ALL ARE INVITED!!! This is a chance for everyone to learn more about Toastmasters and how it can benefit you. See this flyer for an Agenda and a list of speakers.

The Open Club Meeting is intended to be a collaboration between TM in the PM, the Gastonia Toastmasters, and our own Dye Hard Toastmasters.

The Seminar will begin on Tuesday, January 19th and will run for four weeks – ending on Tuesday, February 9th. The venue has not been finalized, but we hope to hold it at Gaston College – East Campus again this year. The start time will be 7pm.

Click Here to Pre-Register for the Seminar

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!!!

I would like to expiate for not posting a recap out in awhile but your luck ran out. Expiate was word of the day, meaning to “atone for or make amends for” provided by our Mr. Bert Freeman our VPE and Toastmaster of the evening. We had two speeches tonight. Mike gave a speech that was very informative and a subject that is near to his heart, education and making a difference in a young person’s life. He discussed the cost in dollars and in lives of our educational crisis we are experiencing in this country.　 He stated five areas that young people must feel comfortable in to be able to feel successful.　 Mike gave this speech and used “PowerPoint”. This was his first attempt with a “PowerPoint” presentation and he did quite well.

 Our second speaker was Jada. Her speech was the “The Good, The Bad, and the Beautiful”. Her speech was timely in this holiday season. Charitable giving, does your donation go where you intended it to go? She gave statistics, and web-sites to see which charities are prudent with your donations and which are not. It was a very logical and well thought-out speech.

Table Topics were provided by Chad. This was excellent. He stated the situation. You are a passenger on an airplane and it is going to crash. There is only one parachute. Plead your case why you should get the parachute. True to form, Chad made a slight modification. The participants drew an envelope and it contained a celebrity who was the passenger on the plane.

 Bill was Dennis Rodman.
Ken was Paris Hilton
Ron was Britney Spears
Emily was Bernie Madcoff.

 It was an extremely funny portion of the meeting, especially Ken Paris describing some of his/her best features. Emily was ah/grammarian and she lived up to her reputation. She can hear an ah/um before you can say it! That’s good from a Yankee, oops. 　”Southernisms” were also discussed; you all know what I mean.

 Finally, our General Evaluator was Charles Hutson who did great. Ron evaluated Mike’s speech. Emily evaluated Jada. Congratulations to Emily and Charles for accepting the challenge of trying a new role!!

 Last, but certainly not least we had a guest attend tonight’s meeting. Mr. John Pierce attended the meeting and expressed an interest in joining our club. WELCOME!!!!!

 WE WILL NOT BE MEETING ON DECEMBER 1^ST BECAUSE OF THE BELMONT CHRISTMAS PARADE AND TRAFFIC PROBLEMS GENERATED BY IT.

 Happy Thanksgiving!!

You can get it here:  Toastmaster Template

Emily Lowrance was our Table Topics Master and sparked some heated debate between Charles Hutson and Chad Bordeaux regarding Twitter.  Chares asserted that it was a waste of time, while Chad detailed examples of how he has grown  his business and strengthened business and personal relationships with its use. 

All in all, it was an awesome meeting!

We had a great theme meeting last night – FOOTBALL! We inducted our two newest members into the club, Kelvin Smith and Joseph Salloum. WELCOME GENTLEMEN!!   Mr. Jeff McNeill visited our club and will be a participant in our Career Advancement Planning Seminar that we are doing over the next four weeks. 

Our first time Toastmaster of the evening:　 Ms Jada Criswell, did an excellent job keeping the meeting running smoothly. Lateefah Holley was our humorist. We had two great speakers, Chad Bordeaux gave a speech entitled; “Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.” The subtitle could have been “Hardees and Jack Daniels: What more could you want!”

Charles Hutson gave his “Icebreaker” last night. It was entitled; “Full circle”. For an “Icebreaker” Charles demonstrated great poise, even when a cell phone rang. How inconsiderate!! Oops it was my cell phone, SORRY Charles! You gave a great presentation and I look forward to hearing your future speeches.

I was General Evaluator. Bert evaluated Charles. Lateefah evaluated Chad’s speech.

 We are in the process of developing a template for our meetings. We want to continue to have consistently great meetings week after week. Jada is putting in a great deal of effort in this process and we thank her. We are also planning theme meetings like Khaled suggested and skip the prepared speeches and do impromptu speaking or have a debate. Pepsi or Coke? Toliet paper over or under, or any other pertinent topic that comes up. The important thing is: THIS CLUB LISTENS TO ITS MEMBERS AND WILL FOSTER GROWTH WHEREVER AND WHENEVER POSSIBLE!!!

Congratulations to US!!! We have achieved the Smedley Award. We have had 5 new members join our club since July 1^st. We even had a member who has been visiting the Big Apple return to our club at tonight’s meeting, Emily!!!! Welcome back!! 　Bert will e-mail roles out soon. Please remember “CAPS” begins this Monday night at Lutheran Chapel Church. Please come out and support us.

Our Toastmaster this evening was Bert Freeman. Bert also did an “improvisational moment” as humorist. Man stories about kids and grandkids are great!

Bert Freeman speaks at a Dyehard Toastmasters Meeting. Bert was the Toastmaster on August 25, 2009.

Ron Crews was our first “performer”, I mean speaker tonight. His speech was full of thoughtful tid-bits about giving a speech or performance that connects with the audience. Tell a story/ make a point, tell another story and make another point. He also mentioned humor is a great pressure reliever when giving a serious performance. Injecting just a little humor goes a long way! He mentioned even at funerals humor is a way to relieve the grief. I agree I attended a funeral for a very dear older lady; she was like a second grandmother to me. The priest spoke of all the traditional stuff and then pulled out a coffee cup and cigarette and acted like he was going to smoke. That was the lady’s persona and he hit it on the head. Humor WORKS!!

