February 2, 2012 Theme: How Pets Teach Us Lessons

Lucy called the meeting to order at 7:15 p.m. sharp. She introduced the Chairperson, Leo Brisbois, noting that Leo is an animal lover and he has a dog named Lucy. Leo told the Linguists how he has learned so much from his pets over the years. Right now, he has two dogs, Cody and Lucy, and a cat named Cosmopolitan.

Leo reported that this is Week 4 of the Speechcrafter program and congratulated the Speechcrafters on their courage for being a part of the program and for the efforts they have made to improve their skills.

Vern had an awesome joke of the day involving a story about an elderly gentleman who got a new hearing aid. When asked how it was working out, the elderly gentleman said, “Great! My family doesn't know that I have it and I’ve changed my will three times!”

Keith McCluskie was Toast and Timer for the evening and made a creative toast to Canada that included a reference to Groundhog Day and the inability of the three groundhogs to agree on whether or not spring is coming early.

Brent Jemmett’s word of the day was “Malarkey”, a noun meaning nonsense or writing to obscure or mislead or impress. Brent’s example of the use of the word was “Leo is full of malarkey when he says the Maple Leafs won’t make the play-offs!”

The Speechcrafters each presented a speech. Ella spoke of the impact that cell phones are having on our lives. Christine spoke of the many layers of her artsy side. Tony spoke of the joys and stresses of parenting. John spoke of the joys of reading and urged members to plan an excursion with their family to a local bookstore.

Val provided an educational corner on the use of gestures, explaining how gestures make a speech come alive and keep the audience alert, engaged – and awake! She described how speakers can use all parts of their body to make gestures and should avoid pacing, lip biting, hands in pockets, tugging at clothes and gripping the lectern.

Lorna brought her parrot Stella out to the meeting to help with her sample speech on “Show What You Mean”. Speaking as Stella, Lorna creatively described a day in Stella’s life while Stella chewed on Lorna’s speech papers as she talked.

Tony stepped up to the role of Table Topics Master and handed out animal-related questions. Everyone had a good laugh and Tony’s idea was well thought out and funny. He declared everyone the winner!

Lucy jumped into the role of General Evaluator with gusto. This was her second week in the role and she said she felt a lot more comfortable doing it. She suggested that meeting participants should look at doing a role several weeks in a row to get comfortable with it.

Keith gave the Timer’s Report and Brent gave the Grammarian’s report. He said the word “Malarkey” was used 9 times. He also enjoyed Val’s use of the word “meat wrinkles” when she described her Cornish Rex cats during Table Topics. Brent noted that there were 72 laughs during this meeting…that may be a record.

Leo concluded by giving the Speechcrafters information on their assignments for the February 9^th meeting. With nothing further, Leo adjourned the meeting at 9:15 p.m.

Submitted by

Val Hummel

Recording Secretary

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!

December 8, 2011 Theme: Traditions

Club President, Leo Brisebois opened the meeting with his Christmas traditions.

















Past Area Governor, Keith Stoltz, inducts Val Hummel as the new club Secretary.

















Sergeant at Arms, Brent Jemmett, is the Table Topics master of the meeting. Brent provided the background information about the Christmas traditions and each member had to guess what country of origin that the tradition came from.















V.P. of Membership, Lorna Vanderploeg was the General Evaluator of the meeting and provided members with her views on how the meeting was run.

December 8, 2011 Theme: Traditions

Last night's meeting had the theme "TRADITIONS". Mostly Christmas traditions and everyone had a story to tell including the remarks from the chairperson who talked about the different traditions around the world.

Table Topics was chaired by Brent Jemmett. The topic, guess the country after reading it’s Christmas Tradition.

Our guest, Vern Noseworthy was the Table Topics winner who guessed the correct country from the tradition stated.

Jane Stoltz was the Grammarian with the new words "Untraditional" and "Non-traditional". The meeting was just that, untraditional. Especially when it came to the speakers Keith Stoltz and Marie McCutcheon evaluating themselves after presenting their own speeches and the chairperson missing it completely. It was the kind of night that it was.

We started the meeting a bit late, we did not have the agenda filled, it was untraditional. Jane could not have picked a better word. We even had an election for Secretary which was untraditional for this time of year. Lorna VanderPloeg was the General Evaluator and even she mentioned how the meeting was untraditional.

Quizmaster was George Nichol. He had some easy and not so easy quizzes to sharpen our skills. Keith McCluskie, Toast and Timer explained his role and gave us a toast to Canada.

The meeting was untraditional but fun.

