Preston Persuaders

Members arrived early and in costume and disguise for the Halloween through the Ages themed meeting. Jyo shared the 2000-year-old tradition of celebrating All Hallow's Eve. TM Sofia O. shared her first speech with the club about coming from Colombia to OU to study. TM Wen K. spoke of the benefits of quitting smoking from improving your health to not being told "you stink." TM Melanie R. related her experience with a plumbing project gone awry as her mommy's little helper. CC Lisa S. detailed a motivation model and spoke of the importance of emotional IQ.

The table topics featured tricks and treats with some superstitious questions from ACB, CL Rick G. The evaluators gave helpful evaluations, and in turn, found themselves evaluated by the general evaluator ACS, ALS Hugh D. At the end of the meeting, we voted in a new member, Larry D. Welcome to the club!

Toastmaster Melanie R. led an inspiring meeting about the intrinsic value of members and toastmasters. We heard three speeches over a range of topics. Toastmaster Janak P. spoke about his experiences at the state fair including: seeing the brand new Corvette Stingray, eating fried butter and nutella, and watching an ostrich race crash. Toastmaster Mark R. shared the value of recording your speeches and watching them later to evaluate or share with family and friends. Competent communicator Alex E. shared a folktale from Ireland with three advices including honesty is the best policy.

The table topics section hosted by toastmaster Susan B. coincidentally brought out great answers about the intrinsic value of certain people and which values were most important. As always, we received great feedback from our evaluators about using the stage and easing away from the podium. Our general evaluator, competent communicator, competent leader, Allison B. reminded us that we can request to be buzzed for "ahs" during speeches, if we want to. The night closed out with feedback from our guest and ribbons awarded to the best of the night.

We voted in two wonderful new members. Welcome to Sofia and Durai! The meeting, led by first-time toastmaster Stephanie, was fabulous as the theme suggested. Max gave a speech about his 40 years in Toastmasters from the Successful Club Series. Rick talked about a proposed street user fee to recoup expensive maintenance costs for the city. Jyo taught us how step by step, we can reach our goals and achieve the competent leadership educational award and beyond. Table topics served a gallimaufry of questions from fall favorites to how to recover from a fall in life. The evening rounded out with evaluations that covered sharing more personal stories with the audience and making gestures more meaningful among other helpful suggestions. Be sure to confirm your role

The toastmaster of the evening Mark brought in a stack of board games and plenty of energy. The speakers kept up the energy with three great speeches. Patrick gave his tenth inspirational speech, which earned him the Competent Communicator educational award. Suguna discussed her first out-of-county vacation experience when she lost her son and found him safe after a search. Brian explained one of the original bio fuels, trees, which can be chipped up, then used to generate electricity to power your toaster.

Lisa explored peoples' experiences growing up playing games with table topics questions. After, the evaluators provided positive feedback to the speakers, and club members gave a brief round robin evaluation of each speaker.

We had a full evening Monday night with four speeches. Stephanie educated us about the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Max discussed the roots of terrorism and the division of countries. Hugh previewed his upcoming one-hour speech about success. The final speech was by Shiny about her favorite tale of the tortoise and the hare.