May 17, 2017 Minutes

In her always gracious way, Theresa served as Toastmaster to the May 17 meeting of T-Toasters of Vinings.  In attendance were 16 members and 5 guests.  Theresa chose “Today In History” as her theme, and informed the attendees that on this day Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs celebrated his birthday, and in 1954 Brown v Board of Education voted for school integration.
Serving as General Evaluator, Beverly introduced her team including Greg as Grammarian, Josue as Ah-Counter, Chad as Timer and Carin as Ballot Counter.

Alyssa was the evening’s first speaker.  She gave her third CC speech entitled “NYC on a Budget”.  As Alyssa’s Evaluator, Tiffini was impressed with Alyssa’s use of imagery, expression of both fear and excitement, topic selection, and ability to speak without notes while maintaining a conversational tone, excellent energy and use of humor.  Beverly congratulated Tiffini on stepping up to serve as Evaluator.

Justin continued his project with “My Philosopy on Purpose”.  Jim, the evening's winner, served as Justin’s Evaluator and summed up his thoughts with his opening line, “Wow!”  Jim complemented Justin’s body language, vocal variety and topic, as well as his conviction and positional anchoring. “You showed us, you didn’t just tell us,” he said, of Justin’s presentation, and complemented Justin’s choice of words and phrases such as, “Purpose finds us.”

Marcus filled in as Table Topics Master with his usual charismatic style.  MCG said Madonna would win a Diva brawl, Lori, the evening’s winner, said she’d choose kid taming as her randomly acquired skill, and Hank passed the responsibility of deciding what to include in a Super Bowl commercial back to Marcus.

Greg’s Word of the Day was, fittingly, “gregarious”, and it was used by both Theresa and Jim. Some of his favorite phrases of the evening included Alyssa’s “My dad is a hippie,” “Siri, I can’t breathe!”, Rob’s “I keep it short and sweet,” “Might be kind of dangerous,” and Hank’s “I’m pink underneath”.

Our guests shared their thoughts about the meeting.  George commented on how valuable the feedback members provide each other is, Liana enjoyed the group’s warmth and ability to see the good in each speaker’s performance, and Jorge though the speeches were fantastic.

Jim shared with us a bit about the District Conference and we all cheered for Anne Taylor’s performance there.  Jim and MCG encouraged us all to follow Anne’s lead by participating in our upcoming contests this summer.  Signups for food contributions during the contests will be posted on the blog.
  

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