March 25, 2010 induction ceremony

President Diane Bender welcomed Marilyn to the Linguists of Listowel Toastmasters Club.

VP Membership Keith McCluskie led the induction ceremony for Marilyn Hynes.

Marilyn was excited to join Toastmasters and presented her Ice Breaker Speech with enthusiasm and confidence.

Leo gave the Toast to Canada and Keith was Grammarian

Sharon and Keith discuss the highlights of the meeting.

Sharon gave the inspirational thought for the meeting and Keith was quizmaster.

Brian gives Rhea some hints on interviews.

She presented her CC#3 this evening.

Linguists of Listowel – LISTEN, LAUGH, LEARN & LEAD
Area 66 – District 86 – Western Division – Region VI – Club #9016
Linguistsoflistowel.blogspot.com & toastmasters86.org
Area Governor: Diana Snowden Division Governor: Glenn Oxford
Date: Thursday March 25, 2010
Meeting Theme: Miracles Never Cease

(1 min) Call meeting to order : Rich Boertien
(3-4 min)Chairperson’s Opening Remarks Diane Bender, ATMG
Thich Nhat Hanh has said “People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle – “
Our meeting theme tonight is Miracles never Cease. I believe there are at least two different kinds of Miracles – the mini Miracle and the transformational miracle.
1. The mini-miracle - this is the everyday miracles. These include getting a parking space, meeting the right person at the exact right moment, coincidences, or phone calls from just the person you were thinking of. Taken alone, they might mean very little, but as you pay attention, you realize that things are going your way. Last week I was on vacation with my grandchildren. We were at a waterpark, having a great time in the wavepool and on the slides. I had a table where we left our shoes, towels and my carryall with my camera and room key. I tried to keep an eye on that, while I supervised a very energetic four year old and a very independent 8 year old. Imagine my shock and despair when I returned to an empty table with only our shoes under the chairs! WHAT TO DO? I PRAYED FOR A MIRACLE. I checked with the life guard- she hadn’t seen anything. It seemed like an hour but within 5 minutes a young father came hurrying over to my table with the towels and carry all. He apologized that his family had accidently taken them when they gathered up their belongings. I was very thankful and decided that was a miracle that he had the integrity to come back and return my stuff and to apologize.

2. Then there are Transformational Miracles –which involve lifestyle change, usually as a result of an injury, death, divorce, career change, financial upheaval, or other crisis that forces us to confront ourselves and change our lives in a direction that enhances our passion and creativity. I think that joining toastmasters can be a transformational miracle. People who were once too shy to speak in front of an audience gain confidence and improve their leadership abilities. It takes tremendous courage to present your icebreaker as Marilyn is doing tonight. By taking this journey your life will improve in almost every area because “miracles never cease.”

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wayne Stoltz is a very wise guy and brings us the joke of the day.
(1-2 min) Joke of the Day: Wayne Stoltz
Leo Brisbois would agree with -- Bob Richards who said Ingenuity plus courage plus work equals miracles.
(1-2 min) Loyal Toast & Timer: Leo Brisebois, CC

The author is unknown for this quote but I am sure it is true for Sharon D’arcey who will be giving us literary corner.
“The miracle of friendship can be spoken without words... hearing unspoken needs, recognizing secret dreams, understanding the silent things that only true friend know.
(3-4 min) Literary Corner: Sharon D’Arcey
Keith Stoltz will be grammarian this evening. The other night, Keith and Jane were sitting on the front porch having a nice evening talking with each other. Suddenly, the neighbor across the street pulled up and got out of his car. He had a big bouquet of flowers and a large box of candy in his hands. As they watched, their neighbor's wife came out to greet her husband. He hugged and kissed her and gave her the box of candy and the flowers. Then they walked into their house hand-in-hand.

Jane looked at her husband Keith and said, "Why don't you ever do anything like that?" Surprised, Keith exclaimed, "Are you kidding, Jane?! I hardly know that woman!"

Bill Cosby said the fact that married couples can live together day after day is a miracle ”


(1-2 min) Grammarian: HULLABALOO Keith Stoltz, ATMS
(5-7 min) Speaker #1 - Ice Breaker Marilyn Hynes
One minute written evaluations by members
(5-7 min) Speaker #2: Speech #3 from CC Rhea Longman
One minute written evaluations by members
(5 min) Anything for the Good of Toastmasters:Dues are due. Keith, Jane, Diane, and Audrey will attend the evaluation and international speech contest in Kitchener March 26, 2010. 4 people volunteered to speak at the Listowel Ag Hall April 14, 2010 appreciation dinner.

