Tri-County Toastmasters #5682

The Tri-County Toastmasters club met on Thursday 2-19-09 at the Virden Area Community Center. Veteran club members present at Thursday’s meeting were: Les Apps, Todd Austin, Jim Blankenship from New Berlin, John Davidson, Liz Mollett from Auburn, Casey Tom and Bill Watkins. Club President Les Apps later welcomed Bill Fulstick as the clubs newest member at Thursday’s meeting.

Jim Blankenship served as the meeting’s master of ceremonies. Casey Tom was in charge of the Tabletopics, which is also known as the impromptu speaking portion of the meeting.

Les Apps, current club president and past Area 1 Governor, conducted an officers training session during the meeting. All 5 club officers were in attendance and received semi-annual training.

The evening’s prepared speaker was Todd Austin. Austin completed a project from the Basic Toastmasters Communication Manual. The title of his informative speech was “From Rags To Riches To Rags And Almost Back Again”. It was about the history of the National Football League’s oldest franchise, the Arizona Cardinals. The presentation followed the team from its humble beginning as the ‘Morgan Athletic Club’ back in Chicago in 1899, to their Racine Cardinal days from 1901 to 1920 (they played at 61st and Racine Streets in Chicago). They became the Chicago Cardinals in 1920 and won NFL Championships in 1925 & 1947 before moving on to St. Louis and finally to Arizona where they recently came close to winning a Superbowl. Liz Mollett evaluated Austin’s speech.

The Tri-County Toastmasters club, will next meet on Thursday March 5, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. at the Virden Area Community Center located at 105 West Jackson Street. For more information about how the affordable Toastmasters program can help you to become either a better leader or communicator, or for information about attending a meeting please call (217) 965-3100 or e-mail draustin@royell.net.