IN BRIEF

✦ Theme: Off-Screen Hobbies. Phrase of the Day: Creative Outlet — answered, by club tradition, with a snap.
✦ Juan Basalto's "Rolling the Dice on Friendship" tied a love of craps to making friends while traveling.
✦ Alexander Wu's "Creating the Best Club Climate" asked what makes a guest want to come back.
✦ Coming up: a mini-workshop on purposeful speech creation on November 4.

In a single evening, the room heard about a craps table on the road, off-trail bouldering with trash cleanup on the side, deep-sea fishing, backcountry ski touring in Utah's Wasatch Range, and a picnic at Fort Mason with matcha and bento. The theme, from Toastmaster Jay, was off-screen hobbies — a way, he explained, to counter excessive screen time — and the Phrase of the Day, "creative outlet," came with a club tradition: a snap from the room whenever someone used it.

Guests introduced themselves with their names, how they found the club, and a hobby of their own. Behind the lectern: Kevin Gumba, Timer; Sharmaine Rodrigues, Ah-Counter; John, Grammarian; Chris Edwards, Ballot Counter, who walked the room through QR-code voting and feedback; and Miwa, Note Taker and Quiz Master.

Juan's hobby is craps, and his speech was about what the game does for him on the road: playing it while traveling creates openings to meet people and build friendships. A pastime that looks like dice and probability became, in his telling, a story about belonging — about how a shared activity can turn strangers into friends.

Alexander took on a question that matters to anyone who has ever walked into a room of strangers: what makes a guest come back? His answers: the physical meeting environment matters; how members treat one another shapes how guests experience the club; existing members should model the behavior they want to see; guests should be actively welcomed; and members' achievements deserve recognition and support. He ran past the time limit, but the through-line held: a club's climate is made less by programming than by the small ways members make other people feel welcome.

Evaluation feedback: Michelle Wen praised strong audience engagement and suggested intentional pauses for impact. Alex called out an effective humorous opening and suggested more audience participation — a show of hands.

Ten speakers took the hobby prompt. Two went for food and travel: John shared a trip to Barcelona and why food is an important part of experiencing another culture, and Ali described a picnic at Fort Mason with matcha and bento. Four went outdoors: Tim on off-trail bouldering and removing trash from outdoor areas, Chris(middle row left colum) on backcountry ski touring in Utah's Wasatch Range, Irene(middle row right column) on deep-sea fishing — a hobby that takes patience and can end in meals shared with others — and one more speaker recommending calisthenics at the outdoor gym as safety and a fresh start. The rest ranged widely: Agasthian(upper row left column) explored expressive hand gestures as a creative outlet; Grace(lower row middle column) reflected on passing her driver's-license exam and discovering she enjoys driving; Debbie described rejoining a recreational swim team after swimming competitively in college; and Albert(upper row middle column) described attending a live-streamed League of Legends World Championships event in London.

BEST TABLE TOPICS
Chris & Tim (Upper)

BEST EVALUATOR
Ari (Lower Right)

BEST SPEAKER
Juan Basalto (Lower Left)