ENTHUSIASM!!!!

Eighteen members and three guests enthusiastically welcomed Eric Guttmann's first foray as TMOD, and all contributed to another great meeting! Donna Cunningham won both "Best Speaker" and "Most Improved" with her descriptions of her private spaces where she finds inner peace, while long-time Toastmaster (and one of our club's newest members) Art Testani treated us with an icebreaker of sorts, describing how he got into Toastmasters and what it has meant to him (see below for both speeches).

Best Evaluator was Robin Walker, who made the effort to coordinate with his assigned speaker (Donna) ahead of time. Best "Table Topics" went to John Armstrong.

On the Horizon:
May 16-17: District 4 Spring Conference, Elections, and Speech Contest (our own Arnie Buss is representing Division A in the International Speech Contest, competing against speakers from the seven other Divisions!) See www.d4tm.org for details.

Art Testani's Advanced Speech from Public Relations, #1 "The Good Will Speech" titled Toastmasters, Gandhi, and Me:


Donna Cunningham's #2 speech A Piece of Peace:

Preparation!

With 18 members present and two guests (both of whom have decided to join), Brian Anderson led a picture-perfect, well-prepared, Marine-quality meeting as TMOD - with a theme of (you guessed it) - "Preparation"! Brian's performance was a tremendous example of how to execute the TMOD role effectively, efficiently, and with aplomb.

We had three excellent speakers, but no videographer (even though the camera seemed to be running from afar). There was a tie for "Best Speaker" between Robin Walker (Evaluate to Motivate module) and Alex Bein (who made his arcane thesis project understandable and fun). It might have been a three-way tie if Chance Litton hadn't gone overtime with his funniest speech since his Fall contest winner, which described his nominees for the five worst "bad-guys" of all time! For both Chance and Alex, it was their #4 speech in the CC manual. Robin did the Evaluation module his way, which made it much more useful and up to date. His outline is now on our Web page. Cathy Lee won "Best Evaluator" for her insightful evaluation of Robin, while Alex Bein was voted "Most Improved".

Emilie Staryak did a great job leading Table Topics on the theme of preparation or lack thereof, with new members Art Testani and Tito deJesus competing along with Fred Sadler. Fred won "Best Table Topics" largely on his uniquely skillful stalling techniques!

All the club's latest educational accomplishments have now shown up on the TI WHQ Web site. If they allowed us more than 10 goals, we would have 18 (including six CCs, five CLs, and 20 new members)!

With the recent and pending graduations of several very active members, our recruiting must continue. Our club has acquired former Toastmasters from other Divisions and Districts as members. This should enrich our club through the importation of ideas that have succeeded elsewhere.

Political Campaigns

With 18 members and 3 guests, we had another high-energy, action-packed and fun-filled meeting! Veteran Toastmaster Robin Walker presided over a fast-paced meeting with a very relevant theme of "Political Campaigns." Spicing the meeting with his personal experiences of being involved in campaigning, Robin was inspiring in his call to get involved with the political process. Robin, as usual, spiced up the meeting further by altering the normal format to give us some variety in programming --- speakers were first, then table topics, then evaluations! Fred Sadler led a theme-oriented table topics, which was won by Mary Lineberger's guest Erica Hemmingway, speaking about what she would do if Governor for a day. Erica is moving to San Francisco and hopes to join Toastmasters there.

Cathy Lee's Opening Remarks:

Robin Walker's introductory remarks:

Bill Gibbons presents his #2 speech, for which he won both "Best Speaker" and "Most Improved". He was evaluated by Angi Anderson, who won "Best Evaluator" for her effort.


Mary Lineberger, assisted by Carl Thormeyer, tackles an assignment in the Public Relations advanced manual involving a radio show interview.


The meeting ended with a recognition of Angi Anderson as the 2007-2008 NPS Toastmaster of the Year - congratulations Angi! She has been such an inspiration to the club with her warmth, energy, and enthusiasm ever since joining. She has served as VP Public Relations, during which time she revived our dormant club newsletter, as VP Education, where she effectively led and shepherded members to achieve their educational goals, to her current role as club president, where she continues to inspire with her leadership. Angi exemplifies by both word and deed what Toastmasters is all about.


And of course last but not least, you all know by now that Arnie won the Division A International Speech Contest on Saturday, and will compete next in the District 4 contest in May. Arnie also was awarded "Division A Toastmaster of the Year"! Congratulations!

Our awesome club also received special recognition as the first club in District 4 to achieve all 10 DCP goals and "President's Distinguished Club" status!

Spring has Sprung!

Another great crowd of 19 members and two guests enjoyed our April 4th meeting, which was ably run by first-time TMOD Elie Ishag with his theme of Spring. Impeccably dressed and professionally smooth, Elie navigated us through another soul-satisfying meeting featuring Cathy Lee's #10 speech and John Armstrong's #3 speech. Cathy completed her requirements for the "Competent Communicator (CC)" award with a wonderfully motivating talk about spiritual encouragement, and won "Best Speaker" as well! John won "Most Improved" with his talk about the importance of our national parks. Winning "Best Table Topics" was Glenn Woodson, who took the opportunity to plea for volunteers for the upcoming Sea Otter Classic bicycle races at Laguna Seca, while GE Fred Sadler chose Carl Thormeyer as "Best Evaluator" for his review of Cathy's #10 speech.

The new members keep rolling in (to replace those leaving), as first-time guest Walter Bilger joined immediately, and another first-time guest Tito deJesus indicating he would be joining soon. Welcome, Walt!

Cathy Lee's completion of her CC gives NPS TM six CCs for the year, which goes a long way toward helping District 4 meet its goals. Go to http://www.d4tm.org/ to see NPS Toastmasters standing alone atop District 4's Distinguished Club Plan ladder from over 200 clubs between San Francisco and King City!

We will miss Elie and Rosetta Ishag, who are returning to their other home in London this week, but they will be coming back to Carmel in July.

Sorry no video this week.