Our regular Tuesday night meeting of the Gem City Forum Toastmasters Club was started on-time and our first time Toastmaster, John Sapp introduced the theme “Isn’t it Wonderful?” with some very thought provoking questions for the audience to ponder.

The normal meeting participants fulfilled their duties flawlessly, even though we had to perform like a first meeting club without our timer’s watch and warning light and other meeting niceties we’ve gotten used to. It was fun to rough it, so-to-speak, and it didn’t slow anyone down even a little bit.

As our General Evaluator, Emily Markham pointed out the Table Topics Master, John Becker showed us a side of some of our membership that (tongue-in-cheek) pointed to Pyro tendencies in our youth. But there is now and always has been a fascination with youth and matches/ fire that transcends logic and surfaces in an almost primordial nature. At least we out-grew it.

Our two speakers for the evening, Phil Drake & Michele Hubbs entertained us in their normal Exemplary fashion. Phil taught us a short but highly fact filled 100 yr. history of western North Carolina and the Cherokee Indians, that left all of us wanting to know more. Michele used humor, very well delivered, to teach us not to Procrastinate. Her excuses / reasons as to why procrastination isn’t a good thing or a bad thing either, left everyone in stitches. In closing she handed out a step-by-step anti-procrastination guide only to assure us that she intended to start following it in a couple of weeks, “when she got around to it.”

A great evening of entertainment and sharing was ended with a beautiful rainbow as we left the Macon County Library at meeting end.

Plan on attending the June 17th meeting to vote for your new officers. Elections will be held at that meeting, so think about moving up to the next level and becoming an officer for the next year and serving your fellow members.

It’s a good way to gain valuable leadership skills and helps in completing your Competent Leader requirements for advancement in Toastmasters.

See you at the Library on June 3rd at 5:30PM for the next installment in becoming a Competent Communicator.

Our May 20th meeting at the Prudential Building was a lot of fun and even somewhat educational. Our Toastmaster for the evening, Danny Clifton, opened the meeting and kept us all on track so the evening flowed smoothly along.

The Grammarian, Bill Hanger, enlightened us on the difference between ‘use’ and ‘utilize’ which are grossly mis-used in our everyday verbal interchange. The main ephasis is that we ‘use’ the word “utilize” way too often and most of the time incorrectly in our regular communications. We should be using the word ‘use’ far more often, as to utilize implies that we are using something in an unusual or different way than normal. Think about that when you want to ‘use’ something in the future.

Our jokemaster, Phil Drake, had us all in stitches as usual with his “fish story” and I guarantee it’s not at all what’s going through your mind right now. Strong minds Rule! That’s all I’m going to say about it.

Our guest, Winnie Mae was brought in on Table Topics and did an excellent job for her first time in front of the group. Winnie is a ringer with some experience at talking in front of people and her short speech proved it. Likewise, our Dwayne Phillips and Kathy Clifton filled out the topics with descriptions of alternate useses for glasses (of the soda drinking variety) and a #2 pencil. It was a fun time for all attending.

Finally our speaker for the evening, Jim Alvord, gave us an insight into what it was like taking flying lessons out of San Jose Municipal Airport in California in the 80′s. Jim was doing speech # 5 “Your Body Speaks” from the Competent Communicator” series and used the ups. downs, and other obscure angles experienced from the cockpit of a small airplane to give the audience a sense of what happens during stall practice and takeoff & landing sequences during flight lessons.

During the business portion of the meeting our acting President, Jim also reminded everyone to start thinking about who might want to run for office as the June Elections are close at hand. The meeting was over way too soon again as seems to be the case every week. If you’re in the Franklin, NC area on Tuesday night – stop in and experience what a Toastmaster’s Meeting can be like with a very Dynamic group of individuals like we have in the “Gem City Forum Toastmasters Club.”
Until next time!

April 29th we all learned a little more about Nikola Tesla and all that he did for our current lifestyle. Nikola was truely a ‘GENIUS’ and our modern day electricity generation, distribution and utilization are a testament to Mr Electricity himself. Jim left us all wanting to know more about this great unsung hero and his other accomplishment. There was a promise made to share more in a future speech on the subject and to share a lot more details about the man and his life.

On May 6th our own John Becker entertained us in his usual gallant style. John is a master at using vocal tone, inflection, and facial expressions to get his message across. Using colorful word pictures he can draw the picture directly in your mind’s eye so you see exactly what he does. It’s a very unique talent and we’re all that much richer in our own ability to give speeches because we’ve shared in John’s.

Coming up this week May 13th we will be entertained and enlightened by our VP of Membership, Ms Kathy Clifton. Kathy always has great stories to tell and I for one am really looking forward to it.

I’d also like to extend a hearty Welcome to our guest last week, Marc Cutrone of Mountain Resort Properties, LLC. We look forward to future visits and if the spirit so moves you Marc, we’d love to have join our group.

That’s it for this update – hope to see you at the Macon County Library this Tuesday at 5:45PM for our next sintilating get-together. Yes – that’s 15 minutes later than usual do to a schedule conflict at the Library. See ya There!!

Jimbo