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.