Area Contest Reminder

Tomorrow at ten AM there will be the area speech contest at University of Oregon at the Straub Hall.

March 14th Speech Contest

Before the start of the meeting, Brian asked Lauralee to report on the 4H evaluation. Lauralee said that Lee and her listened to two of the speeches, and that we were invited to come to their official competition and be judges on April 22nd. Today's hot seat Toastmaster of the Day was Avital, who has never been a Toastmaster before. She was very humorous, adding statements like master some toast in to keep the meeting light. Avital did a great job for her first time as a Toastmaster.
Today was the speech contest, so the meeting ran differently than normal. There were two contestants in today's meeting, Dave and Christa. The speeches were on a topic of their choice, and had to be between 5 and 7 minutes, with a thirty second grace period. Christa was the first speaker today. Her speech was called South From Alaska, detailing her journey moving from Alaska in the winter. She talked about how they were driving through Canada when she got two flat tires in the middle of nowhere, but were lucky enough to find spares for both the tires allowing them to keep traveling towards her new home. The next mishap in her journey was the back window shattering, raining glass all throughout the car and finding it's way into her many layers of clothes. Because of this, Christa and her ex had to get out of the car in freezing temperatures, to moon the wolves guarding the tree line, in order for them to remove the glass from their clothes.
Dave was the second contest speaker today. He gave his speech called Half The Man I Used To Be. He started out talking about how a man is missing today, and that is the man who he used to be at over 400 pounds. Throughout his speech, Dave told the story about how people find the motivation to lose the weight, such as health reasons, shame and a desire to look more appealing. When Dave decided he was done enduring hip pain, he went to the doctor who told him he needed to lose a lot of weight in order to go through surgery. Dave then was told in order to have weight loss surgery he had to lose thirty pounds. Now he is half of the man he used to be, at under 200 pounds.
Peter was the Table Topics Master of the day, asking Brian what he thought about alternative facts. Brian said we think of facts as indisputable because they are proven unlike opinions. Avital was asked what her favorite food was by Peter. She told us a story about how her spiritual advisor noticed something was up and she explained that she did not love and trust in God enough. The advisor asked, "Do you like Thai food?" and when she said yes the advisor said "Then go eat Thai food."  The winner of table topics was Avital.
After everyone had voted for the winning speech, Brian, the general evaluator and vote counter, announced that Christa placed first in the club speech contest, and Dave came in second. 
Lauralee was the timer for the day, and Paul's word of the day was exuberant and ebullience. 

4H Evaluation

Today was the 4H club evaluation. We listened to two girls practice their competition speeches. Leanna went first, and she spoke about Lady Liberty. Her speech involved pictures she had taken on a trip to see the statue this last year. She talked about how the statue is made of very thin copper- only two pennies thick! Leanna also talked about how it was made and funded by the common people. At the end she talked about how seeing the statue was the highlight of her trip.
Lee and Lauralee evaluated Leanna to help her prepare for the competition that is coming up in a month. Lee complimented her on her organization of the speech, saying that it was wonderful. He also said that she gave us a lot of information very clearly. One thing Lee suggested for her to work on is looking at the whole audience. Lauralee said that she made really good word pictures, such as comparing the creation of Lady Liberty to doing a 3D puzzle. Another thing Leanna did really well was her use of the powerpoint to show what she was talking about, but not too much that we did not need to listen to her speech.
Avarie talked about her project that she is doing called Bag Ladies and Gents. This project takes plastic bags and turns them into sleeping mats for the homeless. She explained that she saw this project on Facebook, and decided to help her community by taking plastic bags that are being stuffed into corners and wasted, and transform them into sleeping mats. This is done by cutting strips of bags and crocheting them into about six feet by three feet waterproof cushions to sleep on.
Lee talked to Avarie about including more information about how the mats are made. He suggested that she bring in an example of what the bags look like after they are cut, then what they look like in the mat. He complimented her eye contact with the group, and how she connected her speech with a need in the community. During his evaluation Lee also mentioned how her speech was more off the cuff allowing her to sound more conversational. Lauralee talked about how Avarie had very nice gestures and more free movement during her speech. She also mentioned that Avarie does not have to rush through her speech because we came here to listen to her speech, and wanted to hear it.