“When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.” Helen Keller

(15-20min)Table Topics: Jane Stoltz, ATMS, CL
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. -- Albert Einstein

(5-7 min) Induction Ceremony for Marilyn Hynes: Keith McCluskie
Sergeant at Arms for the evening was Wayne Stoltz.
(3-4 min) Evaluator #1: Brent Jemmett
(3-4 min) Evaluator #2: Rich Boertien

(1 min) Award for Best Table Topics was a tie: Marilyn Hynes and Keith McCluskie
(1min ea) Reports from Timer & Grammarian
(2-3 min) Quizmaster: Keith McCluskie
Our General evaluator is Brian Camacho. He has travelled around the world as a result of bettering himself by going to toastmasters to improve his communication skills.
(5 min) General Evaluator: Brian Camacho, ATMB

Miracles are not hard to come by. They begin from the heart. -- Author Unknown
(1-3 min) Inspirational Thought: Sharon Diehl
(1-2 min) Chairperson’s Closing Remarks Diane Bender, ATMG
Speaking for myself the miracle is that I can enjoy being chairperson at toastmasters. For nine years I resisted that opportunity. Now I can look an audience in the eye and smile throughout the evening and actually breathe normally! I can use my voice in a variety of ways. Most of all, I can have fun during my term as president.
I can share my miracles by becoming the person I was meant to be. You can too by following that dream you have inside. You too can be transformed because Miracles never cease!!!

9:00 Adjournment
Snacks Audrey Orth, ATMG

Dates to Mark on Your Calendar
Fri Mar 26: Division Contest –
The Gathering Place, Trinity Village, 2727 Kingsway Drive, Kitchener. Cost: $5.00
Apr 1: Toastmaster Meeting Cancelled
Apr 8: Let’s Scream for Ice Cream
April 16-18: Spring Conference at Mississauga, at the Delta Meadowvale
Remember to bring your CL Manuals to each meeting

Linguists of Listowel

Linguists of Listowel
What a great evening we had. The theme was lessons children/ friends/ parents teach us. Past president George Nichol wowed us all with his skills as chairperson. He had interesting introductions for everyone and even shared a few jokes.
We welcomed George Stevers as a guest this evening, he was introduced by Keith Stoltz. George is a farmer and “enjoys” fixing farm equipment!
Keith M. was toast and timer- for some reason he really seems to enjoy keeping us all on time!
Jessica Kelly entertained us with literary corner, mentioning how little children can teach us lessons on what and when to eat. Sharon Diehl gave us the word Sapience which is a noun and means deep wisdom or knowledge. It was used several times throughout the meeting.
Sharon D’Arcey presented speech #3 in her CC manual “To be a Kid Again”. Her mentor Diane Bender was the evaluator. She was very impressed with the sapience of Sharon’s speech. It was persuasive entertaining and inspiring.
Jane Stoltz used her vacation experiences to entertain us with her speech “Waves”. A tsunami advisory in New Zealand had most people scrambling to higher ground – but not the Stoltz’s. Jane described how her husband Keith thought it would be safe to get to the top of the house they were staying in and then view the pandemonium with binoculars! Audrey Orth evaluated Jane with lots of glow points.
Brian Camacho led table topics- he even gave us choices. Winner was Jessica Kelly.
Keith Stoltz evaluated the meeting with many glow points and even some suggestions to make our meetings better in the future.
We congratulated Rhea Longman on her acceptance to Redeemer College and we were excited to learn that she had earned a leadership scholarship as well! Way to go Rhea.
Diane Bender ATMG
President of Linguists of Listowel

Linguists of Listowel

Sharon welomes Marilyn to Toastmasters Linguists of Listowel!

Brent congratulates Jessica on recieving her Competent Communicator certificate.

Rhea shares her toastmaster experience with her father at our OPEN HOUSE

Hi Toastmasters:


Last evening's program was completely filled and chucked full of surprises and we ended on time.

Audrey Orth did a fantastic job as chair sharing her Irish stories, tales, jokes and quotes!

Thank you to our guests last evening for coming and sharing our evening.

Marie McCutcheon received lots of smiles and chuckles with her Irish joke.

Congratulations to Jessica Kelly for receiving three certificates last evening, Sixth Speech, Tenth Speech and winner of Table Topics Award!

Our word provider, Rhea Longman counted Gregarious used 13 times throughout the meeting!

Rich Boertien gave his #7 Speech: Do Unto Others and Diane Bender read us a story on The Lady of Gollerus.

Sharon D'Arcey entertained us with a reading about the story of Blarney!

