Meeting Recap: Oct. 11, 2012 (APS Scavenger Hunt)

Post date: Oct 17, 2012 6:24:57 PM

President’s Log: Stardate 10/11/12

We have entered uncharted deep space. Our special Scavenger Hunt theme meeting exceeded all expectations! This exercise in leadership and team building took our club boldly where no Toastmasters have gone before! The highly productive meeting featured a 45 minute trek through downtown Manhattan followed by four spontaneous speeches with Round Robin evaluations. The net result of the meeting was just as we had hoped: Toastmasters commitment was deepened and camaraderie was increased, resulting in “Close Encounters of the APS Kind.”      

Veteran Toastmaster Len Lubarsky and newcomer Marian O’Sullivan were welcome guests.

Toastmaster of the Day Neerja Purang facilitated the Scavenger Hunt format. We broke out into three teams:

Trendy – Leila Singh, Georgia Jones, and Rafay Khalid.

Vivacious – Andrea King, Gouri Seetharam, FX Charpentier and Marian O’Sullivan.

Savy – Pam Burke, Len Lubarsky and Todd McKinney.

Each team was given an identical list of 15 tasks to fulfill, such as “a video of your entire team singing a song in a public place,” “a picture of a teammate walking the dog of someone you all don’t know,” “a picture of the team in front of a Starbucks,” and “a picture of the team with a U.S. flag.”

The photos were sent to the club email address via smart phone as proof that the task had been completed. When we arrived back at the meeting room Neerja and FX displayed the photos for all to see, and points were assigned for tasks completed. The competition was intense!  The Winner: Team Vivacious! They were able to complete every single task. Neerja had a surprise gift package for the winners: a beautiful Toastmasters desk clock!

The second half of the meeting was equally stimulating. Four volunteers each gave a spontaneous speech to describe their scavenger hunt experience, followed by a Round Robin evaluation session. The challenge went not just to the speakers but also to the evaluators, who had to provide feedback even though the speech project criteria was not known beforehand.

Pam Burke – an authoritative and experienced speaker, had no trouble adapting to the spontaneous format. Pam noted that the team experience brought everyone closer together.

Georgia Jones – an animated and spontaneous storyteller, Georgia recounted her team’s experience while expanding her already strong ability to speak extemporaneously.

Marian O’Sullivan – speaking at a Toastmasters meeting for the very first time, Marian displayed both strong speaking talent and effective body language.

Len Lubarsky – While recalling his experiences Len was able to introduce humor by threatening to complain to the Toastmasters International President that his team did not finish first.

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Todd McKinney

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Click here to see more pictures

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Georgia Jones

Vice President of Public Relations