Where does hope come from?
If you remember Greek mythology, you might realize that Pandora may have gotten a bad rap. There was something left in her box after she set free all the ills that plague the world. There at the bottom was a shining gem that would allow us to combat these ills. That gem was hope. Hope is still around today, so hope has been continuing for a long, long time. According to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we have an infinite supply of hope. He said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.” Each of us has one or more dreams that we are passionate about, which we hope and strive to realize. Of course, for all Toastmasters, one of those passions is obvious!
Thursday, May 15, 2014 our theme was "Continuing with Hope." Jim F was our Toastmaster for a very full program. Janet was the first of our three speakers. Hers was the fourth project in the Competent Communication (CC) manual - How to Say It. The title of her speech was "Do Those Little White Lies Really Hurt Less than the Truth?" In it she addressed how the social norm of telling those little white lies actually hurts more and is less kind than telling the truth.
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Second up was Sarah with a speech for the third project from the CC manual - Get to the Point, with "Dots of Hope" as the title. Sarah told the history of Lewis Braille's coding system for the visually impaired. Amazingly, there was great resistance to it, and it wasn't widely accepted until after Braille died.
Next, Vangie gave a Keynote Address, the first project from The Professional Speaker manual, with the title "Three Legs of Wellness." Vangie spoke of trials, tribulations and joys we, our loved ones, and medical professionals encounter as a result of illness, death, recovery and acting as caregivers.
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Janet lead the Table Topics session, focusing on the meeting's theme of hope. She called on Catherine, Fred, and Jim H. to share some of their thoughts and experiences about hope with the group.
Thuy rounded out the evening with the evaluation portion of the meeting. Fred, Catherine and Jean gave evaluations of the three speeches and Thuy gave an evaluation of the evaluators and the meeting overall.
The next meeting is May 22 at 7 p.m. at the Hayward Castro Valley Moose Lodge.
