2007-08-05: I'm So Old That...    

Distinguished Toastmaster, the Venerable Clare Anahu led the festivities as the Toastmaster of the day. Clare tried, not too convincingly, to tell us she was older than methuselah. However, she has known a lot of club members so long that there is nothing about us she does not know--given the tendency of speakers to speak about themselves alot!

Table Topics Master, Richard Stewart managed to incorporate the meeting theme into his questions in a delightful way as well as inviting all six guests to speak in addition to our members.

Prepared speeches for the day were all from speakers who had already completed their basic program and, for the most part, were working on Advanced Manuals. Club Secretary Barbara Lewis led off with a powerpoint presentation from the "Persuasive Speaking" manual. Seargent-at-arms Bruce Delfeld next took advantage of the computer projector setup to give us a touching and humorous look at his sister's wedding. (Did you know that Bruce actually has sisters? Hard to believe.) Returning long-time club member Eric Anderson spoke from the "Public Relations" manual and utilized a video presentation to supplement his fascinating speech on the human rights project he has been doing around the world for the last several years with humanitarian Mary Shuttleworth and "Youth For Human Rights". One of our brilliant, resident wordsmiths, Sue Zenger entranced us with her speech: "Little Island, Big Lake" from the "Storytelling" manual. The unexpected punch-line at the end had us laughing off our seats. Finally, our President, Ray Korns recounted, by special request, some of his days in Washington, D.C. in his eleventh "Icebreaker" speech entitled: "D.C. Or Not D.C.?"

The venerable (word-of-the-day) coaching was as usual superb and spot-on. All of the speakers agreed that the observations of our coaches and suggestions for improvements were excellent.

Yes, another fun, productive meeting!