seeing you all at the next meeting!!