Meeting Recap: Sept. 13, 2012

Post date: Sep 17, 2012 7:41:26 PM

Dear APS Members and Guests,

The Advanced Public Speakers Club held the first of its regularly scheduled Thursday meetings on September 13. We have doubled the number of meetings, and the club now meets on the Second Thursday and Fourth Wednesday of each month.

Although several members were busy attending to leadership responsibilities at area contests, the club was honored to welcome three guests – Jessie Zhang, Cenran Hu andAlex von Braun.

Toastmaster of the Day Eloise Johnny ran a smoothly flowing meeting, aided by the fact that none of the attendees exhibited any recalcitrant behavior. Recalcitrant was the Word of the Day supplied by Grammarian FX Charpentier.

Christine Navigante gave an entertaining speech from the Storytelling Manual. “College Bound” is the story of how Christine overcame the uncertainty and self doubt in making the decision to finish her college degree. The speech has relevance for everyone, and the moral of the story is that “slow and steady wins the race.”

Acting as Christine’s speech evaluator I pointed out these good qualities in the speech. I also suggested that making the other characters more defined, and emphasizing the unexpected twist at the end could add more dimension to the story. I also mentioned that when using hand gestures - less is better than more - and they are most effective when they reinforce the action and content the speech.

The Table Topics segment conducted by FX was also a highlight, and everyone had a chance to speak. Jessie Zhang and Cenran Hu were attending their very first Toastmasters meeting and each displayed obvious speaking talent. I predict a great future for Jessie and Cenran in Toastmasters. Alex von Braun proved he is already an experienced speaker and a veteran Toastmaster. All are welcome to visit us again.

The next APS meeting will be Wednesday, September 26 and is expected to be heavily attended.

Best Regards,

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Todd McKinney