March 15th Meeting

Sanjeev graciously stepped in to be our Toastmaster, filling in at the last minute and doing a fabulous job. Swarna was back (we missed her) and filled the role of timer, expertly. Lisa, visiting us for the second time, participated as the Ah counter/word master. She challenged us with the word Bumpkin, an awkward, simple rustic, yokel. We had some trouble working it into our speeches. Our guest, Ron, participated by telling us a joke about chicken coups, but he was prepared to give us a mini-stand up session.
We had two advanced speeches. Janice P. gave speech from the Humorous Speaking manual about her crazy weekend. Janice B. read Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax for the Read a Story speech from Interpretative Reading Manual. After the speeches, Bill got everyone fired up with a table topics session on favorite foods or foods with special meanings. Nine people in all got up to tell us about their favorite foods, including our first time guests Dave and Ron. Bill kept trying to wrap things up but people really wanted to talk about food! Our speech evaluators tonight were Rob and Tim, both evaluating for the first time. Rob evaluated Janice’s humorous speech, pointing out how the audience could relate to the story. Rob did an excellent first evaluation which touched on both the positive aspects of the speech with minor suggestions for improvements. Tim evaluated Janice’s Interpretative Reading and also delivered a first rate evaluation that covered the positives and constructive criticisms. Well done to both of our new evaluators! But wait, there’s more! The meeting was well attended, so we had a General Evaluator for the first time in awhile. Not just any General Evaluator, an advanced Toastmaster visiting the club. Richard B. gave us an overall meeting evaluation that we can be proud of. He is tough evaluator, so he gave us some good feedback and even said he had fun!
After the meeting we enjoyed some snacks brought by our snack master Rob and welcomed our two newest members Markly and Dave!
Our next meeting will be on April 5th at 7pm at the VFW in Wappingers.

March 1st Meeting

Our March 1st meeting featured Janice P as our Toastmaster, who helped us get going and stay on track. Trishla took the role of timer and let us all know how we were doing. Jane introduced the word of the day; equivocal, which means having several meanings or deliberately ambiguous. One of our new members, Ranjit, amused us with a joke about a cop waiting to catch a DWI outside the bar. Instead he ends up with the designated decoy.
We had 3 speakers tonight. Bill dove right in and gave us Ice breaker which focused on the importance of friends and family. Rob gave speech #4, How to say it, and told a story about the untimely death of a co-worker. Jean-Marc delivered speech #2, Get to the point, giving more history of brick making in the Hudson Valley. Tim took over as our Table Topics Master and challenged everyone to tell either a story about recent blizzard or your most embarrassing moment. There was great participation and stories ranged from heartwarming to hysterical. Then we moved on to the evaluation portion of the meeting. Janice P evaluated Bill’s Ice breaker and complimented his stage presence and choice of content. Sanjeev evaluated Rob’s speech with a well rounded combination of praise and suggestions. Janice B evaluated Jean-Marc’s very passionate brick making speech, with some advice about keeping on time.
After the meeting, we gathered for snacks provided by Trishla and Rob.
We also welcomed our two new members Ranjit and Abhal!!!
Our next meeting will be March 15th.