January 26, 2012 Theme: Laughter is the Best Medicine

Thursday night’s meeting theme "Laughter is the Best Medicine" was just enough to get the butterflies to fly in formation. We had over 55 laughs. Jane called the meeting to order, getting us into the spirit when she introduced the chairperson by imitating a golf stance and how he got his hole in one.

The night was exciting. We had the speechcrafters workshop going into its 3 week, everyone but one made it despite road conditions. Everyone had their speeches ready and introduced each other’s speeches.

We had the visit from our Area Governor Gregory C.N. Smith who introduced himself to the club and speechcrafters. It is always a pleasure to have him present at our club. We had the speechcrafters introduce themselves and some toastmasters also.

We had an educational corner by Sharon D’Arcey on Organizing your Speech. It was broken up in 3 parts.

Introduction

Tell them what you are going to tell them

Body

Tell them

Conclusion

Tell them again what you told them

Keith McCluskie gave the sample speech about his bike run and how he broke his personal record. Joke of the Day, by Brent Jemmett, about how to get someone to give you a push. Table Topics, by Lorna VanderPloeg, stepped in for Val Hummel. Her and Val had the material ready in advance for Lorna to use and it worked out well.

Vern Noseworthy, the Grammarian, with his word of the week LAMPROPHONY was used over 6 times. Lamprophony means "verbally effective and loud". Good job Vern.

George Nichol was the Toast and Timer. George, always looking relaxed and poised, has something positive to say every time. Lucy D’Arcey, General Evaluator, did a great job introducing the Evaluators and giving us a good grow point, One Minute Evaluations, to explain the purpose of the One Minute Written Evaluation between speakers in order for our guest to be informed.

Good job again to our evaluators and advisors for getting the speechcrafters ready for each of their roles. Good job as well to Jane Stoltz and Sharon D’Arcey for getting the agenda out on time with all the changes and for everyone stepping in to fill a role when needed. All in all giving me the help required in order to make this a successful meeting and workshop.

We had a good meeting with lots of laughs. The room was full of energy with 18 people present at the meeting. We are hoping to increase this number for the next meeting.

Have a good week and see you at our next meeting.

Leo Brisebois

Club President

January 19, 2012 Theme: Declutter Your Life

Val Hummel, Club Secretary, was the Grammarian for the meeting. She provided the new word "Pervasive" for the club members to use during the meeting.
















Jane Stoltz, V.P. of Education, (left) presents Valrie Hummel, Club Secretary, (right) with a certificate of accomplishment for completing her sixth speech from the Competent Communicator manual.















Jane Stoltz presents three club members with pins for completing their Competent Communicator manuals.
Shown left to right; Jane Stoltz (outgoing V.P. of Education), Keith McCluskie (V.P. of Public Relations), Lorna VanderPloeg (V.P. of Membership) and Sharon D'Arcey (incoming V.P. of Education).





Lorna VanderPloeg, V.P. of Membership, (shown right) inducts two new members into the Linguists of Listowel Toastmasters Club.
From left to right, the new members are; Vern Noseworthy and Jill Wagemans.

January 19, 2012 Theme: Declutter Your Life

The Linguists of Listowel met on Thursday, January 19, 2012. The theme of the meeting was "Declutter Your Life". Sharon D'Arcey called the meeting to order at 7:20 p.m. and introduced Chair Leo Brisebois. Leo welcomed everyone to the meeting and reviewed the theme. He said we should work to declutter our lives and he described a recent effort to clean out a large closet at home, making one side for "him" and one side for "her". We have to wonder how long that will last! He spoke of deleting negative experiences. Delete, delete, delete! Leo reviewed last week's first instructions for the Speechcrafters and said the theme for their program this week is "Get Your Feet Wet".

There were several agenda changes and then Leo had the Speechcrafters introduce themselves and explain a little bit about why they were involved with the program. Vern Noseworthy was introduced as the Toast and Timer and spoke of our good fortune to live in Canada before having us make a toast to our wonderful country.

Grammarian Val Hummel introduced the word of the night: pervasive. This word means to "flow throughout" and the word was chosen because sometimes clutter can be pervasive in our lives.

