July 11, 2012: Meeting Recap

Post date: Jul 29, 2012 11:46:17 PM

Dear APS Members and Guests,

Our meeting on Wednesday proved to be exciting and inspirational. Toastmasters World Champion and author Dana LaMon - and the next World Champion Mario Lewis - both spoke at the meeting.

The theme seemed to be "synergy," because the meeting in its totality was even greater than the sum of its parts. Synergy was also the Word of the Day supplied by Kimberly Taylor, and there was a surplus of Toastmasters talent on display at this meeting.

Our newest members Leila Singh and Rafay Khalid were both present, along with guests Jacqueline LaMon, Pauline Edwards, Jennifer Jiang, Pamela Burke and Beverly Howard.

Toastmaster of the Day Andrea King ran a well paced meeting that reflected her great experience. She had proper introductions for all participants and surprised us with inspirational quotations throughout.

Our scheduled speakers were stretching their talents to new heights:

Christine Navigante told stories of her trip to Italy including Naples and Venice. Speech evaluator Eloise Johnny mentioned that Christine brought the stories to life and her speaking style was smoother than ever. Perhaps we should convene our next meeting in Italy?

Gouri Seetharam gave a thoroughly researched and well rehearsed storytelling speech about Toastmasters legend Evelyn Jane Burgay. Gouri turned the entire room into her speaking area. Acting as speech evaluator I suggested that using more expansive gestures and vocal differentiation between the characters would take this engaging speech to an even higher level.

Guest speaker Mario Lewis gave his District Championship speech "Size Matters." Mario is preparing for his appearance at the Toastmasters International World Championship of Public Speaking. He received a roundtable evaluation and the comments byGeorgia Jones and FX Charpentier were notable because they addressed Mario's movements within the speaking area, an important consideration when you are on the "Big Stage."

Rafay Khalid made his club debut as Table Topics Master with interesting and thoughtful questions. Rafay got Dana LaMon to reveal that even though he is native to California, his wife Jacqueline is from Brooklyn and he likes to visit New York. We will extend an invitation to Dana to visit us again whenever he is available.

Harry Aneziris conducted the General Evaluation segment with humor and diplomacy by calling on the guests who did not speak to introduce themselves. FX reported on the filler words and noted some grammatical errors, while Georgia proved that the role of timer can be performed with the utmost accuracy.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, July 25 at 55 Water Street (unfortunately not in Italy.)

Best regards,

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Todd McKinney

President, Advanced Public Speakers