Capital City Toastmasters

Amazing things can happen when you come to a Toastmasters Meeting!

You might learn something. You may hear a speech about poisonous snakes, or a presentation on which female Disney character is the hottest babe.

You may get a lesson on selecting the right wine or how to become a better liar. You might see people from Nepal and Germany and Sweden and Russia. And Rollingwood.

You may meet creative, intelligent, generous people who are focused on self-improvement, and on serving others. And these people might make you feel so welcome and so supported that you become motivated to become a better speaker yourself!

This week we didn’t have the awesome meeting we normally have, because it was BETTER than that!!!  That’s because our favorite animated Italian Corky, also a past president of Capital City, was our Toastmaster!  He welcomed John’s international students in his native south austin tongue: “Hey Bubba”, and charmed the lady-guests we had too.  Oh, the meeting was also better than normal because it was the international speech un-contest contest!

For not being a “competetive contest”, there sure was a lot of trash talk…  Albert came out with fightin words like, “Ya see this face?” Well now ya don’t - POW!!  right hook in the eye. That was his black fist coming from his “black heart”.

Rey “POGO” DeVeauVeau scaled 25-foot tall rope webs, and jumped from a pole to her (near)death, just to get ready to take you down!  If you don’t take your “leap of faith” I think she might make you!!

Last up was Ania — who we already know carries a gun when she speaks — and her strategy was to scare the other contestants from competing, with the most elaborate conspiracy theory in toastmaster contest history *ever*.  They’re all out to get you…

so watch your backs, and guard your trophies!!!

3RD PLACE went to Albert “but it’s my birthday” Cantara
2ND PLACE went to Ania “cute Polish accent” Joseph
1ST PLACE, and the biggest trophy went to Rey “POGO” DeVOVO.

Congratulations, Rey!!  She’ll be moving on to the area contest, on saturday April 12th at 1030am, and everyone should go out to support her there! (at the LCRA on Lake is enAustin Blvd).

While the un-contest un-votes were being counted, Brendan got into the table topics, not afraid to throw them at the *english student* *guests*, plus a few of our funniest guys: Eric, Gene (yes, another funny one!), Jason and of course Keith who gets a giggle every now and again.

Green people, green shamrocks, green cookies, and green SALSA!! Take that, Ireland! We know how to do St. Patrick’s Day right here!! I’d love to take credit for it all but lucky for me… Maria, Amy and Wendy were the laboring lasses!

Even without her lucky speaking shoes, Amy rocked as table topics master. She can’t be blamed for Eric’s “charming” answer… apparently the ladies are always after his lucky charm. Leeanne was a lucky kindergartener, and guest David Jorgensen always makes sure his daughters’ boyfriends are NOT so lucky.

Jason cracked us up with some stories from this past week that can be summed up with the true meaning of DST: “Daylight Screw-with-my-life! Time”. Then Maria shocked us with tales from her vacation to Honduras: she snorkeled with that fish that killed the crocodile guy, AND almost got arrested in the ocean!!!!! Finally, we met Jalapeno Taco Gal (Wendy Fisher to us) who gave a fantasmic, fully stocked, entertaining cooking demo for making salsa verde! Not only is jalapeno taco gal a really cool nickname that Wendy will never live down, it’s also an acronym for all the ingredients in the salsa — simply amazing.

In the evaluations, Drew kept the theme going strong with a reference to a pot of gold that you just had to be there to hear. Rey, Louis, and Patrick always give insightful evaluations - always, and they did again this week. They’re like the MVE’s of capital city.

Finally, I’d just like to thank everyone who wore GREEN, even those who meant to, but forgot in the morning because daylight saving time screwed you up once again: Leeanne, Bert, Amy, Jason, Wendy, Sandra, Albert (McCarthy) Cantara, and you know who the rest of you were!

WINNERS:

Best Speaker: Jalapeno Taco Gal, aka Wendy O’Fisher
Best Table Topic: David O’Jorgensen (Guest)
Best Evaluator: Louis O’Burns
Best Humor: Jenny O’Brookover
Most Enthusiasm: Jason O’Callender!!

Just when you thought things were getting predictable… when meetings are all the same… agendas? boring! punctuality? loosen up! We’re here to relaaaax with Bert as our toastmaster. Strolling in right on Bert time, he picked up right where Wendy, our table topics master, left off. She was truly relaxed, knowing she wouldn’t have to answer one of her own table topics! Or would she? Nope, she wouldn’t.

But a whoooole lotta other people did. Lora, Corky, Amy, Maureen, AND Jason all strolled on up to talk about their good, bad, terrible, and much-needed vacations. Then, to make things even more unusual, Lora evaluated herself when she was general evaluator later in the meeting!! A bit harsh, but hilarious.

Both speakers were offbeat, too. Ania performed mouth-to-mouth for her self-proclaimed 3rd “jesus speech”, and Louis described his foot-in-mouth problem, whose only cure is to go to “your happy place”.

The highlight for me, though, was the moment when we realized the grammarian wasn’t there yet, and Maria, certainly no *flaneur*, pulled a Word of the Day, appropriate and already printed out, out of her purse!!! It was amazing, although I’m sure that Paul had an equally awesome word, but he just missed it by a minute.

WINNERS:

Best TableTopic: Amy “Plan It!” Samet
Best Speaker: Louis
Best Evaluator: Albert
Best Humor: Amy
Most Enthusiasm: Ania!!!

Gene Butler joined the club at last week’s meeting, the first member in over a year to be voted in with the old tradition of asking 3 questions.

Favorite color?   Blue

Favorite TV show? The Wire

Who played the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island?  … that’s a gimme …

He’s in, and he’ll be back after a couple weeks vacation!

