Sunday, October 05, 2008
Toastmasters Hold Theme Meeting 10/2/2008

The Tri-County Toastmasters club met on Thursday 10-2-08 at the Virden Area Community Center. The theme of the meeting was a combination of the ‘2008 Political Race’ and the recent ‘U.S. Government Financial Bailout’. Club members present at Thursday’s meeting were: Dr. Todd Austin from Virden, Jim Blankenship, Liz Mollett from Auburn and Bill Watkins. One
guest, Alan Saeger, was also present.
Todd Austin served as the meeting’s master of ceremonies. Liz Mollett conducted a Tabletopics (the impromptu speaking portion of the program) session with most questions based on the ’08 elections and the financial bailout. Each participant then gave a 1 to 2 minute impromptu response to his particular question.
The evening’s first prepared speaker was Jim Blankenship. His speech was the fourth out of five projects in the Toastmasters Advanced Communication manual on ‘Humorously Speaking’. Blankenship, a Certified Financial Planner from New Berlin, delivered a talk called “Bank On This!” that informed the audience about the recent bailout while also using quite a bit of humor to get the message across.
The second prepared speech was given by Alan Saeger. His talk about the upcoming election was subtitled “A Lesson Against Media Bias”.