The Speechcrafters bravely gave their Ice Breaker speeches. John Van Meeteren gave us a laugh by describing that he is able to give a 10 minute speech in one breath. Christine Aitchison spoke of the many changes she has had in the recent past. Ella Kieftenburg spoke of her travel to Canada and how she ended up meeting and marrying her husband. Tony Galvao gave us a laugh as he spoke of his love for libraries.

Sharon D'Arcey was the evening's Sample Speaker and gave her "Be In Earnest" speech. She was practicing for a "Women into Networking" speech that she will be giving soon. She did a great job and showed confidence and poise at the podium.

Jane Stoltz took care of Table Topics and the Speechcrafters and some of the Toastmasters received items that Jane felt had been cluttering her home, and speakers had to convince Jane that she should keep the items in her home. Good idea, Jane! John won the coveted Table Topics trophy for his explanation of why Jane should keep a needlepoint hoop. Jane will take it home and will be able to use it to draw the perfect circle. And Keith can also use it as a halo as needed.

Val received her Certificate of Merit for completing 6 speeches. Sharon, Keith McCluskie, and Lorna VanderPloeg received their pins for completing all 10 speeches of the Competent Communicator manual. Congratulations to all!

VP of Membership Lorna took over the meeting to handle an induction ceremony for our newest members, Vern Noseworthy and Jill Wagemans. Current Toastmasters all voted unanimously to accept Vern and Jill as official members. Keith McCluskie will mentor Vern and Sharon will mentor Jill. Welcome to the Linguists of Listowel, Vern and Jill! We look forward to your speeches.

Keith McCluskie jumped into the role of General Evaluator and handled the introduction of the speech evaluators. Vern gave his Timer's Report and Val reported that participants used the word "pervasive" at least 6 times. Few filler words such as "ah, um or uh" were used at the meeting. Good job! Keith ended his role as General Evaluator by giving some good tips on how speakers can relax, on how to transition control of the lectern and he asked members to clap a little longer at transitions of speakers.

Leo concluded the meeting by giving out Speechcrafters assignments for next week which will be on how to introduce a speaker. The meeting adjourned at 9:15 p.m.

Have a good week

Val Hummel

Club Secretary

January 12, 2012 Theme: Winter Sports

We kicked off the Speech Craft Workshop last night. We had 5 participants and one guest come out to the meeting. The meeting was kicked off by a great big welcome with our theme WINTER SPORTS. No one came with his/her sports jersey to show and tell us about his/her favorite sport and favorite team.
The Speech Craft participants were briefed about the program. They were lead through the introduction and even participated in the Table Topic portion of the meeting lead by Lorna VanderPloeg. She gave everyone, especially the Speech Craft participants the advantage of speaking off the cuff. The winner was Speech Craft participant, Tony Galvao. What a great job!

We had certain amendments to the agenda but we kept Joke of the Day by Heidi Menzi, Toast and Timer by Brent Jemmett, Grammarian by Diane Bender with the Word of the Day "EXHILARATING". This was the right word to kick off the workshop and it was used over 6 times throughout the meeting.

We had an educational corner by Jane Stoltz where she demonstrated about how to choose your speech topic. The Ice Breaker sample speech was well presented by Valrie Hummel.

Lucy D’Arcey, presented her inspirational speech that happened to be her 10^th speech that now completes her Competent Communicator manual. Great job Lucy!

We had speech evaluators; Keith McCluskie and Audrey Orth who stepped up and helped fill the roles for the meeting.

Also special thanks to everyone for helping out at the kickoff to Speech Craft by helping mentor and making our new Speech Craft participants welcomed and for assisting them with their roles during the meeting and for the coming weeks.

I also want to thank all Toastmasters for giving me the support in making our kickoff a success.

We had Keith Stoltz, General Evaluator, who did a great job wrapping things up for us. It was an exhilarating meeting with lots of laughs. It started kind of slow but once we got everyone laughing, it kind of broke the ice. The laughs were well over 60 and it was electrifying having over 20 in attendance at the meeting.

Good week to everyone.

Leo Brisebois

Club President

January 5, 2012 Theme: Resolutions

Literary reading was presented by our club secretary,Val Hummel. She read some of "Life's Greatest Lessons" to the members.
















