Around the World in Seven Minutes

The Toastmasters of Warner Center will never again fly in ignorance, mystified by the inexplicably and constantly shifting prices of airline tickets. Thanks to Marc Cohn’s excellent  fourth speech on the actuarial basis of airline pricing policy, we are now educated consumers who know when to book for the best deals and when not to book to avoid the worst deals. At least I’m sure the rest of you are. When I need to book tickets, I’m calling Marc. 

In any case, congratulations Marc on winning the Best Speech ribbon with a talk worthy of a first class investigative reporter.  

Vicki Vaughn took Best Evaluator honors for her incisive analysis of Marc’s speech, which stressed the astonishing progress Marc has made in his presentation skills and self-assurance behind the lecturn; something that was apparent to us all.  

Rose Lane’s Table Topics were unusual and very interesting in that under the rubric (a future grammarian’s choice) of “potpourri”, every member in attendance was given one word to spark a table topics speech, which is out of the ordinary on two counts: Participation is usually limited to those members not speaking or evaluating, and one is usually asked a question which one must answer. The ribbon went to Joe Wiesenfeld for his confession of selfishness in hogging the wheel of a pirate ship on his honeymoon, in response to the one word cue “ship”. Congratulations Joe, and shame on you. 

The meeting smacked of the summer doldrums in that attendance was far lower than usual and last minute speech cancellations, which should never be, were rampant. The doldrums are inevitable to some degree, with vacations and humidity and temperatures worthy of New Orleans in August, but the least we can do as members is stick to our commitments or arrange for replacements.  Like Woody Alan said: “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”  Make it a point of honor: If you’re committed to speak, show up and speak. It’s that simple.  

In perverse honor of  the doldrum effect, our meeting theme for August 14^th will be exactly that. The Doldrums. So be prepared to examine the dark heart of sloth, laziness and surly irritability that lurks in the hot humid days of August.  See you Thursday, if I can muster the energy. 

Humcor (embedded, 2955 Company, 52^nd Division)

Vice President of Membership John Graves

Home, Home on the Web

It's an honor to be the new editor of our bi-monthly newsletter. While I'm still getting a handle on the format of these things, I am somewhat at home on the web, and I'd like to see us have an official site. 

Every speech you give is a combination of substance and style. One of the things I really appreciate about Toastmasters is that, aside from improving our verbal and body language skills, WC Toastmasters forces us to search for content and meaning in our lives. In this media-filled world, that's not always easy to do. Because it's so easy to just sit back and absorb all the information that gets pushed at us via every high-tech orifice, 24 hours a day.

I love listening to your speeches, seeing how our members deliver and present their content and their ideas. I've often wanted to follow up on the information in a speech, or to recall what I really liked about a particular speech. A text version would help.

Therefore I would like to take this opportunity to offer to put the text of anyone's speech up on the web, on a link which would be accessible from our bi-monthly newsletters. Just email me the text of your speech and I'll put it on a clickable link in the next week's newsletter. 

I know this isn't always possible due to the fact that many speeches are in outline form; and of course there is no substitute for the real thing. But in many cases, a text offering might be appropriate. Send your text to c-post@pacbell.net, and be sure to include two proof-of-purchase seals with your order.