Capital City Toastmasters

Perhaps you can remember a time you were truly inspired. It may have been a grand accomplishment or a simple acknowledgment.

If you ask a random sample of Toastmasters why we do it, you’ll hear anything from engaging the personal challenge of public speaking to the friendships we’ve made. For some it’s the career advancement. For others it’s the mid-week boost of energy to break it all up.

Whatever your reason, I want you to be inspired at Capital City...

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Our last-minute toastmaster volunteer Louis was second to none in this timely meeting.  And with just one speaker time was definitely on Sheena’s side today, waiting patiently for all nine table topic-ers to answer her questions.  Eric, Gene and Carol were at the top of the hour: They went on a wild adventure from San Antonio to Austin with Scarlett Johannsen at SXSW, who never gets around to exercising!  (That was a table topic mash-up, like a song mash-up where they put two songs together and Oh, you get the point - they’re mashed!)

Bert, Corky and I talked about vacationing in Aruba, driving around a beat-up car and getting senior discounts.  The final hour brought three ladies, Rey, Maureen, and Maria up, all admitting their poor time management skills — but it’s not Rey’s fault… she has DIAL UP!

One and only speaker Wendy is getting closer to her CC award after clocking out speech #9 today - a gentle nudge to get out and volunteer all that time you’re wasting!   And Maria, with only a few moments to prepare, gave her first evaluation, hopefully inspiring other members to take on the challenge soon, too.

The Winners:
Best Table Topic: Maureen
Best Speaker: Wendy
Best Evaluator & Most Enthusiasm: Maria!
Best Humor: Corky
Best Club in the District:  Capital City (according to the area gov Steve Lockwood who visited us today!)

Hey batter-batter-batter-batter…

Ace hitter Brendan Owens stepped up to the plate as today’s Toastmaster and wow - if I knew how to use the term “wheelhouse” correctly in a sentence, I’d be doing it right now.

Table Topics Master Maureen McReynolds threw out her best sinkers, sliders and spitballs.  Wendy showed us her CURVE, Corky corked his bat, Jason hit a GRAND SLAM, Louis proved his worth as a utility player, and Albert was the CLEAN-UP HITTER.  Performances were spectacular because everybody was on steroids. Hey it makes for a more exciting game, despite the fact it messes with a time-honored American tradition.

Rookie David Jorgensen was first in the speaking lineup with his IceBreaker. It was a line drive: powerful, memorable, heartfelt, and funny too. First base coach Rey Deveau was there to provide guidance and direction and she did a great job evaluating him too.  Veteran Patrick Reznik hit one out of the park with his speech, a reading of “Tile M for Murder,” a story of marital animosity and death by Scrabble.

Congratulations to our Opening Day Ribbon Winners:

Best Table Topic: Jason Callendar
Best Speaker: Patrick Reznik
Best Evaluator: Rey Deveau
Most Enthusiastic: David Jorgensen
Best Humor: Patrick Reznik

Those of you who could not make the game  - we’d love to see you back in the stands next week.

Capital City Stadium Peanut Vendor
Amy Samet

He already gave a table topic as a guest, and is signed up to give his icebreaker next week!  We voted him in unanimously based on his 3 answers:

fav color:  Orange

fav cartoon: Beavis and Butthead?!

AND he knew that Bob Denver played Gilligan!  bonus!

Welcome, David!

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!