We had an enjoyable meeting tonight. There was synergy in the room, brought to us by Gewreka Robertson. Synergy was the word of the day. Its definition is the combined effort being greater than its parts. If that doesn’t reflect the Dye-Hard Toastmasters Club, I don’t know what does! Thank you Gewreka!! We had THREE guests tonight; Charles Hutson, Dawn Harris, and Dave Blazek we welcome you and hope you will return to visit or join! Charles Hutson joined and will be inducted at the September 1st meeting. Welcome to the Dye-Hard Toastmasters Charles!

Our Toastmaster this evening was Bert Freeman. Bert also did an “improvisational moment” as humorist. Man stories about kids and grandkids are great! Ron Crews was our first “performer”, I mean speaker tonight. His speech was full of thoughtful tid-bits about giving a speech or performance that connects with the audience. Tell a story/ make a point, tell another story and make another point. He also mentioned humor is a great pressure reliever when giving a serious performance. Injecting just a little humor goes a long way! He mentioned even at funerals humor is a way to relieve the grief. I agree I attended a funeral for a very dear older lady; she was like a second grandmother to me. The priest spoke of all the traditional stuff and then pulled out a coffee cup and cigarette and acted like he was going to smoke. That was the lady’s persona and he hit it on the head. Humor WORKS!!

Our second speaker was Lateefah Holly. I believe this was her fourth or fifth speech. She role played with the audience and she was the principal. The audience was parents of Toastmaster High School students. She challenged the parents to sit down with their children and come up with some goals, and write them down. The goals could be academic or personal and write them down on index cards and keep one set posted at home and one set at school. Make action plans to achieve those goals. Then review those goals as the year progresses. I think that is a plan we all should do!! Lateefah I apologize I didn’t get the quote verbatim, but you mentioned Helen Keller and quote that is so sad for people “to have sight but no vision.” That added a great deal to your presentation.

I was the General Evaluator. Jada evaluated Ron’s speech. She did something which I thought was great, she asked the audience if they had “connected” with Ron’s performance and they did.  Khaled was Lateefah’s evaluator and did a good job.  He also reminded me that Toastmasters doesn’t eliminate the butterflies, but makes them fly in formation to help you speak enthusiastically and with energy.  Anne Dawson was our ah/counter and grammarian. Chad was timer tonight.

Action Points:

1. E-mail Bert your educational goals for the upcoming year.
2. Meeting on Thursday at Alfred & Charlies  6-7pm “Operation CAPS”
3. Next week; Gewreka will giving her “Icebreaker” and Charles will be inducted!!
4. Wear your college school colors, college football is our theme!

We had an enjoyable meeting tonight. For those of you who were unable to attend tonight, we missed you. We started the evening with a guest who is co-chair of the Toastmasters District 37 Fall Conference to be held in Asheville this year. Her name was Susan Stewart; she was visiting our club to promote the conference and ask for volunteers to assist with the conference. The conference will be held November 6th & 7th at the Doubletree Inn. Additional information may be found in the District 37 Newsletter “The Tarheel Talker” which was recently mailed to all Toastmasters in the state. The information can also be found on the District 37 website: www.toastmasters-nc.org.

Susan Stewart discusses the Toastmasters District 37 Fall Conference in Asheville

I had the honor of being Toastmaster tonight. We had two prepared speeches tonight! Jada Criswell gave speech #5 ,  tonight entitled “Citizen’s Arrest”.  Some of Jada’s objectives were to learn the value of gestures and body movements as part of a speech. You nailed this one Jada! I really think if you enhanced your story with suggestions that Mike Keever gave you during his evaluation you would have a contender for the humorous speech contest. The crux of the story was Jada wasn’t about to let the “bad guy” get away with leaving the scene of an accident. To paraphrase another comedienne; “She got it done!” Her best phrase was she was acting like the “Incredible Hulk on Steroids”. Go Jada!!!

Ken Levra gave the second prepared speech tonight. His speech was entitled “Pass it on”! Do you have a past time or a hobby you really enjoy? How did you learn to do it? Did you have a mentor or buddy to teach you the ropes? This was the central point of Ken’s speech. We must mentor/teach people our passion so they may enjoy the rewards. Ken mentioned his love for hunting and fishing. He mentioned in a ten year period almost a million hunters have left the sport. Ken realizes that the sport is often portrayed as being cruel and inhumane. It is however a sport that prevents the over population of animals like deer and beaver. Ken was taught by a mentor his uncle to respect the wildlife, hunt responsibly and ethically. Points he plans to pass along to future generations. (True story) Ken’s grandson Aiden has a tee shirt with a picture of a high chair, underneath it the words: “My first tree stand”. Raise him right Ken!

Chad Bordeaux was our Table Topics Master.  His theme was “Gilligan’s Island”.  Ron Crews admitted he was really the “Professor” in disguise.  Jada said if she wasn’t rescued from a tropical island that would be fine with her. Mike stated that the television and his computer were the only modern conveniences he would miss besides a shower.

There will be a new agenda being e-mailed in the next day or two. We will have a full meeting on August 18th. I will be presenting an “educational module”, Bert will be speaking and I believe we will have a new member induction ceremony, with Ms. Gewreka Robertson joining our ranks. Mr. Tony Treece may visit our club and we look forward to meeting you Tony!!