Releasing your Inner Child

February 18, 2012 Meeting Recap

 Theme:  Releasing your Inner Child

Our illustrious president, Gaurav Batra, kicked off our meeting discussing how his wife always calls after each meeting with the same questions – “How did the meeting go and did you talk about me?”  Apparently Gaurav’s wife tracks how many time he talks about her or makes jokes about her.  She keeps score and Gaurav has to buy her gifts to make up for talking about her.

We next had Dale Edmonds perform the exercise and inspiration receiving the longest applause ever recorded at Redmond 2828.  He took several minutes to walk up to the front and then had to dig through cabinets to find his inspiration.  After we were exercised and inspired,  we began the meeting.

Rod Johnston was toastmaster.  Rod discussed the theme “Releasing your Inner Child”.  We’re all born free of boundaries, laws or preconceived notions of what people think of us.  We laugh and cry when we want.  We say what we want and even run around the neighborhood naked until we’re about 4 years old.  Then, society takes its’ toll on us.  We start conforming and worry about what people think of us.  We no longer wear our pajamas to the store let alone run around naked.  We hide our feelings not being allowed to laugh or cry or show any emotions.  We get stuffed into a box of adulthood.  It’s not viewed as mature to build sand castles when we’re grown-ups, play with toys or anything of the like.  Rod shared with everyone this his favorite day and time of the week is when he gets to play with the 1^st through 3^rd graders at church playing air hockey, bouncy house and soccer.  Rod’s challenge was for everyone to release their inner child.  Wear your pajamas to the store and play with toys.  You’ll enjoy life all over again.

Yiling Yang gave the first speech called My Secret from the CC manual project #5 Your Body Speaks.  Yiling discussed her secret that she’s kept from everyone, including her family.  Her secret is that she’s in love with someone else who isn’t her husband!  She very much enjoys this person and views that person equal to herself.  In fact, that person she’s in love with, is herself.  She went on to talk about how we should all love ourselves like we love others as one of her golden rules.  It was an excellent speech.  I gave her two thumbs up.

Leo Novsky gave the second speech.  His speech was part of his upcoming seminar on helping people with their interview skills.   He used the acronym S.P.E.A.K.  to go through how we should interview.   He’s even coached his mother on how to interview and sell herself.  The result was that she ended up getting a job.  Leo is now a full time Speech Coach and this speech is part of a presentation that will lead to a two day seminar on public speaking.  I also gave Leo two thumbs up, especially since he took a big bite out of a lemon.

Paul Lou was the final speaker with a speech titled “My English Sucks” from the manual The Entertaining Speaker, Project #1, project name:  The Entertaining Speech.  Paul discussed how he learned to speak English and the challenges of learning English.  There are too many ways you can say his and hers and also the plural example of 1 book and 2 books.  In Chinese it would be similar to saying 2 book as two is already plural, so you shouldn’t have to say books.   It was a very funny and entertaining speech.  Paul also received two thumbs up.

Dasha Gudalewicz did an outstanding job being a last minute fill in as the Table Topics Master.  She came up with great questions for our table topics people.

Our evaluators, Joana Tou, Anna Margolina and Kanako Iwata-Eng did a fantastic job providing insight and critique of each of the speeches.  They must be warming up for the upcoming contest.

Leo Novsky won the best speaker ribbon, but quickly handed it over to Yiling in an act of humbleness.   Joana Tou won best evaluator and our special guest Jeanie, won the best table topics award. 

Gaurav then provided his insight as the General Evaluator on how the meeting went.   The only miscue was the toastmaster announcing it was time for break when he was already eating a doughnut in the back of the room.   Other than that, the meeting went well and no one got hurt.  

Rod (Toastmaster)

Tell me a Story!

Today we had a wonderful and entertaining meeting, around the theme, Tell me a Story! Gaurav opened the meeting with greetings to Katherine and Dave Degel and we had two other guests, Francis and Leslie. Anna led us in some fun exercises from her impromptu class, helping us to respond with an emphatic “Yes!”

We had four outstanding speeches. We started off with Jack Fecker, who  shared with us his speech, “The Key to Personal Mastery,” speech 2 from an advanced manual. It was fascinating to hear Jack share his experience of walking on hot coals, and how the principles of recognizing where you are and where you want to be, can help you accomplish your goals. Jack has accomplished some pretty impressive goals, so it’s great advice that has been walked out.

Our second speech, by Sola Soyombo, was the second in the advanced manual, Technical Presentations. In Sola’s technical presentation, he shared his plan to make airline travel more profitable for the airlines and more comfortable for the passengers. I believe Dow chemical would have approved of Sola’s plan, since their motto used to be “Better Living through Chemicals”. The engaging speech was followed by a lively Q&A session, in which the club participated fully. It seems unlikely that Sola’s proposal will be adopted anytime soon, but if it is, we will know from whom it came.

Next we heard from Srini Burugapalli, who shared his icebreaker. Srini shared from his childhood, work experiences, hobbies, and family life.  It was interesting to hear from another immigrant to the United States. I always love to hear the stories of those who have dreamed and worked to come to America, and now have achieved this dream. I think we were all a little envious of that young ten year old who climbed the coconut trees to chop off coconuts and drink that cool, sweet coconut water. We also got to see some of his beautiful photography.

