Capital City Toastmasters

Robert served as Toastmaster for our “Ground Hog Day” meeting and helped lift our spirits despite the six more weeks of winter we face.

Lora pitched in as Table Topics Master picking Neil, Amy, and Brenda to answer questions.  From Neil we learned working in manufacturing is a lot like ground hog’s day, where you get to keep doing everything over until it’s right.  Amy told us about the sign foretelling her future that she didn’t quite read right when dating her future ex-husband.  And finally, Brenda told us how she survived a hurricane while living in Houston (her secret a candle, closet, and Honey).

Louis and Brian were the “Ground Hog Day” speakers.

Louis gave a speech titled “Diffusing Verbal Criticism”, which was really much more like a performance.  With Wendy’s enthusiastic help, Louis illustrated how to handle verbal criticism as well as some solid punches from Wendy (not to worry, the punches were an analogy for verbal criticism).  We learned the keys to diffusing a tense situation are empathy and curiosity.  Essentially, to diffuse criticism validate and agree (carefully) with the criticism and then explore why the criticism was given.  All in all, it was a very entertaining and solid performance by Wendy and Louis.

Brian gave his fourth and final speech regarding “Backup and Recovery at Dell – Lessons Learned”; Stuart was crushed by the news of this series coming to a close.  Brian used this speech as an opportunity to revamp his introduction.  He incorporated a new opening story from his days in high school.  He also introduced the key lessons from Dell’s backup and recovery system upgrade.  We now know simple is good, first adopters of new technology work out the bugs, understanding old and new technologies is key, the right people need to be involved, and it’s paramount to know the environment in which you’re working.

Ribbon Winners:

Best Table Topic – Amy

Best Speaker – Louis

Most Enthusiastic – Stuart

Best Evaluator – Robin

Best Humor – Stuart