No one is smarter than you! Toastmaster Bob reminded us that we’re are all capable and intelligent creatures. Don’t be afraid to follow your instinct and be your own self. You could just be ahead of your times.
A range of issues were discussed this week, from legalizing marijuana to finding flight deals to advocating for designated bus lanes.
We started off with inducing two of our newest members: Nadaa and Megan. Welcome Nadaa and Megan!
Our first speaker, Jueun with her expertise (in psychology), voiced her opinion about legalizing marijuana. Is a social benefit or not? From the chart Jueun analyzed, there seem to be a positive relationship between legalizing marijuana and medical costs. That is decriminalizing (legalizing) marijuana could possibly reduce our medical costs. If we do it right, maybe there is a utopia world for both sides (as Mark would say)?
Speaker Camila, also using her expertise (as an pricing analyst), shared us a few secrets in getting flight deals: subscribe, book early, and book off season. So dig in that junk mail, there might be a treasure in there!
Our third speaker, James, spoke about the much needed improvement in our public transportation. He proposed to have designated lanes for buses during peak hours. How does this benefit us? It is a simple and economical solution for our current congestion problem.
Amanda led our Table topics with the winner – Mireille, who proved to us that Cameroon is just not about the jungle and lions.
Cara persuaded us to seek for the truth versus accepting ‘alternative facts’ or ‘truthfulness’. When it comes to truth or facts, there should not any alternatives. Alternative facts are especially dangerous in areas such as medicine, science, and justice, where truth and principle matters. We agree completely.
James spoke about forming habits, using a nerf gun, a bag of chips, and apples as demonstration. Cue, action and rewards! After his speech, we assimilated his speech by devouring the chips (cue: everyone was hungry, action: bag was easy to open and rewards: tasty!) I guess his experiment worked! But remember, we can use the same process to form good habits.
Andrew gave us a workshop on how to give speech introduction. Introduction is like first impression. Nail your introduction and you give yourself a head start. His workshop was full of vivid languages, vocal variety and humor. Relating to Martin Luther King Jr’s speech, ‘I have a dream’, to his own speech about hair and bacteria, Andrew showed us how to give powerful and memorable introduction.
Our meeting, as it always does, ended with a fun table topics. This time, led by Luke, asking us questions on dealing with big changes. It was our guest Saad who won us over, with a discovery of his cooking skills. Congrats Saad!
James Tran, our Area Contest Chair.
Mark Pilkington, a lucky Canadian and speaker.
Our Area Director Gunarajah and John Krissilas (Evaluation contest winner!)
Voluteers (Alex, Bina, John, Be, James, Mohan, Olga, Wes and Luke). Other volunteers were hiding behind the camera.
Our relocated meeting went off without any issues. Thank you Lillian H. Smith Library! The meeting was as wonderful as ever. Our first time Toastmaster Sarah Yang gave a great speech to start things off, and made sure the meeting had quick and smooth transitions, which ultimately made for a very productive meeting. Well done Sarah!
Our first speaker was Luke Talaba, shedding light onto the interesting topic of driver-less cars. Luke captured his audience with key phrases like “send a car to Ikea to pick up your order”. Thanks Luke for blowing my mind!
Next we had James Tran, giving us a speech about, and demonstrating, body language and both verbal and non-verbal language. Lots to take in with this one, thanks James.
Lastly in formal speeches, Bob Stewart gave a rousing speech on NOT waiting for life, and making things happen! You can’t wait for all your ducts to be in a row, you have to trust that they will fall in line, just like a Mother Duck. In a speech with life lessons and analogies, Bob was operating on all cylinders. Great work Bob!
Liberty Village Toastmasters Toronto 