Sunday, September 25, 2011

September 22, 2011, Theme: Fall Harvest

Valrie Hummel (left) takes part in the induction ceremony presented by Lorna VanderPloeg (V.P. of Membership).

















Lorna VanderPloeg (right) welcomes our newest member Valrie Hummel (left) to the Linguists of Listowel Toastmaster's club.

















Valrie Hummel provides us with a literary reading about Fall Harvest.

















Karen Bott provides us with a series of poems about Fall Harvest during her literary reading.

















Marilyn Miller (left) and Karen Bott (right) provide Heidi Menzi (centre) with some suggestions for her next speech during the Coaches Corner.

September 22, 2011, Theme: Fall Harvest

The Theme was Fall Harvest which brought out many good memories of back on the farm around Harvest Time.

We kicked off the meeting with Valrie Hummel's Induction Ceremony done by Lorna VanderPloeg, our V.P. of Membership and Valrie's mentor.

Jane provided the joke of the day about a preacher’s son getting his license and asking his dad for the car however his dad asked him to complete a list of tasks. The son completed all of the tasks but forgot to cut his hair. The son recalled that the prophets had long hair. The pastor replied, Yes, and everywhere the prophets needed to go, they walked.

Jane also presented an Educational Corner on tips to use in the Humorous and Table Topic contest coming up on September 29th. She also gave us coaching ideas on how to find a speech title using the brainstorming technique.

Literary Corner was provided by both Valrie Hummel and Karen Bott. Both speakers read autumn poems quoted by famous writers. Both read exceptionally well and made us all feel like we were part of the experience.

Toast and Timer role was filled by Audrey Orth. She described how fortunate we are to live in a country full of bounty. Table Topics was done by Heidi Menzi. We all had to tell a story about what we remember, positive or negative, about Autumn Harvest. We all had good stories to tell. Karen Bott won with her story about her youth when she used to collect a bag full of baby frogs and scare people with them.

Grammarian, Lorna VanderPloeg, gave us the word "Ruckus" which was used over 7 times during the night. The Quiz Master, Marilyn Miller, had some good quiz's to get us thinking and test our memory.

George Nichol, who was the General Evaluator of the meeting and chairperson for the Evaluator role for Keith McCluskie, gave us an evaluation of the meeting with suggestions for improvements.

All in all, we had over 35 laughs and there were lots of good autumn stories that we had the pleasure to enjoy at the meeting.

Linguist of Listowel

Leo Brisebois

September 15, 2011, Theme: Hero's

Jane Stoltz (Vice President of Education) presents Keith Stoltz (past Area Governor) with the D.T.M. (Distinguished Toast Master) award.










Keith Stoltz discusses his journey to obtain his D.T.M. award.


















George Stevers presents his 6th speech about his trip to the Perth County Plowing Match with his son.

















Lucy D'Arcey presents her 5th speech entitled "Writer's Block".


















Lorna VanderPloeg (Vice President of Membership) presents her 8th speech entitled "What is a Hero".

Sunday, September 18, 2011

September 15_2011, Theme: Hero's

Calling to Order was done by Keith Stoltz who also introduced the chairperson. Keith told the story of his gold fish burial and my cat as the culprit for the introduction, I don’t think my cat, Kosmo would appreciate that accusation. He is very quiet and keeps out of trouble....he needs to be, he has 2 dogs to watch out for.

The Theme was Hero’s. Who is your hero and who do you consider a Hero. We remembered stories of 9/11and the people who made a difference.

Also joining us for the meeting was a friend of Lucy D’Arcey and a guest to our meeting, Tracy Ireland, who came out to see what it was all about.

Keith McCluskie started us off with the Joke of the Day. It was about some funny answers that doctors provide to their patients about what ails them. Eg. Patient “I am on this diet and it’s not going so good I got so hungry that I bit off someone's ear. The doctor replied, “Oh my, that is a lot of calories". Eg. Can I get a second opinion? The doctor replies, Certainly, come and see me tomorrow.

Toast and Timer, George Nichol proposed a toast to our firefighters, the police all those who make a difference in our lives and sometimes the ones that we take for granted.

Award Presentation by Jane Stoltz to Keith Stoltz in getting is DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster Award). Jane explained his journey in reaching this high plateau. She also explained to everyone that it’s achievable and time is not a factor.

Keith Stoltz was the Grammarian with the word of the day "Immortalize". The word was used a few times throughout the meeting.

Lucy D’Arcey filled the role of Literary Corner where she read out of the "Book of Awakenings". It is a book of inspirational readings on standards that we have on ourselves and others without awareness.

