Laughter is the Best Medicine!

Fellow Toastmasters,

With our top two leaders absent, VP Membership Fred Sadler excelled as acting President, which was followed by yet another exemplary TMOD performance by Area Governor Arnie Buss. Arnie’s theme of “movies” wove its way throughout the entire meeting, as all scheduled participants were introduced in part by their favorite movie!

It was an off-week attendance-wise, with only 16 members and no guests - the lowest since September. However, what we lacked in quantity we made up for in quality, as this meeting was perhaps the most filled with laughter in many months! As if by design, Brian Anderson’s winning #6 speech (vocal variety) was about laughter - the hows, whys and what-fors. Add to this a terrific Icebreaker by Mash Otgonbayer, who shared with us his fight against a chronic heart disease during his childhood in Mongolia in a humorous way, and how he overcame these hurdles. That earned him “Most Improved” speaker for the day.  Luke Lazzari and Carl Thormeyer tied for best Table Topics as they tackled some insightful questions posed by Topics Master Cathy Lee.

Our Grammarian - new member Ryan Squires - was absolutely hilarious, as he purported to measure our grammatical efforts against the standard of a West Virginia dialect! Meanwhile, our Pakistani member Shahid Abrar ul Hassan boosted the treasury with a solid job as Ah Counter. First-time General Evaluator Glenn Woodson did a terrific job at capturing the essence of the meeting, and citing today’s meeting as an example of last-minute flexibility which was possible as a result of early planning.

NEXT WEEK 16 Mar: Glenn Woodson will be our Toastmaster for the first time. There are still some speaking roles available - contact Glenn.

COMING UP 24 Mar: Our third monthly “Smedley Saturday” at the La Mesa Community Center, from 1300-1500. We are still looking for a person to be Toastmaster and run this event, which will count as credit for “chairing a club event” (a Competent Leader manual requirement).

COMING UP 31 Mar: Area A1/A2 International Speech and Table Topics Contests, also at the La Mesa Community Center from 1300-1630 (or 1:00-3:00 p.m., whichever comes first). Plan now on attending to support Fred and Angi as our contestants in the respective contests.

Submitted by:

Carl Thormeyer, DTM
NPS TM Club Historian