Finally, we got to hear from Dale Edmonds and his experience wrangling cattle at the Kedesh Guest Ranch. It sounded like Dale had a really fun time, despite the fact that both his ribs and his pride were slightly bruised.

Molly brought a cake and sparkling cider to celebrate Katherine’s DTM during the break. Yum!

Amit hurt his back and was unable to do Table Topics, we are hoping he makes a speedy recovery. Backs are tricky things, you know. However, Phil Jensen stepped in and, with aplomb, covered for Amit. Phil allowed each Table Topic participant choose a story of their own to tell, or continue the story of the person before them. We had four people volunteer for TT. They were Liz, Mupopa, Jerry and Surendra. Congratulations, Jerry, for taking the Table Topics contest.

Yiling Yang was our General Evaluator, and she led an excellent team: Wenzhong, Katherine, Joana, and Ajay. Our evaluators all gave excellent evaluations, and Joana took the ribbon for best evaluation.

We wrapped the meeting up, running a little late since we had so much to fit in and gave Katherine a fragrant bouquet of lilies as a thank you for all she’s done for the club.

Best Table topics – Jerry Torell

Best Evaluator – Joana Tou

Best Speaker - Srinivasa Burugapalli

Thanks so much, team, for an excellent meeting!

Libby Powers (Toastmaster)

Travel Destinations

Hi Everyone,Saturday’s meeting theme was “Travel Destinations” and we had an amazing array of speakers who incidentally, traveled long distances to move to the US.

First timer, Dasha Gudalewicz, gave a hillarious interpretation of travel by demonstrating the “angry bird” flapping movement for the Exercise and Inspiration.  She recommended visiting Hawaii for your next vacation getaway.

This was followed by four stellar speeches:
(1) The first being Anna Margolina’s speech titled “Body Language – Lessons from the Clown”.  Anna spoke about how adults lose their imagination and natural vocal gestures.  Using techniques learned from clown and acting classes, she gave great examples of how one can easily introduce body language into your speech.  However, it must be well-rehearsed to give the appearance of acting natural.  Anna also recommends using the entire stage as good way of connecting to your audience.

(2) Joana Tou was the 2nd speaker and her speech was called ” The Art of Complaining”.  She gave excellent personal examples how one can effectively complain about poor service and products through loyalty, being creative, or ultimately making threats. Her idea of dealing with an uncooperative husband ditching chores, i.e. chore tracker, delighted many emphathetic female members.  Go Joana!

(3) Third speaker was the cool, collected, witty club president, Gaurav Batra, whose speech “Cartoons are not Always Fun” was a parody of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and the laws of physical portionality.   After watching this cartoon 34 times with his young daughter, he claims that Mickey Mouse Clubhouse doesn’t teach the laws of proportionality.  I think Gaurav should find other activities to bond with his daughter.

(4) Our last speaker was Wenzhong Wu.  He gave a speech called ”Mathematical Spirit”, in which he talked about British mathematician, Andrew Wiles’s quest to solve a 358 old year math question called Fermat’s Last Theorem.  His speech inspired many of us to “never give up” on achieving our goals.

As usual, Jack Fecker, did a wonderful job being the TT master.  Although most of his questions did not revolve around the travel theme, he still had many enthusiastic participants.  My supporting crew consisted mostly of “newbies” – Srini (first time as Timer), Surendra (first time as Wiz of Ahs), Evan (as Grammarian), Mohammed (as Camera Operator), and Nikki (as GE).  Everyone did a fabulous job on their roles, despite having been told to rush their reports.

The Evaluator team of Paul, Yiling, Jerry, and Ajay (first time evaluating) gave insightful, concise feedback to their respective speakers.  We also had a couple guests who came to see the show – Leslie (first timer) and Bill Montgomery (Liz’s Dad).  Always wonderful to have family members drop by and support their loved ones!

Winners were:

Best Speaker: Anna Margolina

Best Evaluator: Jerry Torell

Best Table Topics: Liz Jenson

All in all another great meeting at Redmond 2828!

Thanks ~your toastmaster,
Molly

Imaginary Animals

Two words to describe today’s meeting – Festive (word of the day) and
flexible.  Thank you, those who could come despite the weather, for being
flexible putting up with the last minute changes and for having lots of fun
with me!  Dennis and Libby stepped in as speakers, Nikki as evaluator, Srini
as cam op.

Speakers:
Leo Novsky – The Ice Breaker “Never Give Up”, introducing his family’s
“Never Give Up” traits he wants his son, expected in May, to carry on.
Dennis Armstrong – Impromptu Speech “The Joy of the Northwest”, telling us
about the geography, volcanoes, mashrooms.
Libby Powers – A “back pocket” speech “The Garden”, inspiring us to nurture
our garden (=ourselves) and make our dreams come true.
Best speaker: Leo

Evaluators:
Gaurav Batra
Nikki Politte – 2nd time to evaluate, and evaluated Dennis!  Well done!
Robert Lo
Best evaluator: Robert

The Table Topics Session was conducted by Paul Lou around the Imaginary
Animals theme.  Because we had plenty of time, we used the contest timing
(1-2 min) and allowed some speakers.
Best Table Topics: Dennis and Leo (tie)

Good job everyone!  Thank you, again!  Kanako (TM)