IN BRIEF
✦ Theme: Pause and Intention. Word of the Day: Deliberate.
✦ John Ekedum's Ice Breaker, "Better Habits, Better AI," won Best Speech.
✦ Michelle Wen's "Angels for Each Other" looked back at the people who quietly looked out for her during her Tiffany years — and ran long enough to be disqualified on time.
✦ Table Topics built in a genuine pause: fifteen seconds of silent thinking before anyone was allowed to answer.
Dear {{First name | Fellow Toastmaster}}!
| Agasthian Ponnambalam ran the night essentially solo — opening remarks in Albert Yan's place to a room that included ten guests, then straight into the Toastmaster role — and used the double duty to teach the room to do less, on purpose. A deliberate pause, he argued, does four things at once: it builds a speaker's own confidence, commands the audience's attention, gives listeners time to actually process what was just said, and quietly starves out filler words before they show up. His practical version: two breaths before starting, taken while making eye contact and smiling; a pause around a key point or a joke; a pause at every transition. Table Topics Master Albert Yan took the idea further than a technique — he built it into the format itself, giving every respondent fifteen full seconds of silence to think before they were allowed to say a word. |
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THE FEATURE
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"Better Habits, Better AI"
John Ekedum Ice Breaker Best Speech
For an Ice Breaker, John's was unusually structural: a three-part framework for using AI tools well, delivered confidently and entirely without notes. First, specific outcomes beat vague requests — knowing exactly what you want before you ask for it. Second, repeatable systems beat random prompting — building a process you can reuse rather than reinventing one each time. Third, and most pointed: human judgment still beats blind trust, no matter how confident the answer sounds.
Evaluator Sheila Vida called it an unusually polished first speech — delivered with a confident stance and animated gestures — and offered one note: fewer downward glances, and a bit more vocal variety to match the energy already in the gestures.
ALSO FROM THE PODIUM
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"Angels for Each Other" — Michelle Wen, Pathways Level 3: Effective Visual Aids
Michelle's speech looked back at her years at Tiffany & Co. and the people who quietly looked out for her there — including one she still calls "husband number zero," and a mentor she associates with a single T-clip pin. She built the talk around a small collection of props: slides, a scarf, a Tiffany bag, a pen — each one standing in for a person who became, as she put it, an angel for someone else, and closed on "new hopes and new dreams." The speech ran to 8:27, over the seven-minute maximum, and was disqualified on time — there was simply more story than the clock allowed. Evaluator Omar Sinada praised the unexpected props and suggested a brief recap up front for context, along with leaning harder into the central "angels for each other" idea to tie the individual stories together.
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Table Topics: What Would You Do?
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Round the new faces mixed with some familiar ones
Ari(upper left corner), asked how to handle receiving critical feedback, answered with the night's own theme — pause deliberately, and separate the emotion from the information — and won Best Table Topics for it. Vedant(lower right corner), doing double duty as General Evaluator, was asked about feeling overwhelmed when a friend needs help; he thought back to friends who dropped everything during his own hospitalization, and said he'd do exactly the same for someone else without hesitation. Luzee(not in the photo), choosing between a concert and a looming deadline from her boss, had a plan for both: go to the show, then work through the night — "adrenaline will carry me to 5am." And Agasthian(TME, photo below), asked to describe a completely free day, built an itinerary so specific it sounded already lived-in: yoga, a sauna, a bike ride, a ten-mile run to Ocean Beach, a nap, dinner, and a stop at Garden Creamery to close it out — detailed enough that the Grammarian couldn't help noting it ran a little contrary to an earlier pledge to cut back on sugar.
Also answering: Jay, Derek(lower left corner, Cole, Noe, Alessandro, David, Tim, and Ruby(upper right corner).
AND THE VOTES ARE IN
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BEST TABLE TOPICS
Ari (Lower Right)
BEST EVALUATOR
Omar Sinada (Upper RIght)
BEST SPEAKER
John Ekedum (Left)
The Laurel Wreaths, awarded by Agathesian, VP of Education, TME
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THE CALENDAR
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30
Albert Yan, GGTM President, takes the Toastmaster role, SIGN UP for the roles
STILL RECRUITING
The District needs an Area Director — talk to Officer Team (See below) if interested.
ON GOING
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