Praveen served as Toastmaster to a Fun Facts Theme. There were 15 members and 3 Guests in attendance. One of the guests, Mike, was part of Toastmasters 10 years ago and is looking to dust the rust off. Angela’s daughters, Bailey and Stella, also joined us at the beginning of the meeting.

Yvette has officially joined the club. Introduce yourself at the next meeting!

George attended the Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contest on Friday. He shared some of his takeaways and informed the group that Bruce won and Nicole placed second. Bruce will compete at the Division level in November. Go Bruce Go!

Scott announced that we have received the President’s Distinguished Club ribbon for our club achievements ending July 1st. The award represents the highest honor a club can receive in Toastmasters. Nadine has graciously volunteered to sew it and some other ribbons onto our club banner.

Scott’s speaking tip of the week came from Nadine’s speech last week. He recalled how Nadine said “consistency compounds” in our personal efforts to achieve goals. Nadine has had consistent attendance and active participation in Toastmasters since 2014. Her improvement in public speaking didn’t happen overnight. Stay the course and you too will improve!

Praveen gave some interesting fun facts accompanied by visual aids on the projector. Here are a few:

  • There is a species of fireflies in the Great Smokey Mountains that can synchronize their lights to all light up at the same time. Check it out next June!
  • The bottleneck of a beer bottle is designed for you to hold it without getting your body heat into the bottle.
  • The Nike logo cost only $35 to design!

The word of the day was aspire. Tom encouraged everyone to aspire to greatness! Evidently the group did not aspire to use the word because it was only said 3 times!

We had 3 awesome speakers.

George gave a speech as part of the “evaluation and feedback” pathway titled, “Manufacturing as a Career.” He taught the group about various kinds of manufacturing and why it is a good career choice. He demonstrated good use of humor, audience participation, a hand held visual aid and projector slides. All in 5-7 minutes!

Sarah signed up last minute and encouraged the group to try a less prepared speech delivery as well. She won best speaker talking about a subject near and dear to her heart, environmentalism. Specifically she referenced a recent road trip and did the math on how many paper cups she and her husband would have used had they not brought their own travel mugs. She passionately called for others to be more mindful of their own waste production and how small steps can reduce it.

Robert gave an emotional speech about the stories of American heroes and mentioned a few select veterans / Medal of Honor recipients. He highlighted how 1.3 million service members have given their lives defending the USA. Robert had Tom read Desmond Doss’s Medal of Honor Citation after his speech. Corporal Doss was the inspiration for the movie “Hacksaw Ridge”. You can read the citation here.

Tony led Table Topics with a theme of friendly debates:

  • Nadine argued for doing a little as possible on vacation and Jerome met her on the other side arguing for doing as much as possible on vacation.
  • Angela told the group why every house should have a pet. Sunny argued against pets.

Our winners were:

  • Sarah – Best Speaker
  • Nadine – Best Table Topics
  • Jerome – Best Evaluator

Tony will serve as Toastmaster next week. Please sign up for a role if you will be in attendance.