Party Night - Our Open House March 20, 2014

Last Thursday night was our Mardi Gras night. Yeah, we know we were a little over two weeks late, but that's alright. It was a night for celebration and that's what we were going to do! The grammarian for the night chose an appropriate word of the day - Celebratory.

We had 28 people attending including 11 guests. Several members showed up early to help decorate the room and set out the food in the front. Rather than start at the normal time of 7:15 we waited until 7:45 to gives folks a chance to socialize and get food.

The first speaker of the evening was Jim. Before giving his speech, he explained to the audience that every once in awhile there is the possibility that you might be called on to speak, and not for just one to two minutes as in table topics. He told us the formula for doing this. Take a subject you know a lot about, take just a couple of minutes to come up with a beginning, two or three main points you want to cover, and how you want to conclude. Then you talk until you see the green light come on and transition into the conclusion. He then let the timer know that he was ready to begin. Jim picked a project and topic applicable to both the meeting theme and the word of the day. The project was "The Touching Story" from the Storytelling Advanced Manual. The title was "Can You Relate." Jim and his wife just celebrated their 36th Anniversary two days before the meeting. The speech, which was impromptu using the formula he described, was the back story of how they came together. He got the audience involved twice during the speech and touched a lot of hearts, especially with his conclusion "Honey, I love you.  I'd do it all over again."

Vangie followed with another moving speech. She chose "Creating the Best Club Climate," from The Successful Club Series Manual. The title of her speech was "Don't Stop Believing." She wove a tale, that many of us were able to relate to either because of personal experience or because friends and family had lived through it of patients being woken up in the middle of the night to have their vitals or lab samples or xrays taken, often not only waking them up but others around them. Yet for people who are ill or injured, one thing they need is rest and this is being denied them due to protocols. Vangie told of how to make a difference in patient care it was necessary to find the right time and the right place to speak up and be heard. Would it be a prepared speech? No. She decided the best way to get the attention of the powers that be was to find the exact right moment to get a word in edgewise and handle it like table topics!

I can assure you that Jim and Vangie did not coordinate their speeches. They did not know in advance that they would be addressing the same issue!

After the speeches we moved into Table Topics. Two members and two guests fielded questions presented by Pam on the Mardi Gras theme. All did a very fine job.

After the speech evaluations and the general evaluation we awarded about half a dozen door prizes including several home baked goodies and a couple of nice bottles of wine.  Everybody seemed to have a good time. Thanks to Eugenia for doing an excellent job of chairing the event and to everyone else who stepped in to lend a hand by bringing food, beverages, decorating, posting flyers and cleaning up. We couldn't have done it without all of you.

Next meeting:  March 27, 2013 - 7 p.m. - Castro Valley Moose Lodge - 20835 Rutledge Rd (off Castro Valley Blvd. behind Burger King)

http://topofthehill.toastmastersclubs.org/directions.html

Contact: Roger at 510-489-4902 for more information

Guests are ALWAYS welcome!