Jane gave her point of view with the benefits of holidays and Brian Camacho did his hilarious counter point of view.

Our listening skills proved to be right on target for our quizmaster Jessica Kelly.

Congratulations to Sharon Diehl for taking on general evaluator for the first time last evening.

A welcome to Marilyn Hynd in announcing her membership into our club!

There are many spots open for next week.

Challenge yourself next week as we need a chairperson, as our president is absent next week to enjoy the lessons her grandchildren will teach her.

Jane Stoltz

VP of Education

March 10, 2010

Linguists of Listowel at the Area 66 Contest in Walkerton at Jubilee Hall.
Jane, Diane, Keith, Marie, Leo, Brent, Audrey and Diana Snowden Area 66 Governor

Diana Snowden Area Governor, Gregory C N Smith First place, Marie McCutcheon Second place, Lisa Houthuyzen, Brent Jemmett and Ron Hills

Glen Oxford ACB, Division W Governor, Diana Snowden Area Governor, First Place Gemma, Second Place Lisa, Leo and Brent.

#10 CC manual speech " ROAK" by Jessica Kelly

RAOK
How would you feel if you woke up one morning and someone had shoveled off your drive way? How would you feel if someone put money in your parking meter if your time was going to expire? How would you feel if you showed up for work one day and your boss announced everyone could take a day off with pay just because? Pretty good I bet? Well I have one more questions for you; how would you feel if you bought a coworker coffee one day out of the blue and then found out you made their day? I bet that would make you feel pretty good too.
Good evening madame chair, fellow TM..
The dhali lama once said;
All of us are born for a reason, but all of us don't discover why. Success in life has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It's what you do for others.
In other words; success is not necessarily measured by material things you have for yourself or the accolades you have for yourself, it’s the kind things you do for other people. There is actually a name for this phenomonom of doing kind things for people that’s been popping up more and more recently. A “new kind of movement”; thats been around for a few years now called RAOK or “random acts of kindness”.
RAOK is defined by Wikipedia as any selfless act performed by a person or persons wishing to either assist or cheer up an individual. There will generally be no reason other than to make people smile, or be happier.
But why would anyone want to just randomly do kind things for people? What benefit would it offer you?



For one, performing a random act of kindness can actually improve your self-esteem. Think about it- To have in you the power to improve someone elses mood or situation is empowering and can make you feel better about yourself. Random acts of kindness are essential to our wellbeing. They free us from self-obsession, selfishness and isolation. That may be one reason why so many people volunteer. It just feels good. We feel better about ourselves when we help others or when we better the lives of others. Another benefit often quoted by self-help guru’s and philosophers is that we can only be as happy as those around us. So by that theory; when we perform actions that improve the happiness or situations in those around us, we in turn improve our own happiness.
What are some examples of random acts of kindness? One famous example quoted widely on the internet happened to a popular internet blogger, Arthur Rosenfield. He was in the drive-thru line at Starbucks. The man in line behind him was getting impatient and angry, leaning on his horn and shouting insults at both Arthur and the Starbucks workers. Beginning to get angry himself, Arthur chose to keep his cool and change the negativity into something positive. He paid for the man’s coffee and drove away. When he got home at the end of the day, he discovered that he had created a chain of giving that had not only continued all that day but had been highlighted on NBC News and within twenty-four hours had spread around the world on the Internet.
Random acts of kindness have been portrayed in the movies as well;
The movie “pay it forward” starring Kevin spacey, Helen hunt and haley joel osmend is a prime example of the impact a random act of kindness can have. The movie portrays a social studies teacher who gives his students an assignment to perform random acts of kindness towards others, and then ask them to “pay it forward”, meaning they are to perform another random act of kindness for someone else, rather than pay back the person who was kind to them.


The movie follows a young boy who has chosen 3 people to perform his random act of kindness on, he encourages each of those people to then “pay it forward” by doing something kind for someone else. A pyramid of kind acts then follows, and I won’t give away the end of the movie, but 100’s or peoples lives are effected and bettered, and it all is traced back to the one little boy who started the chain of event, with his random act of kindness.
In essence, it’s saying that one small act paid forward can snowball into many and much larger kind acts.
Another famous real life example of a much larger scale random act of kindness happened in 2004 on the oprah winfrey show. Oprah had filled her audience of people who were in some way shape or form in need of a new car. These people were unaware that everyone in the audience were in the same boat as them. Oprah then opened her show by announcing that there was a parking lot full of brandnew cars out back. One for each of the 276 audience members. Newsclips of the extatic people, jumping up and down, hugging each other, crying tears of joy, were shown nation wide. The image was inspiring. Oprah now holds a show once a year called “oprah’s favorite things” where she showers her audience with her 1000’s of dollars of free stuff. News of her act made headlines around the world and prompted other well-off talk show hosts, newscasters and radio hosts to perform similar acts.
On a slightly smaller scale, on nov. 13, 2009, the KW record published a large add declaring it.. RAOK day and included cut out coupons, encouraging people to perform random acts of kindness. The theory was that when you commited an act of kindness, you handed the coupon to another person, who was then to perform a random act of kindness for someone else, and pass the card along.



