Capital City Toastmasters

Theme: The Other You

Word of the Day: BLEB!

Do you have a look alike – are we seeing double?!?  Today was Doppelganger day, and Toastmaster Blake wanted to know all about “The Other You.”

Our table topics master, Brittani, exposed her other side which involved spending lots of money to support a shoe fetish.  She called on Dev, Shundreka, Katie, Shane, Stuart and Jennifer to answer questions relating to their celebrity look alike, wild and crazy split personalities and their innate ability to lie with a straight face.

Walter was our entertaining speaker.  His dramatic talk was filled with blood, gore and Zombies!  Working effectively through technical difficulties, his speech was complete with sound effects and swinging hip action!  Katie delivered speech #3 from the CC manual, “Austin Eclectic.” In the true spirit of Keeping Austin Weird, she gave us 9+ tips all about the corky side of Austin.  Bottom line, all outsiders should learn to “conform to our non-conformity!”

There were 5 guests today, and it was a clean sweep for our ribbon winners…

Best Table Topic: Jennifer

Best Speaker: Walter

Best Evaluator: Jennifer

Most Enthusiastic: Walter

Humor: Walter

“Our Pets” was the topic of the day. Fuzzy, lovable, vomiting pets. Heather started us off with a story of an heiress she worked for during college who kept a bucket of her favorite horse’s ashes in the stables. We had six table topics; speakers were Taline, Becky, Robin, Shane, new Keith and Thao. Jessica tried to get speakers to talk about pet analogies but everyone seemed to want to focus on favorite pets, or their lack of affinity for pets, as in Shane’s case. Thao told us about here reckless hamster who kept breaking water bottles. And Robin, completely off topic, told us about how he got dating tips from Play Girl. The last word in dating is, per Play Girl, don’t go out with a man you met in a zoo! Shane came away the winner though with his funny commentary on vomiting pets he does not want in his home.
Jennifer gave a seriously great speech called “Blessing and Curses.” Sometimes what at first seems like a curse can actually turn out to be a blessing like in the case of her brother going to rehab. The therapy that was required during his treatment actually brought them together as a family and helped to build a stronger foundation for family relationships going forward. As always she was engaging and entertaining. Brittani also gave an excellent speech on making food and gifts at home. She gave us some great tips on how to do more instead of buy more. And if we must buy, try to buy items others have made from scratch, as on the website etsy.com. Brittani gave a great speech and also passed around some incredible home-made brownies. Yummy! Evaluations were thorough and enlightening. Katie Sternberg came out strong with a funny, tongue-in-cheek evaluation of Jennifer. Who knew that they were arch rivals!

Best Tabletopics: Shane

Best Speaker: Jennifer

Best Everything Else: Katie Sternberg

Rick Perry isn’t the only one with “oops” moments.  We all have that sinking “Oh No!” feeling more than we care to admit, but Toastmaster Shane wants to know about them all.  He of course has never had an Oh No moment, so he shared a heartwarming little story about his ”friend”, a small child, profanity in a bucket and Facebook.  Many guests were in attendance for the Toastmaster tales of woe, including Brian’s wife who apparently is just in it for the tamales.

First time Table Topics Master Thao jumped right in with some good questions, saving the best for Buff Keith (aka Old Keith).  Carol insisted that she never makes mistakes – she’s a perfect angel who’s just here to support the rest of us unfortunate souls.  Amanda’s generosity is unacceptable and downright inconsiderate in her new bureaucratic government job.  Amy’s ailing dog wasn’t just a costly mistake… he turned out to be a costly best friend.  Katy is mountain biking again – watch out!  New member Kevin recommends white lies to get out of admitting you made a mistake – think quickly, work fast and watch the mistakes melt away.  Old Keith proved he deserves the Funny Man title with his speech about how it feels to be an unwanted baby.

Walter impressed us all with his ability to incorporate fat asian dolls into a speech about business entity selection.  Brendan captured the magic in his evaluation, giving Walter props for confidence and suggesting a little less of the “Toastmaster dance.”

Chris gave us the run-down on his leadership project.  He had some serious SUCCESS planning a Toastmasters conference.  He laughed, he cried and ultimately, he got his next award.  Congrats, Chris!  Robin liked Chris’ enthusiasm and encouraged him to work on his “writing on whiteboard” skills.

Corky doled out all sorts of compliments, convincing the guests that joining our groups is not an “Oh No” decision.

