Dear Fellow Toastmaster!

📣 📆 What’s up

• The Club Business Meeting for members will be the first week of June. The normal meeting is abridged, and the second half will be voting in new members.

• The Officer Elections for the next six-month term are in the second week of June. The normal meeting is also abridged. We recommend contacting a current officer if you are interested in running. 🗳️

• Do your Pathways! We only need one more Level 2 completion to achieve President’s Distinguished Club status, which is the highest honor for a Toastmasters club! 🤩

🗣️💃💵🎓May 28 Club Meeting Highlights 

On Wednesday night, we:

🌟 We have a Pathways completion! Brandon completed Level 4 of Innovative Planning and got a shiny pin to commemorate the occasion.

🎤 The Toastmaster was Alex Lexon, and the theme was “Refocus.” She shared with us her personal journey of refocusing on her nonprofit’s mission in the hospitality industry.

🌀 Word of the day was “pivot.”

✨ Katka stepped up at the last minute to do the two-minute special and shared her public speaking journey.

🚣 Kyle taught us 3 essential tips on canoe racing in Hawaii, 4-foot paddle prop and all.

🥪 Sheila explained why being “selfish” was the key to happiness — and getting the better torta!

🧠 Brandon gave us a slightly different speech: an interactive talk titled Why Are You Here? He challenged us all to clarify exactly what we want to improve here at Toastmasters and what’s holding us back.

🍻 Harris shared his hilarious story of how he moved on from his problematic drinking career (🏆 Best Prepared Speech 🏆).

💬 Table Topics Master was Lisa. Each speaker told a story about an out-of-context photo Lisa shared:

• 🐟 Monika, given a fish scale pattern (from a dress), thought of mushrooms and pinecones

• 🌱 Shubham, shown a creepy alien-looking plant (a pitcher plant with salamanders trapped), told us about the carnivorous plant exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences (🏆 Best Table Topic 🏆)

• 🦚 Jay, shown a colorful feather pattern, thought of peacocks and went on a rant about Peacock’s horrible pricing practices

• 🍄 Alex Wu, shown a slimy mushroom image, told us how he hates the taste of mushrooms

• 👽 Omar, given a green thing with blue circles (lotus fruit), told us how he disliked aliens and cactuses (sharp!)

• 🏖️ Justin, given a black and white layered image (newspaper), thought of seashells and shared his experience with white sand beaches in Ireland

🖼️ More images: cornflakes, spiral notebook, bubble wrap, sea sponge, strawberry, toothpicks, apple stem

📝 Evaluations:

• 🎭 Gene invited us to go to the extremes of our emotional presentation styles when evaluating Kyle

• 🚂 Scott, while evaluating Sheila, explained the concept of steamrolling: coming in with high energy and keeping it rolling — but also the importance of slowing things down at times

• 🎯 Kyle evaluated Brandon’s interactive speech, highlighting the excellent opening and build-up to the central quote

• 🎉 Sheila gave an impromptu evaluation for Harris! (🏆 Best Evaluator 🏆)

🫵🗣️ Your turn

We would like to hear YOUR stories, information and feedback to make this newsletter, our club and our Toastmastering better. Share it with us!