Short Meeting summary

The Toastmaster of the day was Brian. Peter was the speaker of the day, who gave us three suggestions if we want to raise cats. They were to give them a scratching post, a friend, and remember that they are not your pet but more like your housemate. Lee was Peter's evaluator, and he said that he like Peter's gestures, but to make sure to freely move around when giving his speech.  Dave was the Table topics master, who asked Brian to define snollygoster. Brian won table topics by saying that snollygoster was the Norse word to describe when you step in a pile of smelly slimy fish. Avital was the general evaluator, who suggested being more open and engaging with the audience, by moving the podium and having more open gestures that would allow for more body language to be expressed. The word of the day from our grammarian Laurie was buzzkill. The timer of the day was Lauralee.

Snollygoster

Dave was the Table Topics Master of the day, who had the participants define a crazy word no one had heard of before. Avital defined Dave's mystery word snollygoster as the deodorizer the fishermen's wives made for their husbands who had been fishing all day and they were tired of the smell of fish. River, today's guest, pretended to be exasperated by the vastly incorrect use of the mystery word, defining it as a drink that was very smooth, and made you smile, but had an odd smell to it. Brian pretended to be "offended" by the misuse of the Norse word snollygoster. He won table topics by saying that snollygoster was the Norse word to describe when you step in a pile of smelly slimy fish.

March 7th meeting

The Toastmaster of the day was our president, Brian, who ran the business meeting and then the regular meeting. The business meeting included an update from Lauralee on the Facebook page, which broke 1,000 people reached again, and a reminder from Laurie that dues are coming up. There were also a few announcements. Brian reminded us of our involvement with the 4H club speech evaluation on March 12th at 2 PM. Lee also announced that the chambers of commerce is meeting on April 7th, and we are going to present a meeting to them.
Peter was the speaker of the day, giving a speech from the humorous advance manual, talking about the Lions of South Beach, Oregon. In his speech, he talked about his two and a half cats, one being his neighbors that visits him quite frequently. His two cats are different in behavior, with one of them being more standoffish and the other constantly in his lap. With his neighbors cat, Peter talked about how his cats did not like to hunt mice, so he allowed the other cat to walk through his garage to prevent rodents. During his speech, he made sure to give us some tips if we wanted to get a cat as a pet. The first suggestion he had was for us to get more than one cat so that they could entertain each other, so they do not get into as much trouble. Second, he told us we need to get a scratching post so our furniture does not become one. His last piece of advice was that while a dog to human relationship is a master to dog relationship, cats are your associates, meaning everything is negotiable. Lee was Peter's evaluator of the day, who complimented all of Peter's gestures, such as the cat's nighttime running, and his use of the podium to engage the audience. One of his suggestions would be to practice certain sections of the speech where he is not as certain about since he paused at times to see where he was on his outline. 
Dave was the Table Topics Master of the day, who had the participants define a crazy word no one had heard of before. Avital defined Dave's mystery word snollygoster as the deodorizer the fishermen's wives made for their husbands who had been fishing all day and they were tired of the smell of fish. River, today's guest, pretended to be exasperated by the vastly incorrect use of the mystery word, defining it as a drink that was very smooth, and made you smile, but had an odd smell to it. Brian pretended to be "offended" by the misuse of the Norse word snollygoster. He won table topics by saying that snollygoster was the Norse word to describe when you step in a pile of smelly slimy fish.
Avital was the general evaluator of the day, who complimented our organization and involvement in the community, as stated in the business meeting section. One of her comments was about being more open and engaging with the audience, by moving the podium and having more open gestures that would allow for more body language to be expressed. By moving the podium you could see from the torso up instead of from the upper chest to the head. She also commented that for people that are shorter, having the podium blocks more body language and gives the appearance of having to compete with the podium to be seen.
The word of the day from our grammarian Laurie was buzzkill. The timer of the day was Lauralee.

Mark your calendar

Dates for your calendar!

March 14th- Club speech contest
March 21st- Loyalty Day's princesses second speech