Dear {{First name | Fellow Toastmaster}}!
Seven guests joined us this evening. Thank you all for your participation, and hopefully, the GGTM weekly meetings will become a future sanctuary (word of the day!) for you.
Thank you to the functionaries who made the meeting possible, including a number who stepped up at the last minute: Scott, Omar, Alex L., Sheila (x2!), Gene, and Jay. Despite some people having to drop, we were able to pivot and fill all roles!
Sheila takes home Best Evaluator
📣 📆 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! 🤩
Never want to miss out on GGTM social events, workshops and meetings? Click the button to subscribe to our club’s Google Calendar.
📚🏫 Toastmastering Together
Let’s get better by learning from each other and sharing resources. Bookmark these for your reference as you go through your GGTM journey!
Golden Gate Toastmaster Resources (bit.ly/GGTM-resources)
Toastmaster Meeting Roles One-Pager (bit.ly/GGTM-roles)
Onboarding Checklist (bit.ly/GGTM-onboarding)
Shubhum wins Best Table Topics
🗣️💃💵🎓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 🏆)
😎💡Member Spotlight
Send your member profile to [email protected] so we can feature you next. Share your adventures that we can highlight as well!
🫵🗣 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!
Need more info? Check out:
Golden Gate Toastmaster Resources (bit.ly/GGTM-resources)
Toastmaster Meeting Roles One-Pager (bit.ly/GGTM-roles)
Onboarding Checklist (bit.ly/GGTM-onboarding)
