“Fathers” Meeting Recap – 06/24/09 » Capital City Toastmasters

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

“Give me one more pullup!” That’s what Brian’s dad said to him to teach him to literally pull the best up out of himself. He learned that even when his arms are tired, and he thinks he’s finished, he still has one more pullup left in him. Dads teach us quite a lot, don’t they? Brian showed us through a “Fathers” themed meeting that they do. Fathers and father-figures teach us to drive, to adapt, and to believe that we are smart enough to do anything we want to do.

We are smart. We saw that clearly through our two speakers, Brad K. and Louis. Brad talked about his lifelong plan to be a medical doctor and how he’s becoming a doctor of another kind by studying artificial intelligence. Louis talked about diversifying his life across other countries by keeping his citizenship, assets, permanent mailing address, businesses, and playgrounds in different countries. Brilliant? Perhaps oddly brilliant?

Brian further demonstrated his brilliance by asking Corky to fill in for Albert – we miss you Albert! – as general evaluator. Corky did a fine job getting Maureen, Bert, and Patrick to evaluate table topics that he apparently didn’t pay much attention to himself. Did it matter that Maureen arrived late and didn’t even see the table topic she evaluated? Nope. Corky apparently didn’t notice, and Maureen did a fine job winging it.

Speaking of table topics, Lora once again handled the Table Topics Master role beautifully. She called on Wendy, who FINALLY is a bona fide member of this club, to describe a time when father really did know best. She called on Carlos, who remains as handsome as ever, to talk about whether dads should be portrayed better on television. She called on Jenny, who recently married and sadly will be leaving us, to talk about what life would be like with Keith and Amy as parents. Great topics, fun answers. Maureen, you should have been there.

Let’s not forget Rey and Lee, who evaluated the speeches. They reminded us all to distinguish the openings, body and closing of each speech and to involve the audience occasionally by asking, “Are you with me?”

Are you with me, folks? Brian did a wonderful job with this meeting. We’ve actually had a bunch of great meetings lately, thanks to the energy of our new members and the continued commitment of our older members. I have had the pleasure of reporting to you on a somewhat regular basis on the goings on of our meetings. Thanks for letting me do this and for taking the time to read them. Robert is taking over the duties of Secretary beginning this week, so I say farewell from this post. I’m hopeful Robert will let me help out with the recaps in the future. I’m pretty sure he will and that he’d let you help out too if you’d like to give it a try. Looking back on our meetings really can be – and has been – a lot of fun.

In the words of our new president, you guys are awesome. Signing off…