Louis Burns, our Vice President Education, received his Advanced Communicator Gold and Distinguished Toastmaster awards.

Hello, hello,

Sheena’s Beatles-reminiscent theme was a hit this week, although surprisingly we never broke out into song.  Okay, Lora did, but without backup.

Instead, we broke out into table topics, with Sandra introducing 5 thoughtful questions to 5 charismatic questionees.  Say hello to sarcasm, I think we’ll be seeing a lot of it with Michael “It was so hard to say goodbye to all of you after that first meeting” Schuttloffel.  But it really is hard for ME to say goodbye to wiffleball apparently, since I talked about it again during my table topic.

Drew was more than happy to say goodbye to her grandmother, or so she says: a battle for the sarcasm title, me thinks.  Then Corky laid it all out in a 2 minute diatribe on Albert’s manliness (or lack thereof as he suggested).  Oh no he didn’t!  Anyway, last up was Maria, who had the most awkward hello when she met George Bush and passed on her flu to him!!!  As Nelson from the Simpsons would say: “Ha hah”.

New member Gene was off the hook for table topics this week, but we put him on the spot at the end of the meeting when we voted him in, despite not knowing who played the Skipper!!  Everyone say HI to Gene when he comes back from travel *in three weeks*!

The two speeches were quite different from each other this week.  For his third speech, Jason confidently conducted a very organized, well thought out credit crisis seminar, something he must do every day since he was so good at it!  Oh yea, he is a mortgage specialist…

Then the veteran toastmaster John gave his 126,215th speech, encouraging everyone to evaluate the political candidates for their public speaking skills — not a hard sell in this election I guess.

And finally, did anyone else notice that Amy redeemed herself from last week’s grammarian gaff by being an excellent grammarian this week?  Nice one.

RIBBON WINNERS:
Best Table Topic & Humor & Enthusiasm: Corky “Cheap Shots” Logue
Best Speaker:  Jason Callender
Best Evaluator: Bert VUNK!

And one update on the international speech contest: we weren’t able to find a contest chair, so you can kiss it good-bye!!  There will be an informal contest selection on March 26th instead.

Capital City Constituents:

I do solemnly swear that last week’s prezidential meeting was awwweesome, thanks to the distinguished leader Mrs. Reynetta DeVeau.  Awesome, despite scandals involving neglectful grammarianism by Amy and timer flip flopping by Bert.

Table topics was a close race between Carol the not-so-benevolent dictator, Drew the presidential dictator, Raj the clear choice for 2012, and Sandra, but Sandra made the connection to her people, talking about her crazy boss: who can’t relate to that??

I gave a speech that Keith could really relate to, simply titled “Hooray for Beer”.  This was a prelude to the happy hour party on Friday with Drew, Wendy, Albert, Sandra, Louis, Amy, me, and Eric!!  All in favor of making happy hour a regular event??  AYE.

Leeanne motivated us to get involved in the club’s mentoring program with her speech. Cuz hey, forget about those famous role models, you’ll never meet ‘em!  It’s just US!  Seriously though, we do have a mentoring program, and anyone can GET a mentor AND anyone can BE a mentor!  Talk to Louis!

2008 Presidential Winners!

Best Table Topic: Mrs. Metoyer
Best Speaker: Ms. Brookover
Best Evaluator: Mr. Owens
Best Humor: Mr. Smith
Most Enthusiasm: Mrs. Pacatte!!

New ways to pass the time when you’re at work!!

To bring you out of the dark ages, Louis created a couple website tutorial videos. New members can get a comprehensive tour, and vets can find some cool tools on Toastmasters International’s site.

We’ve also got Rey’s fantastic speech on evaluating, in case you missed it!

They’re all under the Helpful Videos link in the menu.

This one’s for my girls in the hood.

The annual Capital City Battle of the Sexes started with a bang! And her name is Amy Samet, the most prized female in our club, the PRESIDENT, and also today’s Toastmaster and completely unbiased referee.

Representin’ for da boyz, Jason brought us a word of the day from the urban dictionary: Weapons of Mass Distraction. Those are… well, Dolly Parton’s got ‘em for sure. Louis stepped up next, pitting guys and girls against each other in head-to-head table topics bouts.

Leeanne was the yin to Jason’s yang, both trying to explain what I believe were the universal men and women’s restroom signs that Louis drew on the board. Eric outrageously claimed that dogs are better than women, but no, no, no, Lora rebutted that dogs are better than every single male in her household, citing laziness and destruction against the men. Touché!

Michael’s icebreaker was a sneak attack on the men’s behalf: a hilarious story of being the fastest kid in school for 3 years.. until… Gretchen. Yes, she beat him. Score another one for the girls today!

Rey, the Toastmaster talk show host extraordinaire, used a gimic and a laptop to spice up the Successful Club Series speech on evaluating. Don’t worry if you missed it, there’s a video!! And it’ll be posted on the website sometime this week. You may want to check it out if your name begins with Alb or Cork. Great material on how to evaluate, and a fun advice column portion! Awesome!

Our two guests, Dennis and Gene, really enjoyed the meeting (despite all the male bashing) so we hope to see them again soon. Sheena popped in today to be our general evaluator, giving the girls an edge in the battle: hope to see you again soon too!

There was a vote and somebody won, but I can’t seem to remember who it was. If I had to guess, I’d say it was THE GIRLS, obviously. I’ll keep you updated if the memory ever comes back to me.

Leif Brown joined the club at yesterday’s meeting!  But he’s no newbie, as we saw in his first table topic, he’s got plenty of Toastmaster experience.

Welcome, Leif!  We look forward to your first speech at Capital City!!