November 3, 2011 Theme: Remembering the Past, Present and Future

Toastmasters

Our meeting last night was fun and it included lots of laughs according to the laugh counter. "Awesome" was the word of the evening and it was used over 15 times. Thanks to Lorna VanderPloeg, our Grammarian, awesome eh!

The theme; past, present and future is based upon the quote "Yesterday is History, Tomorrow a Mystery, Today is a Gift, That's why it's called the Present. The theme is also timely as we reflect on Remembrance Day and those who fought and have fallen for our country's freedom.

Jane Stoltz, who was chair for last night’s meeting, did a fantastic job keeping thing moving forward and on schedule as every meeting should be run.

This was the second week for our Youth Leadership group and it started with introductions which flowed into the Joke of the Day done by myself about a parrot named Moses and the dog named Jesus.

Youth Leadership participants; Lexi and Caityln both presented their Ice Breaker speeches last night and both presented very well for their first speech presentation. They were both evaluated and were provided with lots of glow points and at least one grow point to help improve their speech presentation for next week. Overall they were wonderful.

Table Topics was presented by Lucy D’Arcey. She had us all speak about a famous person and make us all believe that their success and achievements in life came from being in Toastmasters.

The Table Topics winner was a tie between Lexi and Caityln. Way to go!

Sample speech was provided by Valrie Hummel. She is so humorous because she appears so serious and makes you just want to keep laughing. Our Timer George Nichol who explained his role and gave us a toast to Canada.

All in all we had lot of laughs and lot of fun.

Leo Brisebois

Club President

October 20, 2011 Theme: It Starts With Us

October 20th was the start of the Youth Leadership Program. We had two youth sign up for the 6 week program.
We also had a guest, Tracy Ireland, during the meeting.











Part of the Youth Leadership Program is to demonstrate and explain what happens during a Toastmaster's meeting.
Lucy D'Arcey is running the Youth Leadership Program and introduced the program to the youth.
George Nichol provided an educational module on preparing a speech.
Diane Bender provided a very good speech presentation with her sample Ice Breaker Speech. (This helped the youth participants understand how they might write and present their Ice Breaker Speech).
Lorna VanderPloeg presented a great speech entitled "Stop Making Excuses and Start Making Changes".
We also had a visit from our Area Governor, Gregory C.N. Smith.

Shown left: Area Governor, Gregory C.N. Smith presents Brent Jemmett (Sergeant At Arms) with the first place trophy for winning the Area Humorous Speech Contest.
Congratulations Brent!

October 13, 2011 Theme: Books, Magazines, Papers Worth Reading

Lucy D'Arcey presents a Literary Reading.


















Sharon D'Arcey presented her speech. Sample speech about being a master of ceremonies.

















Leo Brisebois was the Table Topics master for the meeting. He had a theme of "Get rid of the monkey on your back".

















Sharon D'Arcey participates in Table Topics and speaks about how to get the monkey off her back.

October 13_2011 Theme: Books, Magazines, Papers Worth Reading.

Toastmasters

We had a fun filled meeting last night with plenty of laughs and good jokes. The theme; Books, Magazines and Paper was a good theme for last night's meeting. We had myself and Lucy bring a box of paper-backed books. Keith Stoltz brought his IPAD 2 to show us that you can read books and run a meeting paperless.

Joke of the day, by Lucy D’Arcey, was about a children's story where the children thought that God had been lost and they were the ones to blame.

Grammarian, by Jane Stoltz, provided the word "Ambiguous". It was used 3 times which was very ambiguous on every one's part.

Speaker, Sharon D’Arcey, practiced her speech introduction for an event that she will be hosting. She used this opportunity to get feedback and she received good grow points to take with her for the event night.

Table Topics, lead by myself, had a theme about "The monkey on your back". This monkey was something that nobody wanted and each person had to pass it on to the next toastmaster with a good reason why they couldn't keep it. We are given Monkey’s from other people everyday and it’s how we delegate them to others which frees us from those tasks or "monkeys on our backs". The Table Topic winner was Jean Van Der Straeten, our guest and returning toastmaster for the evening.

Quiz Master, Audrey Orth had us thinking a lot of the phrases that each of us used throughout the meeting.

Literary Reading, from Lucy D’Arcey was about good help books and literature about children.

Lorna VanderPloeg, General Evaluator, gave us some good grow points to take home and improve our next meeting with.

Brent Jemmett helped out by stepping in to fill the agenda roles by introducing our guest for the evening and Calling the meeting to order.

All in all, we had over 75 laughs. Everyone had a good time.

Have a good week and hope that all the toastmasters that were not in attendance for this weeks meeting can make it next week for our Youth Leadership Workshop this Thursday.

Let’s make a good impression for our Youths.

Thank-you,

Leo Brisebois

October 6_2011 Theme: Fall Colours

Lucy D'Arcey presents her speech # 6 entitled "Thank-you for Thanksgiving".

















Lorna VanderPloeg evaluates Lucy's speech presentation and provides some "glow" and "grow" points.

















Sharon D'Arcey was the Grammarian for the evening. She provided a report on the usage of the word of the night "pilgrimage" as well as a report on the group's overall grammar usage during the meeting.















Audrey Orth was the general evaluator of the meeting. She provided the club members with her views on what she liked about the meeting and suggestions to enhance future meetings.

