Tri-County Toastmasters #5682

The Tri-County Toastmasters club met on Thursday 7-16-09 at the Virden Area Community Center. Club members present at Thursday’s meeting were: Les Apps from Girard, Dr. Todd Austin from Virden, Jim Blankenship from New Berlin, Bill Fulstick from Virden, Liz Mollett from Auburn and Casey Tom. One guest, Brenda Masters-Stout, a member of Hillsboro’s Montgomery County Toastmasters Club was also present.

During business the new slate of club officers for the 2009/2010 Toastmasters year were installed. Les Apps will continue to serve as club president.

Casey Tom served as the meeting’s master of ceremonies. Bill Fulstick conducted a ‘current events’ themed Tabletopics (the impromptu speaking portion of the program). This was Fulstick’s first time serving in the role of Topicmaster. Each participant then gave a 1 to 2 minute impromptu response to his or her question.

The evening’s two prepared speaker were Todd Austin and Les Apps. Both are working from the Advanced Communications manual which is entitled ‘Special Occasion Speeches’. Two of the five speeches in this manual are ‘Presenting an Award’ and ‘Accepting an Award’. Apps conjured up a humorous and fictitious award ceremony idea. Austin portrayed Navin R. Johnson II, the president of the Newtonian and Euclidian Research and Dance Society (or N.E.R.D.S.) during a 4-minute award presentation. Apps played Bertrum P. Farnsworth, who was presented the society’s prestigious annual ‘Golden Pocket Protector’ award for his research in incorporating Euclidian geometry into hip-hop dance moves. Apps then delivered a very entertaining 5-minute acceptance speech. Liz Mollett had the honor of evaluating both special presentations.