Leo Brisebois

Club President

December 1, 2011 Theme: Happy Endings

Caitlyn and Lexi co-chair the final meeting of the Youth Leadership program. Great job!

















Lorna VanderPloeg receives a certificate of achievement for completing her tenth speech from the Competent Communicator manual series.
Left: Jane Stoltz (V.P. of Education) and Right: Leo Brisebois (President) present Lorna VanderPloeg (V.P. of Membership) with a certificate of achievement.













Lexi (left) and Caitlyn (right) receive certificates of achievement for completing the six week Youth Leadership program.

















Lucy D'Arcey receives a certificate of achievement for being the coordinator of the Youth Leadership program.
Shown left: Lucy D'Arcey, front: Jane Stoltz (V.P. of Education) and back: Leo Brisebois (Club President)















Caitlyn and Lexi both adjourn the meeting as they finish their six week program. Well done by both girls!

December 1, 2011 Theme: Happy Endings

It was a fun filled night where we had our Youth Leadership Participants, Lexi Curran and Caitlyn Grubb, co-chair the evening's meeting. They also both presented a speech and evaluated each others speech. They have only been with us for 6 weeks and they are already teaching some of us new things. Well done!

Call to Order was done by Lucy D’Arcey who also did a recap of the 6 week Youth Leadership Program from start to finish.

Joke of the Day, done by Leo Brisebois, was a political joke about a senator meeting St. Peter at the pearly gates. St. Peter asked the senator to choose which direction he wanted to go and the campaigned involved in voting.

Toast and Timer, by Brent Jemmett, talked about happy endings in everything.... especially Toronto fans hoping the Toronto Maple Leaf's repeat the 1967 Stanley Cup win for Canada.

Grammarian, by Sharon D’Arcey, presented the word of the evening "Triumphantly". It was used 15 times, awesome!

Speeches;

Caitlyn Grubb - The Problem with Homework. She explained her likes and dislikes.

Lexi Curran - My Brothers. She explained her likes and dislikes too.

Valrie Hummel - Down the Rabbit Hole. It was a very humorous and entertaining presentation as always.

Lorna VanderPloeg with her 10^th speech - Out of the Cold. A very touching, inspirational speech! Congratulations on completing your Competent Communication manual series with your 10^th speech!

Lorna was presented with a recognition award, for completing her 10th speech, from the V.P. of Education Jane Stoltz and Club President Leo Brisebois.

Youth Leadership participants; Lexi Curran and Caitlyn Grubb were also presented with their Certificate of Excellence for completing the 6 week course on Youth Leadership by V.P. of Education, Jane Stoltz and Club President, Leo Brisebois

We had evaluations done by; Caitlyn, Lexi, George Nichols and Keith McCluskie who all had good better and best.

Table Topics Master; Diane Bender, explained her role and gave out little comic pictures to speak about. She asked us to say whatever came to mind about the picture and to include the new word and also to implement the theme; Happy Endings.

Table Topics winners were; Audrey Orth, Florence (guest) and Caitlyn.

General Evaluator, Keith Stoltz gave us some good grow points on how the meeting was one of the best he has seen with our Youth Leadership participants co chairing, presenting speeches and evaluating each others speeches.

We had over 75 laughs and lots of fun! After the meeting we were all invited for refreshments and snacks.

Club President

Leo Brisebois

November 24, 2011 Theme: Going for the Gold

Last night theme: GOING FOR THE GOLD

Chairperson, Jane Stoltz described what is going for the gold. We as Toastmasters work toward the gold which is DTM (Distinguished Toast Master)

What is Gold? What is fool’s gold?

You are as good as Gold.

Put GOLD in your life and you will achieve success, happiness and joy.

Everyone was given a chance to tell us about the gold in their life and how it builds character and how they move forward toward their goal.

Joke of the day was provided by Lexi Curran.

Thoughts to Ponder:

- How do you become successful? One word, "experience".

- How do you gain experience? Two words, "wrong decisions".

Toast and Timer by Sharon D’Arcey explained her role and how we have all the chances to reach our goal and how blessed we are to life here in Canada.

Word of the Day was provided by Caitlyn Grubb. The word means "fear of long words".

Hippopotomonstrosesqippedaliophobiao. Try that word for size! This is a record for the Word of the Day. Try that one at your club.

Education Module by Keith Stoltz was on Vocal Variation. He asked everyone questions about when they would use variation in their vocals.

We had speeches by Lexi Curran on "Shoes" and Caitlyn Grubb "My little sister". Good job by both and they both evaluated each other's speech presentation too.

