T-Toasters is proud to congratulate Andrea Lewis and Carin Bowman on completing their 10th Competent Communicator speeches!  
With this accomplishment, Andrea and Carin are now eligible for their Competent Communicator award.  We're so proud of you both!

T-Toasters of Vinings held their Evaluation and Humorous Speech contests on July 19th and July 26th respectively.  

The Evaluation Contest Chair, Mary-Catherine, led a team including Lori as Contestmaster, Carin as Contest Sergeant at Arms, Josue and Rob as Timers, Lakeisha as Ballot Counter and Jim as Chief Judge.  
Guest Speaker Taylor Duncan gave a speech entitled "Alternative Baseball", sharing with the crowd some of the amazing things he has accomplished with his organization whose mission is to take on ambitious challenges and break social and physical barriers.  

Evaluation Contest contestants included: Lee Pratt, Liana Brackett, Kristina Williams, Marcus James, Christian Bossert, third place contestant Matt Berenson, second place contestant Tiffini Bell and contest winner Suzanne Sheelyy-Walker.  Congratulations Suzanne!  

Humorous Speech Contest Chair Andrea led a team including Matt as Contest Master, Lori as Contest Sergeant at Arms, Christian and Carin as Timers, Lakeisha and Tiffini as Ballot Counters and Jim as Chief Judge.

Contestants included: Liana Brackett who spoke about her love for pranks, George Terziev who spoke about his messy desk, second place contestant Greg Palmer who spoke about the challenges of hair loss and contest winner Marcus James who spoke about the ups and downs of life as a thin guy.  Congratulations Marcus!

Suzanne and Marcus will represent T-Toasters at the  Fall Area D41 Contest

6:30 PM Tuesday
August 22, 2016
Cathedral of Christ the King
2699 Peachtree Rd NE
Atlanta, GA 30305

Please come out and support our winners!  

Congratulations on your new job, Justin! We know you'll be fabulous!

​The April 19th meeting of T-Toasters of Vinings began promptly at 6:00 with announcements that two members (Justin and Lori) found new jobs this week!  In attendance were 15 members and 6 guests.  Greg Palmer served as Toastmaster with a theme of Books I’ve Read.  Greg is an avid reader, racking up completed book totals of 75-100 annually.  Not a fan of Harry Potter, Greg prefers Milton Friedman’s work on the free market, and enjoyed “Good to Great”, which focuses on corporate culture.  Mary-Catherine served as the evening’s General Evaluator, presiding over an all-star team including Jim as Timer, Beverly as both Ah-Counter and Grammarian and Justin as Ballot Counter. 

Three members gave speeches. The first up was Tiffini, the evening’s Best Speaker, who gave her Icebreaker entitled “Pieces of Me”.  Tiffini was born and raised in Atlanta, and considers herself to be a true Georgia peach.  Family is at the center of her life, and she has been influenced by some truly amazing people. Her grandmother was born in 1919, and passed on to Tiffini her “quiet strength”.  Her mother was the first college graduate in the family, and Tiffini credits her father for her drive.  A graduate of UGA Law School, Tiffini was also cheered on throughout her life by her close-knit community.

Second at the lectern was Carin with her 6th CC speech entitled “How to Have Fun While Working From Home”.  As an introvert, Carin enjoys her current workspace, but says in addition to benefits like avoiding Atlanta’s Interstate disasters and office politics, there are also downsides like occasional loneliness and too much quiet.  Carin utilized a colorful PowerPoint presentation to walk us through some of the things she enjoys doing to battle boredom at home.  Laundry, chipmunk-tending and perusing NPR for entertaining tidbits all made her list, along with keeping an eye on her favorite meteorologist’s reports, popcorn breaks (with or without beer) and collecting Instagram quotes.  She recommends breaks from all of this entertainment because “Having fun is exhausting!” 

Andrea “got comfortable with being uncomfortable” and gave an unplanned speech on the topic of Leadership Framework.  Andrea recommends beginning with a vision and goals in mind, then developing a strategy, choosing processes and using metrics to measure progress toward goals.  As an employee in the finance department of a large company, Andrea saw how these steps can lead to fantastic outcomes for employees and customers.  She says we all have “limitless potential” as individuals and as organizations.  Andrea completed her 6th CC speech with this project.

Suzanne, our Book Fairy, was the Table Topics Master for the evening.  Equipped with a backpack full of titles, Suzanne encouraged participants to choose a book they’d like to read, or to explain why they would not choose said title and instead recommend an alternative.  Lori was up first with her pick “Lean In” by Sheryl Sandberg.  Second was Kristina with “It Ain’t Over” by Marlo Thomas, which she chose because she feels she needs to figure out what is going to make her happy in this stage of her life.  Hank decided to pass on Suzanne’s selections and instead told us he prefers Pat Conroy’s “Great Santini”.  Three guests stepped up to participate.  Keeley Evans, the evening’s winner, recommend “QBQ” (also a favorite of Suzanne’s), Suni chose “Playing Big” by Tara Mohr and Mark chose “Built for Growth”.

Lee, the evenings Best Evaluator winner, evaluated Tiffini’s speech.  She commended Tiffini on her open, honest and vulnerable approach.  Marcus evaluated Carin, complimenting her combination of humor and professionalism, as well as her triumph over technological difficulties.  Chad evaluated Andrea, noting her excellent use of hand gestures, pitch, rate, pace and use of pauses, as well as her speech’s organization.

Beverly’s Word of the Day was munificent which means very generous.  She noted uses of the word by Tiffini, Suzanne, Marcus and Mary-Catherine.  She also gave kudos to Tiffini for her use of the vivid phrases such as “quiet strength” and “tooth and nail”, Carin for her use of “office riffraff”, Lee for “slew of family members” and Marcus for “snarky”. 

Our guests provided us with some fantastic feedback about the meeting.  Rob said he found it “engaging” and noted that we laugh a lot, Dylan suggested an explanation of the ballot for newcomers, Suni commented on the group’s energy, Mark complimented our high attendance and pace, and Keeley announced that she’s ready to officially join us, to a chorus of applause.

Our president, Jim, closed out the meeting by letting us know that he heartily approves of the speakers’ use of personal stories, commenting on how effective that technique is at reaching audiences.
In addition to his new job, Justin also plans on seeking district office, and is beginning the search for a new Sergeant at Arms for T-Toasters.  Interested parties should get in touch for more information.

​Keep in mind that the District’s Spring Conference will be held May 12-13, and there will be a Storytelling Workshop April 29th.  Be sure to visit t-toasters.com for more information and for pictures of the meeting.  Also, please remember to send information and a picture for your member profile to Lori at lori@lorilphillips.com.  The website has new information every week, regular blog updates, and you can now find downloadable documents under the Members’ section.   
 

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​T-Toasters is proud to congratulate
Anne Taylor
on winning 1st Place in the Division D International Speech contest. She's headed to the District competition May 12-13!  

T-Toasters of Vinings would like to congratulate Cynthia on her retirement.  We wish you all the best, Cynthia.  You will be deeply missed.