Meeting 904 "Technology"

Liz We

 Liz We wore two hats last meeting, when in her role as president she opened the meeting, welcomed our guests Lynne and Tekura, then she took on the role of Toastmaster for the evening. The theme was "Technology" and Liz had plenty of interesting facts and information up her sleeve.

Word Master Inge introduced the word "Precept," meaning an instruction, a command or a mandate.

Ernie read the mission statement and Robert proposed the toast.

In keeping with the theme, Ron presented a quote from Karl Marx, "The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people."

Del

Our Round Robin Master was not present but Del quickly came up with a topic, "What technological item do you use and what item confuses you."  There were some interesting answers.

We had two Table Topic Masters, Leesa and Jim. It was Jim's first time as Table Topics Master.

 Leesas topics were, "What technological item could you never do without?"
"Was there ever any technological item you could not get to work?"
"Have we gone too far with technology?"
"What is the best technological device you have bought?"

The Topics were answered by Robert, June, Bev, and Ron.

 Jim's topics were also related to our theme, "Do school children rely too much on technology?"
"Has medical technology made a difference to your life?"
" 'The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people'. - Do you agree and why?"
" Automatic tellers, etc - what are the consequences to society?"  (This is not the exact wording.)

Jim's topics were answered by Annette, John S, Dave and Inge.

Table Topic Evaluators John S and Del had some encouraging comments and good advice, on using gestures, making eye contact with one person, then moving on to another rather than scanning the room, slowing the speaking rate etc.

There were two speeches. The first was by Annette, speaking from the advanced manual, "Special Occasion Speeches." She presented a toast to someone who was retiring from a business.

It was evaluated by Dave.

The second speech was Ian's Ice Breaker speech. He held us spellbound with his imagery and vocabulary as he spoke about living and working in Siberia where the temperature drops to 40 degrees C below zero and freezes the moisture in your eyeball! 

Ian's speech was evaluated by Liz Wo.

Ian

In the absence of our scheduled educational presenter, Marlene presented an educational session on how to find ideas for a Humorous Speech, reminding everyone that our Humorous Speech Contest is the meeting after next.

Some of the tips were:  Think of  incidents that were painful, scary or embarrassing at the time, but are funny in restropect.  

Make fun of yourself, rather than others. Exaggerate your failings and fears

Think of conflicts - eg. dealing with teenagers. toddlers, in-laws, the opposite sex.

Embarrassing Moments. Misunderstandings. 

Observations - describe a crazy world from a straight perspective or vice versa.

Raffle Master June opened her segment with a riddle. "Why did the cat order a computer?" "Because he had heard that a mouse came with it."  The raffle prize was a cordless mouse. It was won by John T.

John T wins raffle

Grammarian John T commented on the use of a pause when speaking and said we could emulate experienced Toastmasters John S, Annette and Liz We. There hadn't been too many fillers such as "Um," "Ah" or "Okay."

General Evaluator Sharyn  gave some encouraging advice. 

Our guests Lynne and Tekura said they had enjoyed the meeting and would be back.

Time Keeper Nicole reported that our meeting was running 2 minutes ahead of time. (Sorry, I can never get a photo of the Time Keeper from where I sit.)

Liz We put her president's hat back on and closed the meeting. 

The evenings awards went to Liz We (Best Contribution,) John S (Best Table Topic,) Ian (Best Speech AND Personal Best,) Liz Wo (Best Evaluation.)

Award winners 24 July 13