Dear Fellow Toastmaster!

This is my (Sheila’s) first summer living in San Francisco and layer that with Pride Month! What a time to be alive! So much sunlight, colors, energy and poetic fog at the end of the day. A lot of exciting things all around and we tried to capture some of them in this week’s newsletter.

On Wednesday night we:

• pondered what event horizons we’ve crossed and will cross

• wanted to paint the Golden Gate bridge PINK

• planned on taking over GG Park with clickers

• practiced democracy by electing club officers for the new term (see below the election outcomes).

Before we share the juicy details, we know you want to click this button…

Meeting Notes

We did a modified version of our typical 2-hour meeting to accommodate Club Elections. In the first hour we did a shortened version of the usual one we do every week but kept the essence intact. 

Monika led us as the Toastmaster for the evening and sprinkled summer goodness and imagery throughout. The rest followed suit, sharing life stories, subject matter expertise and popular and unpopular opinions on important San Francisco topics!

🧑‍💻📋 Functionaries

• Alex W. as Timer captured a synchronicity moment with IDENTICAL speaking times for the speeches! (Both prepared speeches were 6:06 and all 4 Table Topics took 1:16)

• Sheila took her first role Ah-Counter role and captured crutches we use (they are not just Ahs and Umms!) despite her fear of the clicker

• Vipul as the Grammarian shared the so-not-PREPOSTEROUS word of the day and captured beautiful use of language

• Amanda tallied the votes and feedback as Ballot Counter

• Katka recorded the speaking sessions as Videographer to accelerate growth 2X faster!

🍽️ 🗣️ Table Topics

We did Table Topics first on this abridged version of the meeting and led by Mike Z. and he invited folks to share their stance on important San Francisco topics.

1. 🏙️ Juan believes that unpopular methods of expanding San Francisco’s land area still works because it allows more space for more people to enjoy the greatness of our city

2. 🌉 Jay believes painting the Golden Gate Bridge black and gold will confuse us with Pittsburgh and that pink is the better option! Happy Pride month everyone!

3. 🚘️ Vipul foresees that self-driving cars are vehicles(pun intended!) to extend San Francisco’s accessibility to those outside of the city.

4. 🏝️ Lauren shared that she will consider living in Treasure Island if sailing options are available, but otherwise - probably not.

5. 🏈 Sheila thinks the San Francisco 49ers (the sport is football right?) can be named anything as long as we keep the spirit alive

6. 🇨🇳 Amanda prefers Chinatown’s historical significance over Japantown’s location’s effect on displacement of African American communities though cuisines from both cultures are great!

7. 🪧 Katka shared the vision of GGTM taking over GG Park with clickers on hand to make an unforgettable experience! (🏆 Best Table Topic 🏆)

🎤📄 Prepared Speeches

Gene kicked us off with the dramatic concept of event horizon which is that point of no return. Admittedly, I haven’t heard that phrase before, but in two minutes, he vividly described how it applies technologically (in AI when machines > humans), morally(Anakin and Bob Ewell’s revelations) and universally (as in with being unable to escape a black hole’s gravity). He encouraged us to check how to apply this concept to our lives and storytelling.

1. We got to know how Jack life through his engaging Ice Breaker speech as he shared stories of starting, tinkering but not always succeeding with a variety of things. Him constantly acting on things to prove that there is more to life, despite losing his hair for it, led him to realize that he did not fail to launch, life simply unfolded the way it’s supposed to. (🧊💥 Ice Breaker 💥🧊)
   

2. Amanda “put the numbers” into the realities of global warming with a speech with content demonstrating her subject matter expertise and delivery that encouraged us for a call to action. (🏆 Best Prepared Speech 🏆)

📝 👀Evaluations

Lisa led the feedback portion of the meeting as the General Evaluator introducing the speech evaluators, giving overall feedback on how the meeting was run and reminding us of importance of time management.

1. Arjoyita did her first evaluator role and did so with an equally engaging delivery as Jack’s speech. She praised Jack’s descriptive imagery and language which makes the delivery of the Ice-Breaker effective. Unfortunately she did not meet the minimum time limit and is disqualified for voting.

2. Scott commended Amanda’s impassioned speech and appreciated how the statistics she shared were effective in communicating the emotional impact of her content. He challenged her to step out of the podium for next time, having already demonstrated subject matter expertise on the topic, to make future speeches better! (🏆 Best Evaluator 🏆)

Election Results: Incoming Officers Team for July-Dec 2024

🥁…

• President: Katka Sabo

• VP of Education: Sheila Vida (agreed to share the VPE role with Helen Fream)

• VP of Membership: Juan Basulto

• VP of PR: Gene Zhou

• Treasurer: Scott Brown (serves also as Immediate Past President)

• Secretary: [empty - for now!] Considering getting more involved with the club? Reach out to Katka for details about this role.

• Sergeant-at-Arms: Lauren Hurley (agreed to alternate in the role with Alexander Wu)

More exciting announcements from the new officers team coming in the next newsletter - stay tuned 👀!

Guests - Come Back Soon!

We had 7 guests this meeting including a returning member! Daniel gave the guest feedback for the evening saying how memories of the time before he took the break were mixed with what he’s seen of the club now for a total nostalgia-fest. Welcome back home, Daniel! 🙂

Guests, please do visit us again to see the full 2-hour version of the meeting and hopefully make GGTM home for your speaking and leadership journey! 🏠️ 💗 

🔦💡 Member spotlight!

Today we get to know Alex Lexson, one of the many Alex-es we are blessed with in the club. Alex L. is our hospitality guru of GGTM!

We want to feature 🫵 YOU 🫵 on the next newsletter and will reach out to get your fun facts. Let us get to know each other better!

Next meeting is July 3!

Let’s celebrate the 🎆 4th of July 🎆 together, back to regular programming of 2 hours, with a new set of officers.

Let us all continue run it smoothly by signing up for roles and speeches. Not able to next week? We have agendas for the coming weeks so reserve a spot for those instead.

Alright, gtg! This newbie will now marvel at the colors of Ferry Building farmer’s market, be in the middle of pride festivities and continually bask in the summer of San Francisco! See you all soon and have fun!

Sheila and Katka