Congrats to the ribbon winners!

Speech - Walter

Table Topics – Amy

Enthusiasm – Corky

Humor – Keith

Evaluator – Robin

It was a perfect theme for our Table Topics smackdown.  The first punch was doled out by Olivia with the word of the day: Gobsmack.  It was used on surprisingly numerous occasions throughout the meeting.

Table Topics Master Katie kicked off the entertainment portion of the meeting (our Table Topics contest, affectionately referred to as the Smackdown)  with her casually complex question about an overheard phone call in a similar vein to “I know what you did last summer.”  Undeterred, the contestants did a quick pivot, then jabbed back with some excellent responses.  Brenda proudly gushed about her daughters, the only people who could break through her composed demeanor to make her yell with excitement.  Very few people could make Blake exclaim the word “fantastic” in public, but he does have one idol who could get him to emote – he’ll tell you about it if you ask nicely.  Jennifer would like nothing more than a visit with her Grandpa.  Wendy shared some especially strong feelings about fellow dog owners.  Message received loud and clear – don’t mess with Wendy.  Brendan did a nice sidestep to avoid the question completely and answer his own table topic.  Corky doesn’t kiss and tell… except for every single time he gets in front of the Toastmasters club.  Keith was the last one in the ring with his heartfelt story about how much he adores parenting.

Robin recited two plays, giving our Japanese guests a challenging lesson in English listening skills.
Maureen evaluated, giving some good advice about making a clear distinction between the various characters in a play.  If your vocal variety is limited, props are a great idea.  John was the general
evaluator, with praise for the Table Topics contestants and good analysis of the overall Smackdown.

Toastmaster Amy gave the final Knock Out with her easy humor and ability to roll with the punches.
Ribbon confusion ensued, but Amy worked it all out.  Congrats to the winners!

Table Topics (Smackdown contest winner): Keith

Table Topics runners up: Wendy and Jennifer

Speaker: Robin

Evaluator: Maureen

Enthusiasm and Humor: Wendy

In his new role as President, Brian kicked off the meeting with natural presidential charisma.  There were no babies to be kissed, but he greeted the numerous guests nicely.  Toastmaster/bugmaster Heather has an endless supply of her own bug-related medical stories from her doctor days, but she still wanted to hear our bug stories – hence, the frighteningly large spider on the bug-themed agenda.  Grammarian Todd’s word of the day was “doodlebug,” meaning the larvae of an insect or, more interestingly, a small missile or vehicle.  Carol and Chris both managed to come through on adding this shockingly under-utilized word to their speeches. 

Table Topics Master Amy admits that everything is bigger in Texas, including roaches that are bigger than her dog.  Lee says that he would eat a handful of maggots, even if there was no reward.  He’s purely motivated by the competitive nature of an interesting challenge. (Warning: Corky later informed us that maggots are among the things you should never eat since they’ll eat you first.)  Carol enthralled us with her storytelling skills as she described a situation where ants in her slippers created absolute chaos.  New member Dev confessed that Texas bugs are the creepiest he’s ever seen.  Great job on your first TT, Dev!

Katy, who has an unabashed fear of wasps, spoke about her complete lack of foreign language skills and the comedic travel situations that have resulted.  Stuart, who is probably cured of lyme disease, continued the foreign language/travel theme with his speech about teaching in Kasakhstan.  We all learned a lesson in the many uses of a box o’ Barf.  Shane, who decided to speak on short notice, gave an excellent speech on how his communication skills entirely break down when he’s with someone he admires.  Since Shane seems like an excellent speaker in our club, I think we all have a pretty good idea of what he thinks of us – thanks, Shane!

Chris, king of speaking with his body, liked the catchy intro and storytelling, but wanted more full body movement from Katy in her speech.  Genevieve liked Stuart’s stories, but she wanted more momentum for some of the humor.  She warned Stuart to understand his audience and guage their interest in his style of humor.  Genevieve has an understated humor herself that we’re excited to see more of in the future.  Robin liked the vocal interest of Shane’s non-monotonous style and his purposeful movements.  General Evaluator Maria impressed us with her ability to step up on short notice and do a fabulous job in her impromptu role.  She disclosed a debilitating fear of crickets and then moved on to some inciteful commentary about each of the meeting participants.  Congrats to the ribbon winners!

