Simply Speaking Minutes

Colorado Community Church

May 23, 2013

Our meeting at Colorado Community Church began with Margaret Seyers leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance.  She then introduced our Toastmaster for the evening, Joel Weissman.

Our theme was “Inspiration”.    Our word of the day was “believe”, (n) to accept something as true, have faith.  

Inspirator Darryle Brown gave us some great words to show the power of one.  Some of these include “one vote can change a nation, one voice can spark wisdom…”.

First speaker, Diane Nuss presented a few not so fun facts about aging.  She discussed osteoporosis, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.  There are factors that increase our risk – lifestyle, family history, and diet.  While we face all these as we age the good news is that they can be controlled by diet and exercise, as well as a visit to the doctor.

Second speaker Cybele Antonow presented the results of her survey after the speech workshop presented by Hillary Blair.  As part of her High Performance Leadership project Cybele arranged a speech workshop with Hillary Blair.  Cybele covered a few highlights of the workshop, as well as presenting what some people wanted to work on to become better speakers.

Table Topics Master Deborah Frauenfelder, showing great skills in her roles, created questions on the fly.  She asked people questions about things they believed in and we heard great responses from participants Pete Hazlet, guest Katya Brown, and Connie Akins.

General Evaluator Maura Thompson introduced Monica Alvidrez as the evaluator for Diane Nuss.  This was Monica’s first time as evaluator.  She also evaluated Monica in her role and congratulated her in her first time.  She also evaluated the meeting, which started a few minutes late, and gave Joel a thumbs up as Toastmaster.

Monica Alvidrez, as evaluator,  told Diane that her speech was very well organized and had a good flow.  She also appreciated the advice from “mom”, eat your veggies and exercise.  The speech was well prepared and she answered questions at the end easily.

Time Keeper Tom Marrs reported that all Table Topics participants were in time, as well as speaker Diane Nuss.

Ah Counter David Jenkins, in his first time, did a great job reporting on the uhs, ahs.

Grammarian Vennita Jenkins, also her first time in this role, kept track of who used the word of the  day and some great phrases used by the speakers.

Quizmaster Matthew Dudzick checked to see if we had our listening ears on.

Awards went to

Best Table Topics: Katya Brown (guest)

Best Evaluator: Monica Alvidrez

Best Speaker: Diane Nuss

Present at the meeting: Monica Alvidrez, Darryle Brown, Pete Hazlet, Margaret Seyer, Diane Nuss, Connie Akins, Maura Thompson, Cybele Antonow, Deborah Frauenfelder, Joel Weismann, Tom Marrs, Matt Dudzick, David Jenkins, Vennita Jenkins,  and David Bounds.

Our guests for the evening were Margaret Seyer Sr, Dana Jenkins, and Katya Brown.