April 12, 2012, Theme: Friday the 13th

The meeting was called to order by Sharon D'Arcey and she introduced Marie McCutcheon as the chairperson of the meeting.
Marie discussed the theme of the meeting and how Friday the 13th was deemed to be unlucky. Marie provided interesting facts about how 13 was an unwanted number because there were 12 apostles of Jesus, 12 months in a year, a dozen is 12 and in years past it was stated that a table was considered full with 12 people. If there was ever 13 people invited for a meal, the hosts used to hire another person to attend the meal so that there wasn't 13 people at the table (it was noted that there were 12 members in attendance at the meeting). High rise buildings don't have a 13th floor and hospitals don't have a room 13.
Another interesting fact is that there are three Friday the 13th's in 2012 and they are 13 weeks apart.
Sharon D'Arcey was the Toast and Timer for the meeting and provided a toast to Canada. Tony Galvao was the Grammarian and Ah Counter. Tony described his roles and provided the members with the word of the day "Disambiguate" which means "make clear and more comprehendible".
John VanMeeteren filled the role of Literary Corner. John provided one of the club members with a difficult word to pronounce and asked for the word to be pronounced aloud so that John could use this word as part of his literary reading about the origins of Friday the 13th. John read aloud how both Fridays and the number 13 have been unlucky throughout history.
Speaker # 1 was Keith Stoltz. He was presenting Project # 9 from the Competent Communicator manual with his speech entitled "Bed and Breakfast". The speech described the various bed and breakfast locations that he and Jane have stayed at during their travels to various places around the world. He also described how the people that run them are very accommodating and it is a great opportunity to meet people from various parts of the world as well.
Vern Noseworthy provided a speech presentation with Point of View. His speech was about how more coal fired plants should be built to produce electricity, create more jobs and use some of the natural resources that are available to us.
Keith McCluskie provided a Counter Point of View and debated the points that Vern made in his speech presentation.
Table Topics was done by Jane Stoltz. Each member was provided two slips of paper with phrases about a specific superstition. Each member spoke for a minute about the topic and there were lots of laughs.
Leo Brisebois was the speech evaluator for Keith Stoltz's speech presentation. Leo gave lots of glow points and one grow point.
The Timer's Report was presented by Sharon D'Arcey and she highlighted 3 time offenders that went over the allotted time for their vocal presentations.
Tony Galvao provided the Grammarian and Ah Counter reports. The word "Disambiguate" was used 9 times during the meeting. There were 33 - Um's, Ah's and Oh's used during the meeting. The words And, But and So were misused 3 times each.
Jane Stoltz provided the Table Topics report - Keith McCluskie won Table Topics.
Brent Jemmett was the Quiz Master and challenged all of us with remembering who said what phrases during the meeting.
General Evaluation was done by a round table method with each member providing a glow and grow point of the meeting. Suggestions were made such as; add a laugh counter to the agenda as a role to be filled, ensure Joke of the Day is on the agenda as a role to be filled, the table arrangements were done well and the double doors being closed helps eliminate distractions.
Anything for the good of Toastmasters prompted reminders of the following; Friday the 13th is the Division contest at the Manulife building, the Home and Lifestyle Show is May 4th and 5th - volunteers needed to run the booth, Executive role selection next meeting - club officers to prepare a speech about their roles in preparation for the upcoming elections, 20th anniversary in September 2012 - planning a murder mystery supper theater.
Meeting was adjourned at 9:00 pm. Members enjoyed fellowship and refreshments.