Lucy also had a speech named "Writers Block" and how she used the article in the Toastmasters magazine from David. It was a column telling us that everyone has something to say and the more we listen to it the more we get a different meaning to the story. Eg. Did you hear about this or did I tell you already, you tell so many people about something you heard that you start forgetting who you told it too.

George Stevers presented his 5th speech from the Competent Communicator's manual about going to the Perth County Plowing Match with is son Chris. The speech objectives were to display Vocal Variety.

Lorna VanderPloeg presented her 8th speech from the Competent Communicator's manual. It was an inspirational speech about Hero's. Lorna is well on her way to achieving her C/C.

Jane Stoltz V.P. of Education had an educational module on the D.C.P. chart, explaining the different goals for each part of the chart.

Table Topics, the fun part of the night was chaired by Keith Stoltz our new DTM. We each had to pick an object or tool out of a bag and explained how it made us into a hero or a saviour. The winner, Audrey Orth, had a tool to snuff out candles and she told us all how she used it to put out a small fire. With Table Topics the criteria is to use an introduction, body and conclusion along with hand gestures to make it real.

Audrey was also the General Evaluator who introduced the evaluators, Lorna VanderPloeg, Heidi Menzi and Leo Brisebois for the 3 speeches. She also evaluated the evaluators and gave grow points along with the next meeting.

All in all the laugh counter hit 50 last night, what a feeling. We had comments from our guest Tracy who congratulated us on making her feel welcome and pointed out to us how brave we are to stand up there and speak, we invited her to come visit us again and maybe join our club if she would like to.

It was a fun meeting, we had a lot of laughs. After the meeting, we had snacks and treats provided by Jane Stoltz.

Linguist of Listowel

Leo Brisebois

September 8_2011, Theme: Summer Reflections

Valrie Hummel was the Table Topics winner.


















Jane Stoltz (left) - Vice President of Education presents Lorna VanderPloeg (right) - Vice President of Membership with an award for completing her 6th speech from the Competent Communications manual.









Leo Brisebois (left) - club president chats with member George Stevers (right) after the meeting.











The new club executive officers for 2011-2012.
Back row, left to right: Brent Jemmett (Sergeant at Arms), George Nichol (club Treasurer), Leo Brisebois (club President) and Keith McCluskie (Vice President of Public Relations).
Front row, left to right: Marilyn Miller (club Secretary), Jane Stoltz (Vice President of Education) and Lorna VanderPloeg (Vice President of Membership).

September 8_2011, Theme: Summer Reflections

A recap of last night meeting and the 1st meeting since the summer break.

The meeting was kicked off by Karen Bott who welcomed me (Leo Brisebois) as the chairperson and she had some guesses on how I spent my summer holidays and she did get 2 out of 3 correct.

We had the introduction of the new officers and presentation of the Handbooks. George had the joke of the day and it was about air conditioning and how the inventors of the air conditioner got there names engraved on all the systems that were installed by Mr. Ford and they went by the names of low, medium, high and max.

Our Toast and Timer Brent Jemmett gave us a recap of his summer reflection and how fortunate we are to be in this great country called Canada. The Grammarian was Valrie Hummel who gave us the word of the week - Doleful. It was used very dolefully throughout the meeting. Heidi Menzi the Literary Corner had a poem for us about a summer in 1988 and how hot it was and how we waited under a shade tree for the heat to pass us by.

We had 2 speakers; Keith Stoltz (who is working on his second C/C project # 5) gave us his summer reflection of cruising with his Red Honda Goldwing down the highway, the second speaker was Audrey Orth (who is also working on her second C/C) gave us her experience being in the wrong place at the wrong time with her new van.

Sharon D'Arcey's (Table Topic Master) topic was summer reflections. She asked us each to speak about our summer adventures, the good and doleful moments. The winner was Valrie who told us about her beaver tail experience in Ottawa. Keith McCluskie and Lorna Vanderploeg, the evaluators, provided glow and grow points for each speaker. Jane Stoltz was our Quiz Master and Laugh Counter. She had some good ones. We had to think about who said what. There were 105 laughs during the meeting, can you imagine?

General Evaluator, Diane Bender gave us a good summary of the meeting along good grow points to bring forward.

We ended the night with snack Thanks to Valrie.

Leo Brisebois

July 21_2011, Theme: Meet Mr. Mic

Wayne Stoltz was the chairperson of the meeting.
The meeting was held at the residence of Wayne Stoltz.

Thursday, July 21_2011: Theme: Meet Mr. Mic

Newest member, Valrie Hummel's Ice Breaker speech.


















Richard Boertien delivers his speech presentation to the group.


















Brent Jemmett is the Table Topics Master.


















Jane Stoltz is the speech evaluator for Valrie's Ice Breaker speech.

















Lorna VanderPloeg is the speech evaluator for Richard's speech presentation.