Table Topics: Dev

Speaker: Shane

Evaluator: Robin

Humor: Katy

Enthusiasm: Heather

Toastmaster Lee set the theme inspired by his office move, which he says can be horrible, but also a good bonding experience for co-workers.  Shundreka introduced the word of the day “peregrine,” meaning to wander or migrate.  Table Topics master Erin is finally able to move freely again and take interesting dance classes now that her cast has been removed.   She had some good ideas about the various meanings of “move” in her table topics questions.  Katy told us about the various activities she enjoyed recently in Costa Rica, Brian is inspired by his kids, especially their particular demands when it comes to the locale of swim lessons.  Keith’s wedding ring is somewhat of a hindrance to good pick-up line stories, so he chose to enlighten us with his diatribe about why he doesn’t help friends move.  Alternatively, Wendy has a plethora of stories about getting hit-on at take-out restaurants, playgrounds and various other seedy joints. 

Bob bravely stepped up for his icebreaker speech to talk about his move to Austin on a whim.  Apparently Austin is the obvious laid-back alternative to bustling New York City.  A natural extrovert, Bob likes the friendly people in Austin, although aggressive panhandlers bring out the Goodfellas side of Bob.  Jessica had some interesting insights into the underground gambling habits of political figures in the Phillippines after her brief but exciting relationship with a possible FBI-type living there.  Trust no one.  Chris seems to thrive under pressure as he continues to sign up for last-minute speaker slots.  He was inspired by his morning exercise routine to speak about his views on the best ways to lose weight and maintain. 

General evaluator Amy brilliantly paid tribute to Heather’s puppetry and Shundreka’s word of the day with a “pair o’ green” oven mits.  Heather complimented Bob on his first speech for our club, but made sure to factor in that he has some past experience.  Organization is key and we look forward to more of Bob’s naturally easy speaking style.  Todd would like to have heard more vocal variety in Jessica’s speech with more character voices.  Shane was impressed by Chris’ ability to form a speech on such short notice, but would have enjoyed more humor.  Good job to Chris on his introduction of an entertaining speech – it’s important to give the audience permission to laugh early on.  Amy reminded us to set goals for our Toastmastering like Lee – he sets quarterly goals for how many times to be Toastmaster, speaker, etc.  Congrats to the ribbon winners:

Table Topics: Wendy

Speaker: Jessica

Evaluator: Shane

Enthusiasm: Chris

Humor: Amy

Anyone who thinks book are boring would be surprised how fun the last meeting was.  Toastmaster Brendan passed out a list of 100 must-reads for anyone with some spare time this summer.  Christopher announced the word of the day “comeuppance.”  Sadly, no one had much to say about retribution this time, and the fiesty little word was left alone.  Table Topics master Katy seemed to have an endless supply of book-related questions for this 2-speech meeting.  Walter doesn’t have much time for reading, but he manages to catch some internet articles on occasions when he’s not reading to his kids.  Genevieve is a big fan of Dave Ramsey after his book changed her life and the spending habits of her teenager.  Erin sidestepped the obvious adventure of her leg cast story to relay her youthful disorderly conduct.  Hold onto your yard decorations when you see Erin hobbling past your house!  Lee used to act as a book reporter for his boss and Leif is a performer at heart, loving every minute of audience attention.  Shane wanted to be a fireman when he grew up since sleeping in church was too important in his childhood.  Book-hater Corky smoothly ignored his question to talk about women instead.

Heather has a gift for props.  Simplicity and confidence were key in her critter saga peformed via handpuppets.  We identified with Lion and were compelled by Elephant’s wise words to the up-and-coming cowboy poet Lion.  Amy had some wise words of her own – let the props serve you.  It’s always about the message, not the props.

Wendy arrived just in time to persuade us that TM can partner with the government to help people with developmental disabilities.  It was passionate and full of good information.  Robin complimented Wendy’s confidence, but didn’t need the explanatory preface about why she was late.

General Evaluator Blake had some good advice – get to the front of the room and take your time to get comfortable before launching into your speech.   We had lots of guests, both new and returning!  All said they were coming back, and hopefully they meant it!  If not, they’ll get their comeuppance.  Congrats to the ribbon winners:

Table Topics: Lee

Speech: Heather (aka Elephant, aka Right Hand)

Evaluation: Robin

Enthusiasm: Amy

Humor: Heather (aka Lion, aka Left Hand)