For our meeting this week, I selected the theme of “Toastmaster 101.” I felt it would be a great refresher for our established members and a timely introduction to our two newest members, Loretta Newton and Andrew Robertson.

We also had a guest, Maureen Alvord, who is the wife of Gem City Forum’s president, Jim Alvord. It was wonderful to have Maureen with us as we always welcome visitors!

To begin the meeting, we discussed the history of Toastmasters. Here are some of the interesting details:

Toastmasters is 85 years old It began in the basement of the Santa Ana, CA YMCA It is a nonprofit organization Toastmasters has nearly 250,000 members in 106 countries We also examined the flow of a Toastmaster’s meeting and what it offers participants: Toamasters offers a proven – and enjoyable! – way to practice and hone communication and leadership skills. It is a learn-by-doing workshop – members are assigned roles, so we can all practice the different aspects of communication There is no instructor – We all take turns as evaluators and administrators. Besides making speeches, TM develops skills in listening, giving feedback, decision-making, delegating and mentoring There are two program paths to earn award designations– Communication and Leadership – and you can do both Programs are self-paced and rewards are offered at different level

Gem City Forum welcomes all visitors who would like to learn more about Toastmasters. Come and watch/ participate in one of our meetings – we meet every Tuesday at 5:30 PM at the Macon County Library. Meetings last approximately 60-80 minutes.

Observe and you will see a well-organized and welcoming atmosphere – from our friendly smiles as we approach the lectern to our handshakes as we leave it, our members strive to represent Toastmasters fundamentals.

Barbara Cook

VP Education  |  Gem City Forum Toastmasters Club

The last Toastmaster’s Meeting for March of 2010 was a real side splitter!

I was the Toastmaster for the evening and it was a real privilege to run the meeting when such talented speakers are entertaining us. Since this was the last meeting before the Easter Holiday I decided on a theme of “Easter Memories”. I introduced the theme with some background information about the reason the date of Easter Sunday changes and a few of my childhood Easter memories.

Our Grammarian for the evening, Phil Drake, gave us a challenging but well liked and used word, Magniloquent, meaning speaking in or characterized by high-flown often bombastic style or manner.

Our Table Topics Master, Dan Adams, did a great and creative job with table topics, selecting 3 topics and placing them in plastic eggs, letting each volunteer pick their egg.

This was followed by two extremely fun and entertaining speeches, given by two accomplished speakers, Michelle Hubbs and Barbara Cook.

Michelle went first speaking out of her Advanced Communicator – Humorous Speech Manual, giving a speech entitled “Don’t Mess With A Girlie Girl”. This speech had the audience laughing so hard some even turned purple her evaluator said. I have to admit I was in tears I was laughing so hard.

Barbara was up next with a speech from her Competent Communicator Manual on Vocal Variety, her speech was entitled “Egg Pecking”. She gave a speech on her families Easter tradition of egg pecking. This is a complex game with rules and strategies in which you try to crack your opponents egg, with your egg without cracking yours. Barbara did a great job using props to demonstrate how this game was played and gave us the “secret” to good egg pecking. You could definitely tell this game was SERIOUS business in her family.

We also welcomed new member, Andrew Robertson to our club during this meeting.

The meeting was a great success and we all had a ‘side splitting’ good time.

Lacey W. Crowe  CC
Member | Gem City Toastmasters Club # 296