My younger sister and her friends had a great idea that day. As high school students, natalie and her friends decided they would do larger scale random act of kindness, but they soon realized they were all very short of money, so they made giant signs reading “free hugs” and they marched downtown kitchener and took up a spot on the sidewalk where they advertised their services to passerby’s. the pictures from that day speak for themselves. In each and every picture the hugger and the huggee both have the biggest and brightest smiles on their faces and I’m sure they brightened more than a few days with their hugs… .but you could tell that they themselves got just as much out of doing kind things than the people they were doing them for.
So what can you do for RAOK? Maybe you don’t have the money to buy someone a new car, or the patience to sit around hugging random passerby’s, but each of us has something we can offer;
If your money is low but you have time to give, something as simple as saying “hi” to someone on the street is a random act of kindness. Some more examples are;
Offer to carry groceries for an elderly person
Hold the door open whenever possible for someone walking behind you,
Bake cookies for your workplace.
Shovel someone elses driveway.
Scrape ice of someone elses car.
Mow a neighbours lawn.
Visit a nursing home and visit with a lonely person.
Tell someone how much they mean to you.
Give someone a “just because card”

if you do have money to give, but maybe not time, some examples for you are;
Tip the person serving your food at a sit down restaurant or a drive through with a 100$ bill.
Pay the parking ticket of someone on the street.
Pay for the person who is behind you in the drive through.
Buy coffee and donuts for your workplace
Sponsor a child.
Buy lunch for a homeless person.
leave $20 in an envelope on a park bench and address “to someone in need.”
Or “buy my house”. (that wasn’t a joke).

So you all have the power to perform random acts of kindness. I encourage you to start today. I am providing you each with a random act of kindness card (PASS OUT) now you all have no excuse not to perfrom an act of kindness. Who knows; you may get the card back someday when you need it most.
Be it one small act each day, or one large act per year, make RAOK a part of your life.
Because As the dhalli lama once said:
When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.

Linguists of Listowel

Speaker Rich Boertien welcomes guest Marilyn Hynd to Toastmasters.

President Diane Bender congratulates Jessica Kelly on completing her 10th speech March 4, 2010

Evaluator Brian and Mentor Audrey congratulate Rhea on her second speech.


Linguists of Listowel – LISTEN, LAUGH, LEARN & LEAD
Area 66 – District 86 – Western Division – Region VI – Club #9016
Linguistsoflistowel.blogspot.com
Area Governor: Diana Snowden Division Governor: Glenn Oxford
Date: Thursday March 4, 2010
Meeting Theme: Oxymorons

Call meeting to order (7:15): Heidi Menzi
Chairperson: Brent Jemmett Agenda Review:
Joke of the Day: Keith McCluskie
Loyal Toast & Timer: Sharon D’Arcey Grammarian: Diane Bender "Seriously Funny"
Literary Corner: Audrey Orth "Olympics"
Speech #1:CC #2 Rhea Longman "Moving, Moving"
Speech #2:#1 Entertaining Rich Boertien "Along Interstate 75"
Speech #3: CC#10 Jessica Kelly "ROAK"
Table Topics Master: Sharon Diehl
Evaluator: Brian Camacho
Evaluator: Keith McCluskie Evaluator: Leo Brisebois
General Evaluator Heidi Menzi
Guest Comments: Marilyn Hynd
Reports from Timer & Grammarian –1 minute each
Award for Best Table Topics, Keith McCluskie
For the Good of Toastmasters,
Next Week’s Program Review,
Chairperson’s Closing Remarks: Brent Jemmett

Snack & Refreshments: Sharon D’Arcey Adjournment (9.00)
Dates to Mark on Your Calendar
March 10: Area Contest Walkerton, Jubilee Hall
March 26: Division Contest University of Waterloo
Apr 16-18:Spring Conference at Meadowvale Conference Centre in Mississauga
March 4: Executive Meeting
March 11: Irish Blessings Open House March 18: Lessons Children Teach Us