Lucy D’Arcey provided a speech presentation about "Leadership" She presented her speech without notes. Good job!

Table Topic Master, Heidi Menzi, used different Christmas ornaments for us to express the meaning or what it meant to us. The winners were; Caitlyn and Brent.

General Evaluator, Brent Jemmett, led the evaluation role and gave us a recap of the meeting.

Caitlyn who was the Grammarian with the Word of the Day that had more letters than the alphabet, counted the number of times it was used, 3 times by herself and she counted the number of laughs which totaled 32.

Closing remarks by Jane Stoltz, Get the Gold!

Next week will be the Graduation for the Youth Leadership participants. I hope everyone makes an effort and comes out to support our Youths and congratulates them on their achievements for winning the gold.

Linguist of Listowel

Leo Brisebois

November 17, 2011 Theme: Strategies for Success

Jane Stoltz was the Chairperson of the meeting.


















Valrie Hummel (left) receives her membership pin from the V.P. of Membership - Lorna VanderPloeg.

















Heidi Menzi provides the club members with her speech presentation from the Advanced Toastmaster manual. Her speech was entitled "Diving Accident".

November 17, 2011 Theme: Strategies for Success

Educational Module - Team building Role Playing.
This exercise starts with 4 chairs and 1 person that drives the "car". Each additional passenger has a specific "trait" that influences the way the rest of the occupants of the car acts. (Eg. angry, sad, anxious, nervous, etc.).
Car occupants are; back left to right; Valrie Hummel, Brent Jemmett. Front left to right; Sharon D'Arcey and George Nichol.












Educational Module - team challenge.
Left to Right; Lorna VanderPloeg, Brent Jemmett, George Nichol and Heidi Menzi.

This exercise is a challenge to create an ongoing sentence with one word at a time per person. This helps build impromptu speaking skills as you don't know what word the person before you will say.




Lorna VanderPloeg fills the role of Table Topics Master.
She provided fortune cookies to each club member. When it was their turn to speak for one minute, the cookie was opened and the topic to speak about for 1 minute was removed.















Brent Jemmett was the speech evaluator for Heidi Menzi's speech presentation entitled "Diving Accident".

















Leo Brisebois was the General Evaluator for the meeting. He provided the members with his views of what he enjoyed about the meeting and a suggestion for a possible improvement for the next meeting.

November 17, 2011 Theme: Strategies for Success

Toastmasters and Friends,

We had a setback because of the poor weather conditions on November 17th and we had to cancel the Youth leadership for this week however with the small group we had it all worked out. There were a lot of laughs and good quotes of inspiration, something for everyone to take home.

Call to Order was done by Valrie Hummel for the theme of the meeting and she told us something about the chairperson and her many collections and pastime. Good job Valrie.

The Chairperson of the meeting was Jane Stoltz. Her remarks were that we all need goals. Each of us need to write them down. Once written down, we need to constantly keep checking them in order to stay in check or in order to make adjustments along the way. The best way to describe it would be like your checkbook.

Joke of the Day was done by Brent Jemmett. His joke was about his new found Genie and how he made a wish for something that might never happen again like the Toronto Maple Leaf's winning the Stanley Cup.

Sharon D’Arcey was the Toast and Timer. She explained her role and how this role helps her with her listening skills. Everyone has the tools to get things done and she proposed a toast to thank Canada for giving us everything we need to be successful.

Grammarian, Lorna VanderPloeg, provided us with the Word of the Day "LUCRATIVE" and it was used 10 times throughout the evening.

Literary Corner by Valrie Hummel, provided us with a challenge to find your passion and pursue it. Even in bad situations, look for the good and you will find it . Listen to your inner voice. Everyone has a purpose and the tools to succeed, listen to your heart and have the courage to follow it.

Heidi Menzi gave us a speech about a very bad experience she had from a DIVING ACCIDENT when she was young.

Brent did her evaluation and used the GOOD, BETTER and BEST method to evaluate her speech.

Table Topics by Lorna VanderPloeg used fortune cookies for the impromptu mini speeches each of the members took part in. Good topics! The winner was a tie with 2 Keith’s.

Quiz Master, George Nichol had some easy and not so easy phrases for us to guess who said them during the meeting.

We had an Educational Module presented by Keith Stoltz. He used different role plays in order to help us improve our listening, thinking and speaking skills. There were some good games to help us think on our feet. We had lots of fun and laughs. Good job Keith! Everyone really enjoyed the workshops.

We also had a membership presentation in honor of Val Hummel who was presented with her toastmaster pin by Lorna VanderPloeg her mentor and V.P. of Membership.

