Meeting Minutes – 01.21.2021

Our newly elected President Alex Schams took the stage and let us onward.

Order of business was brought to us by our fearless leader, Steve Evans. Area A1 Speech contest is here again. Here’s your chance to shine brighter than Steve’s table lamp! The contest consists of two topics, “Humorous” and “International”. The contest will be live and virtual, so feel free to pop in from the comfort of your own home!

Next up was our quote of the day provided by Shar. Shar made a visual creation for her lovely quote:
“If there were no sorrows, there would be no joys.”

Karan gave us his last joke about former President Trump. It was a heavenly one.

Li Xin led a tight shift as Toastmaster of the evening.

Our General Evaluator was Evan. He read his role like a seasoned pro.

Armando graced us with his presence from planets beyond, to be our Timer. He kept us all on track.

Jaclyn took the role as Ah Counter. Not one ah, er or repeated phrase unaccounted for. Great job Jaclyn.

Laila was our Grammarian of the evening. The word she chose was “malarkey”, which means nonsense, or meaningless talk.

Our first speaker of the evening was, Lauren. It has been a long awaited speech but well worth the wait. Lauren talked about the similarities with cooking and mentorship. Sometimes you need a slow simmer or a quick sear. The beauty of mentorship is that they see the end result when you don’t. Lauren also mentioned the book, “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. Mentors alive or not, can still guide you to a “Delicious life”. Love that phrase. Always a pleasure hearing you speak Lauren!

Our second speaker of the evening was from Azita. Azita is a licensed psychologist and shared some of her expertise. Particularly with parenting. She talked about all the emotion one feels and it’s not all bad. It’s how we perceive it, and it’s a part of life. If we can inject happiness, we would! There’s sexism, racism, and ageism. People also suffer from “emotionism”. All emotions are equal. It’s how we handle those emotions that give our lives malarkey. Thank you Azita for the informative and thoughtful speech.

Next up, Evan introduced our Evaluators for the evening.

Sam evaluated Lauren. Sam mentioned Lauren’s amazing visuals, background and microphone. Lauren’s talk about food left him hungry. So were we, Sam.

Rafael evaluated Azita’s speech. This was a perfect match up because Rafael is a parent of two young children. He found this speech to be informative and loved the insight.

Maryam was our first time Table Topics Master. She did an amazing job and chose a great topic, Social Media!

I was asked, what is the definition of Social Media and the importance of it? Networking and finding people who share the same love of horror as you do.

Jaclyn’s first social media was Myspace. Her first friend there was named Tom. Sounds like a popular guy!

Shar’s communication before social media was letters. Think hand written and typewriters. She also used something called carbon paper when her typewriter broke down. Shar’s ingenuity saved the day.

Karan is comfortable sharing personal information on social media. Mainly political and spiritual views.

Alex needs camping and nature to unplug from his social media. He recently found that he was one of the few people under the age of 50, who only use Facebook. He has since joined Instagram. Welcome to 2021, Alex!

Evan prefers Twitter as his most up to date news source. He’s also very adamant about using best practices when it comes to privacy.

To wrap things up, our meeting was malarkey free! Thank you everyone for tuning in and getting in your weekly vocal workout. Thank you Maryam for taking on the role as Table Topics Master. Loved the topic and kept us all engaged.

Don’t forget we have Study Hall on Tuesday from 6-7pm. If you need help navigating Pathways or general questions, you can find help there. Multiple minds are better than one when you need guidance for an upcoming speech. Structure, topics, brainstorming are all welcomed during this meeting. Lastly, we have a speech contest coming up and if you’re considering it, Come on by to discuss details.