October 6, 2011 Theme: Fall Colours

Linguist of Listowel

The meeting last night finished with over 75 laughs! What an increase over the last meeting by 25 laughs. What a boost to the meeting. Great joke by Keith Stoltz, if you are a speaker always make sure you are not the last one to speak if you want a guarantee that there will be anyone left to hear it.

Grammarian by Sharon D’Arcey, provided us with the word Pilgrimage which means; a long journey. The way the word was presented was that Sharon was going to pay close attention to it's proper usage. We did use the word and had a lot of fun with it. The word pilgrimage was used over 7 times or more during the evening.

We had a Thanksgiving reading from Heidi Menzi. She read about saving habitat for pheasants and how they were preserved in the wildlife. We had one speaker; Lucy D’Arcey, who provided us with a motivational speech on Thanksgiving that added humor and inspiration.

Table Topics, led by Jane Stoltz, was about things that we are thankful for. The winner was between myself and Keith Stoltz. Keith won because I voted for him and he did have a better mini speech than mine.

Quizmaster; Keith McCluskie did a good job and had us puzzled on some of the comments or statements made by people during the meeting. It was good that he had some easy ones in the mix.

We also had an award for Lucy D'Arcey who gave her 6^th speech tonight and she was recognized for her achievement. Great job Lucy! We always enjoy listening to your speeches.

Audrey Orth, General Evaluator only had good things to say about the meeting which was full of laughs and good times.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones.

Leo Brisebois

September 29, 2011: Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contests

Table Topics Contest Winners;
Left: Jane Stoltz (2nd place)
Centre: Brent Jemmett (3rd place)
Right: Keith McCluskie (1st place).










Humorous Speech Contest Winners;
Left: Valrie Hummel (2nd place) - Speech entitled - Racoon Race.
Right: Keith McCluskie (1st place) - Speech entitled - Family Re-union

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".

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 1^st 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.

June 23, 2011 - Awards and Induction Ceremony

Area Governor, Keith Stoltz, officially dismisses all current club executive members and inducts all of the new club executive members for the 2011/2012 year.
















Area Governor, Keith Stoltz (right) officially inducts Leo Brisebois as the new club president of the Linguists of Listowel for the 2011/2012 year.
















Diane Bender (right), presents Brent Jemmett with the Brenda Karges trophy for his work as club president during the 2010 - 2011 year.










Brent Jemmett (club president for 2010 - 2011) gives his acceptance speech after receiving the Brenda Karges award.

June 23, 2011 - Theme: Tall Tales Contest and Year End Party

Audrey Orth presents her Tall Tales speech entitled "Mary Sue".

















Richard Boertien presents his Tall Tales speech entitled "My New Neighbour .......Jim."

















Richard recreates the Mission Impossible scene and background music as he acts out his presentation.

















Richard is on the move in "stealth mode" as he acts out his speech.

June 23, 2011 - Theme: Tall Tales Contest and Pizza Potluck Supper

Hello Fellow Linguists of Listowel and Friends,

At Thursday's meeting there were 12 members in attendance and 6 guests. The guests were; Rhea Longman (former member), George Nichol's wife Marilyn, Marge Seawright and her friend April (from the Mt. Forest Motivators), Lorna VanderPloeg's friend Val Hummel (our newest member) and Richard Boertien's wife Pauline. Heidi Menzi called the meeting to order by introducing myself and Keith McCluskie as the chairpersons for the night. We opened the meeting by sharing with everyone what the Tall Tales contest was all about.

Marge Seawright said grace and then we enjoyed our Pizza and Potluck dinner. Our Tall Tales Contest had 6 very funny and extremely exaggerated stories. Keith Stoltz was the Chief Judge and Diane Bender and Geogre Nichol were the timers. The speakers were; Brent Jemmett - "The Great Outdoorsman", Lorna VanderPloeg - "Maple Syrup Festival", Leo Brisebois - "How the Big One Got Away", Keith McCluskie -"Family Reunion", Richard Boertien - "My New Neighbour___Jim", and Audrey Orth - "Mary Sue".

Richard Boertien placed 1st, Brent Jemmett placed 2nd and Lorna VanderPloeg placed 3rd.

Diane Bender presented myself with the Brenda Karges award for being the club president and achieving Presidents Distinguished status for the Linguists of Listowel. Our Area Governor, Keith Stoltz dismissed the old executive members (effective June 30th at 3:00 am) and officially inducted the new executive for the upcoming 2011/2012 year.

Hope to see everyone at our next meeting at Wayne Stoltz's house in Trowbridge on July 21st.

Brent

June 16, 2011 - Theme: Fabulous Fifties and More

Club President, Brent Jemmett (left) presents Sharon D'Arcey with a certificate of achievement for completing her Competent Communicator manual. This certificate is achieved by presenting 10 speeches.








Club president, Brent Jemmett (left), presents Lorna VanderPloeg with a certificate of achievement for completing her 6th speech from the Competent Communicator manual.

June 16, 2011 - Theme: Fabulous Fifties and More

Brent Jemmett was the chairperson for the evening.


















Wayne Stoltz provided us with the Joke of the Day.


















Diane Bender filled the role of Literary Corner and provided all members with a reading.