We had a good night with over 50 laughs on this cold and snowy Autumn night in Listowel.

Good night all

Leo Brisebois

November 10, 2011 Theme: Facing the Challenge

V.P. of Education, Jane Stoltz, was the Chairperson for the meeting. Jane provided us with lots of encouraging ways that each one of us can "Face the Challenges in life and succeed.
















Youth Leadership participant, Lexi Curran presented her speech presentation entitled "Why I Should Get A Puppy".
She had some very convincing views and ideas why a puppy would enrich her life.















Youth Leadership participant, Caitlyn Grubb presented her speech presentation entitled "Joan of Arc".
Caitlyn did a good job providing the club members with history and the story of Joan of Arc and how she faced the challenge and changed the history of the world.














Lucy D'Arcey, provided the club members with her speech presentation entitled "Character Is A Choice".
Lucy's speech presentation left us with lots to think about when we interact with others and what impression we leave with them.














Club President, Leo Brisebois provided everyone with a speech presentation from one of the advanced Toastmaster manuals.

November 10, 2011 Theme: Facing the Challenge

Youth Leadership participants; Lexi Curran (left) and Caitlyn Grubb (right) jointly shared the role of Table Topics Master.
They did a great job by providing the club members each with two questions "What would you prefer more ...........or .........?
Each club member had to answer these impromptu questions and speak aloud for one minute.













Sharon D'Arcey's role of the evening was an evaluator of Lexi Curran's speech presentation entitled "Why I should get a Puppy". This was done to help Lexi know what her strengths are in public speaking and perhaps offer a suggestion to help improve one thing for the next speech.














Club Treasurer, George Nichol, also had the role of speech evaluator and he evaluated Caitlyn Grubb's speech presentation entitled "Joan of Arc". George gave lots of praise as well and offered a suggestion to help Caitlyn with her next speech presentation.














Diane Bender was also a speech evaluator for the evening and provided feedback to Lucy D'Arcey after she presented her 9th speech from the Competent Communicator manual. The speech was entitled "Character is a Choice".















V.P. of Membership, Lorna VanderPloeg was the General Evaluator of the entire meeting. She provided the club members with her views of how the meeting was conducted, value-added features and some suggestions for possible changes/improvements for the next meeting.

November 10, 2011, Theme: Facing the Challenge

Linguists of Listowel

Them: FACING THE CHALLENGE

Good remarks by our chairperson Jane Stoltz about the challenges we face every day and good quotes to make you stop and think.

This was the third week for our Youth Leadership last night and they both presented another speech. Lexi's speech was entitled "Why I Should Get A Puppy". Caitlyn's speech was entitled "Joan of Arc".

Both Youth Leadership participants are doing great and they have made great strides since the first week.

The word of the day "COWABUNGA" was used 11 times throughout the night and was well presented to everyone. Good job Keith McCluskie!

We had Joke of the Day by Leo Brisebois. Leo also presented a speech about praise for someone’s retirement. Lucy D’Arcey's speech "Character is a Choice" was a very inspirational speech. I always like her speeches as she always give us something to take away with us. Tonight, we all have choices. It’s not what you do that makes the difference, it’s how you respond to it that make all the difference.

We had good inspirational quotes by Jane Stoltz throughout the evening;

"Do the things you think you cannot do".

"Never leave until tomorrow what you can do today".

"Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened".

Doesn’t that make you think? There are a lot of truths in those phrases/quotes.

Toast and Timer by Valrie Hummel was a patriotic toast to all our fallen soldiers and family members that went to war, with some never returning. Good toast!

Marie McCutcheon did an education module on GESTURES and gave us examples using habits the female and male use often that give away their speech.

Table Topics were lead by no other than Lexi and Caitlyn. They worked it out together by explaining their roles and giving out impromptu speaking roles. An example of choices were; Would you prefer being poor or rich and why? Good choice to table topics.

Evaluator George Nichol, Sharon D’Arcey, Diane Bender and Keith Stoltz, all did a good job giving good points and grow points.

Lorna VanderPloeg, general evaluator took over the chairing part of the meeting for the evaluators role and gave us comments about the meeting

65 LAUGHS for the evening and lots of fun.

Leo Brisebois

Club President

"Do the things you think you cannot do".

Good night

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

Left: Club President, Leo Brisebois presents Brent Jemmett with the Presidents Distinguished Club award. This was earned when Brent was the club president during the 2010/2011 year.
















Sergeant At Arms, Brent Jemmett, is proudly attaching the 2010/2011 Presidents Distinguished Club ribbon to the Linguists of Listowel club banner.