Meeting Synopsis
Meeting Date
January 27, 2016Meeting Theme
Fat TuesdayWord of the Day
BygoneToastmaster of the Day
ShnitaGreetings fellow Toastmasters, this is the synopsis of Toastmaster Shnita’s “Fat Tuesday,” Mardi Gras Toastmaster’s meeting! Shnita said that, although it was a little early for Fat Tuesday, her goal is to encourage all toastmasters to be ready to party knowledgeably when Mardi Gras rolls around this year.
Jokemaster / Inspirational Moment
ReneeThe next party is the superbowl, and Joke master Renee started with a joke about a football player who did not do well in arithmetic. Ordinarily the coach benched such players, but this time he needed the player. The coach decided to do a pop quiz for the delinquent player in the presence of his team. “What is 2 + 2?” he said, and the player responded, “4?” The coach paused, and nearby observing team members said, “Aw coach, let him try again!”… Good one, Renee!
Grammarian
RosieGrammarian Rosie announced the word of the day “bygone.” which means to forget past, and let disagreements be reconciled. Rosie encouraged us to embrace the phrase, “let’s let bygones be bygones.”
Prepared Speeches
Speaker 1
PatriciaFirst Patricia gave a speech entitled “What do the Beatles, Elvis Presley, and Bob Hope have in common?" Patricia acted out several impersonations from the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Muppets Kermit and Ms. Piggy, and from Dean Martin. Patricia was working on the “Your Body Speaks” project, so many of her impersonations involved exaggerated rock star moves with lots of hair fluffing and wiggling, and the roles required her to adopt the uncanny personas of several different people and Muppets. The answer to the initial question of what all of these people had in common was that they all had their initial debut on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Speaker 2
KoriThe second prepared speech was on “Elevator Etiquette” by Kori. In this speech, Kori informed us that there are several rules that must be followed when taking the elevator. The rules themselves were rules that we all should know (let people out before you get in, hold the elevator doors open if you see someone coming, consider the stairs if only taking one flight, stop talking on your cell phone, spread out in the elevator, face the door, and, when on the elevator door opens, don’t block people from getting off the elevator). Most of us have heard them before, but perhaps not with all of the funny facial expressions and hilarious justifications that Kori provided as reasons to following the rules. Kori’s (maybe) rule, to let women off the elevator first, was funny -- Kori was torn over the development of equal rights for the sexes, but finds that it is often just easier and it saves time if people don’t have a long debate about who is getting off the elevator first. Kori once worked in a building downtown Los Angeles that had 28 floors, where a lack of elevator etiquette was generally felt more acutely when trying to accomplish the tasks of the day. I liked Kori’s exceptions to the 1-flight, take the stairs rule (it’s ok not to if you have a disability, or are wearing high heels).
Best Speaker
Patricia and Kori (tie)Table Topics Master
NancyTable topics master Nancy asked each contestant to imagine that they were a professor, providing concluding remarks on a dissertation on multitasking, providing surprise visual aids with various cartoons and pictures of people multitasking.
Table Topics Participant 1
AdamAdam said multi-tasking should be avoided, pointing to flying arms on the visual aid and saying, “someone could get hurt!” and, “your calculations could be less than accurate!” and he warned that you multi-task, you could end up looking similar to the silly creature depicted on the visual aid!
Table Topics Participant 2
BobUsing the visual aids that Bob was provided, Bob imagined that some persons in the class thought he looked like a picture that looked fairly silly, and that others would think that he looked like the other visual aid, depicting a man who appeared smart while multitasking. Bob opined that multi-taskers might get better with time, or perhaps, the older that they get, the weaker they would be at multitasking. Bob warned against the dangers of multitasking without intention.
Table Topics Participant 3
CorinneCorinne asked her imaginary class to put stop multi-tasking with cell phones, and she recited numerous elevator etiquette rules that she broke with fellow toastmasters Cheri, Adam, and Shnita on the way to the meeting while multitasking. She commented that everyone thinks that he or she will look efficient multitasking, but she warned that they usually actually look like the wide-eyed SpongeBob multitasking visual aid that looked really freaked out.
Table Topics Winner
Bob and Corinne (tie)General Evaluator
AdamAdam Burrell orchestrated the general evaluation festivities and enjoyed the overall level of participation by all throughout the meeting. Adam encouraged that we return to complimenting others on the good uses of English language during the meeting as part of the Grammarian’s report at least.
Evaluator 1
SteveSteve really enjoyed Patricia’s impressions and he commented that Patricia’s writing was excellent!
Evaluator 2
AnitaAnita evaluated, expressed that Kori met her goals with ease, and she loved Kori’s theme, that Kori had hoped her pregnancy would make her more empathetic, but that instead that Kori’s pregnancy hormones were just making her angry : ). Anita was especially taken with the idea that when speaking to persuade, you do not always have to be serious, and she complimented Kori’s use of humor to persuade. Nice job, you both were enjoyable to watch!
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