Sharon D'Arcey is inducted as the new Vice President of Education by Keith Stoltz.

















Marie McCutcheon was the Table Topics Master for the evening and she explained the requirements of each person's Table Topics speeches.
















Lorna VanderPloeg (V.P. of Membership) was the General Evaluator for the meeting and she gave the members some comments about how to improve the meeting for next time and also complimented all the good things of the meeting.















Audrey Orth provided Brian Camacho with an evaluation of his impromptu speech.

January 5, 2012 Theme: Resolutions

Resolutions

We all have resolutions and Sharon D’Arcey, chairperson explained the importance of resolutions and gave examples. George Nichol gave us the Joke of the Day about a bus ride where he hit a rabbit and explained to us how this nice old lady revived it using a can of hair spray. The information on the can read; Hairspray revises hare and gives permanent wave.

Grammarian's word of the day was "CAPRICIOUS". An example of how this word was used is; The boss was very capricious of his employees' performance. The word was used 8 times during the meeting and during Table Topics. There were over 55 laughs during the duration of the meeting. It was great and left us all with a good feeling.

Jane Stoltz, Toast and Timer, explained the importance of having resolutions but also more important to set attainable goals for yourself.

Literary Corner, by Valrie Hummel "Life’s Greatest Lessons". The lessons were about freedom and strength, ability to choose and we have choices, excuses for not taking advantage of the opportunity to take action like by choice not by chance. Human's are not designed to live by chance, we are designed to live by choice.

We had an election for V.P. of Education lead by Keith Stoltz. Sharon D'Arcey was sworn in to take over for Jane Stoltz who had agreed to do it on a 6 month term and will be mentoring Sharon in her new role. Thank you Jane for accepting the role and helping the club at the beginning of the year.

Marie McCutcheon filled the role of Table Topics. Her topic was Resolutions and she picked the topic for every participant. The winner was Brian Camacho. It was nice to see Brian back last night after being away for the last 6 months because of his job. Brian also stepped up and did an impromptu speech as well.

Speech evaluator, Audrey Orth, evaluated Brian on his impromptu speech.

General Evaluator, Lorna VanderPloeg, gave a brief about the meeting and its different roles.

Quiz Master, Keith McCluskie, quizzed us on some easy ones and some not so easy quotes/statements made during the evening. The members scored a 9 out of10 quizzes correctly.

Next we will be starting the Speech Craft course for the following 6 weeks, I will be coordinating the workshop however would appreciate everyone’s help if we are going to make this a successful workshop.

Leo Brisebois

Linguist Club President

December 15, 2011 Christmas Theme and Road Kill Cafe

The Linguists of Listowel were blessed with a nicely decorated Christmas tree and shiny new presents to open .......or were they? Rumour had it that some presents were re-gifted from last year's Christmas gift exchange?
Each member had to wait until the Table Topics portion of the meeting to find out if their present was new or re-gifted.
If the member liked the gift they picked, then they may not get to keep it as "stealing/trading" another member's gift was allowed until the end of the Table Topics program.
All ended well as each member got to take a present home with them.
Watch out for next year because some of those gifts may be making an appearance again at the 2012 Christmas gift exchange.





Members were greeted by the sound of wonderful Christmas songs played by Jane Stoltz.

















Val Hummel and Keith Stoltz prepare for the meeting.


















Lorna VanderPloeg (left) discusses the meeting preparations with George Nichol (shown in middle).
Also shown is Marilyn Nichol (front right) as well as Leo and Holly Brisebois (back right).

All members and guests enjoyed a delicious potluck meal.
Keith Stoltz provided entertainment for the evening with his descriptions of the menu selections from his Road Kill Cafe.











Jane Stoltz provided all members and guests with the rules of the Table Topics Christmas gift exchange.
No gift can be "stolen/traded" more than three times.
We all learned that the present we selected wouldn't necessarily remain with us as we had to move our present to the left and the right according to the instructions provided in a story.
If we really wanted the original present back, we had to present a 1 minute table topic speech explaining why we needed to trade it.
Even after all of that, a member's present wasn't safe until all of the Table Topics speeches had been completed and all of the "stealing/trading" was completed.
Great fun was had by all!