It was another memorable night at the Gem City Forum Toastmasters Club meeting this past Tuesday 11/3/09. Our Sargent-at-Arms, John Becker introduced our Toastmaster, John Becker who started us thinking about the theme “Bachelorhood”. Loosely translated, ‘How I miss my wife when she’s out of town’ or ‘Who’s going to do up all those dishes in the sink – anyway?’

As we all tried to collect our wits from the throws of laughter, (thanks John – we needed that)Dan Adams brought into some thought provoking table-topics when he had Joe Parker try to sell us on the benefits of going back to the 50′s. When Joe had finished Dan asked Bill Hanger to convince us why we should stay here in the present.

Which would you prefer?

Next it was up to our first speaker, Jim Alvord to “Inspire The Audience” with the benefits of ‘Meditation and it’s place in the Modern World.’ This was Jim’s final speech for his Competent Communicator level and from the feedback – a favorable argument and facts delivered left everyone wanting to know more. There will be more in-depth speeches in the future based on the interest level from everyone.

After all, who wouldn’t want to live healthier and longer with ‘No Effort’ and only a few minutes a day of relaxation?

Then it was Phil Drake’s turn at the lectern – and in his usual humorous style of story telling – he had us all rolling with his continuation on the theme of ‘Bachelorhood’ with “No No No – A Thousand Times No!’ Does anybody out there remember what the “Sniff Test” was when you were single?

You get the idea! Sorry there’re no pictures – I was laughing too hard!

After a little over seven minutes of side splitting laughter, the meeting was handed off to our General Evaluator, Alan Keling. This was Alan’s first time in this role, and he called upon the evaluators for the speeches and the participants reports in a flawless series of repartee’s.

Then Alan gave his Evaluation of the meeting starting off with a keen observation of how similar our Sargent-at-Arms and Toastmaster looked. Nothing escaped Alan’s observations of the meeting and a great time was had by all.

Our President then closed the meeting after some comments regarding the District Conference coming up this weekend in Asheville, and the emails that have been forwarded to the membership.

A special thanks to Brian Rhodes who traveled down the mountains from Sylva and volunteered to be our ‘Ah-Um’ counter for the evening. Brian is helping our Area Governor, Mike Kesselring to rebuild the “Mountain Messengers” club in Sylva. To stay active and in practice during this phase Brian has been regularly attending our meetings, and we’re very glad to have him! Thank you Brian.

See what you missed if you weren’t there? Join us next Tuesday night at 5:30 in the Childrens Meeting Room of the Macon County Library and see what Toastmasters, Gem City Forum style can do for you!

Respectfully Submitted,
Jim Alvord | President
Gem City Forum Toastmasters Club # 296