NPS Sweeps Area Contest!

In the Area A1 competition, Robin Walker won the Evaluation contest and Chance Litton won the Humorous contest, making a clean sweep of the area by NPS Toastmasters.

Robin evaluated Test Speaker Carl Nail of San Jose, who spoke about "Showing Up".... the importance of doing your part for team by being there - whether at work or at Toastmasters! Robin was first in a field of four evaluation contestants. Second place went to Kristen Crump of Bayview Toastmasters.

Chance delighted us once again with the adventures and antics of his cat "Mr. Spock". He beat out two other speakers, including second-place winner Alisha Empleo, also of Bayview.

Congratulations Robin and Chance! Be sure to come to the Division A Contest on October 13 to support them as they compete against the winners from the other areas!

Baseball...

Fourteen members and two guests (welcome back, Elizabeth Guzman - hope you re-join us soon!) enjoyed another fine meeting, featuring an interpretive reading advanced speech of two Bobby Kennedy speeches by Robin Walker, and a seven-continent travelogue of sorts by Elizabeth Mitchell as she gave her #2 speech. Robin won "Best Speaker" while Elizabeth was Most Improved. "Best Evaluator" was awarded to a very deserving Shenequa Mitchell for her evaluation of Robin's speech.

First-time TMOD Cathy Lee assembled a great program, deftly switching assignments at the last minute when not everyone scheduled showed up. Baseball was her theme.... because she didn't know much about the game and wanted to learn more!

Margaret Stevens also showed she was on the "fast track" by taking on the Table Topics Master role, with five baseball-related questions. "Best Table Topics" was won by Mike Barksdale, who demonstrated his jiu-jitsu moves on Alex "I'm turning blue" Bein.

Robin's #5 speech from the Interpretive Reading advanced manual, Indianapolis Part 1:

Part 2:

Elizabeth Mitchell's #2 speech: Seven Lessons from Seven Continents:

Two of our stalwart members will be leaving us soon for the East Coast, where they plan on continuing their Toastmasters career with a local club there. We export Toastmasters at NPS!

Congratulations to Scott and Jolene for the birth of their son! Scott Wilbur's Farewell:

Shenequa Mitchell's farewell:

Message from Brendan Epps

I've recently been reading "Where Have All The Leaders Gone" by Lee Iacocca. It's a great read and a call to action. What struck me and drove me to write this message was the word curmudgeon. The instant I saw the word, I recalled an NPS TM meeting, where curmudgeon was the word of the day. Even after seeing it again, I couldn't use it in a sentence, but the point is the power of those words each week. They expand our vocabulary and expose us to something new. Pay attention to those words and make an effort to learn new words. Wordmasters, be sure to choose challenging words, words that will force members to grow and expand their vocabularies.

-Brendan Epps, past club president

What did YOU do this summer?

And so it was with this week's theme, as Immediate Past Area Governor Arnie Buss gave us a lesson in "how to do it" by leading us through another excellent meeting as TMOD. With 19 members and four guests present, our newest member Donna Cunningham was voted into membership and duly inducted. Donna is our 7th new member since July 1st!

One of the guests was former member Elizabeth Guzman, who we sincerely hope will be re-joining the club soon.

In addition to Shenequa Mitchell's excellent #4 speech below, Cathy Lee practiced her lawyer skills by delivering prosecution closing arguments for a criminal trial as her #5 speech. Cathy won Best Speaker, while her evaluator Scott Wilbur was awarded Best Evaluator.

Best Table Topics went to Alec Metz, fresh back from Mongolia, who described his recent marriage and associated travels. Most Improved was Donna Cunningham, who talked about her long-distance marriage. Congratulations to all!

Shenequa Mitchell's #4 Speech The Art of Communication


AREA CONTEST: Note that the date has been changed to the afternoon of Saturday 29 September, and will take place at the Agricultural Conference Center on Abbott Street in Salinas starting about 1PM. Chance Litton (Humorous Speech) and Robin Walker (Evaluation) will be competing.

India

Nineteen members and two guests were treated to three terrific speeches, which were well orchestrated by TMoD and Club President Robin Walker. Robin "set the example" with a precise, efficient meeting program which ran like clockwork. His theme of "India" helped us all get into the spirit of his upcoming around-the-world trip to Singapore, India, and Washington, DC. Table Topics Master Shenequa Mitchell hit the Web to come up with some outstanding Indian-related Table Topics.

We also inducted Masami Maeda into membership. Welcome!

Winners were:
*** Best Speaker: David Schulz's Icebreaker (see below)
*** Best Evaluator: Fred Sadler, evaluating Glenn Woodson's #6 speech
*** Best Table Topics: Luke Lazzari (In his Table Topic, he spoke of his favorite adventure sport!)
*** Most Improved: Alex Bein (In his Table Topic, he said he would buy his wife a Lexus if he could!)

We're #1 (actually, tied...)! We have now achieved three of 10 goals for Distinguished Club Plan recognition for 2007-08. We are tied with three other clubs for the District 4 lead among 200+ clubs. We have met half of three additional goals - let's be first in District 4 to become distinguished, and the first to get all 10 goals as well! To become distinguished, we need two of the following:
*** Two more new members,
*** Dues paid on time (by 30 Sept.), or
*** One more Comptent Communicator!

David Schultz's Icebreaker speech I Have Yet to Work a Day in my Life


Chance Litton's #3 speech A Mystery of Matter


Glenn Woodson's #6 speech Beyond the Nineteenth Hole


Note 1: Due to waning interest, Smedley Saturdays will be scheduled in the future only if at least three members are prepared to give speeches.

Note 2: We now have a vacancy in the office of Sergeant-at-Arms. Eric Timmerman has submitted his resignation from that office due to his overwhelming workload. An election will be held soon to replace Eric for the rest of the term through December.

Note 3: TI WHQ has rolled out the new public and members only Web sites. These sites will take some getting used to, as they are now much different in look-and-feel. For the "Members Only" Web site, you will need to establish login information in order to access all the available goodies. Your member number (as shown on the label to your TOASTMASTER magazine) is your default login. From there you can request and be assigned a password from TI WHQ, which will be returned to you via email. However, one can still conduct club business without logging in as in the past, simply by registering the club number and club password (once you figure out how to get to that part of the Web site).