Photos from dinner after the 22st meeting 2011

Our illustrious president, Justin Hall

People at dinner, minus Maryam, Tom and Kalen, featuring Justin Hall as The Walrus

People at dinner, minus Giacomo, Tom and Kalen, featuring Alex as Antennaed Alien

Note: Kalen left before we took out the camera. Tom declined to be photographed for reasons related to the state of his immortal soul.

22nd Meeting of 2011

At the peak of summer we distract ourselves with a variety of indoor and outdoor activities, and our Toastmasters meetings are no exception!

Our theme for the week was "Summer Recreation" and Tatiana Makhinova made her debut as Toastmaster of the Day! Our Word of the Day was "rejuventate".

We had not one, not two, but three prepared speeches today. Our new member Jason Yan gave his Icebreaker speech. Jordi Calveras delivered his 3rd speech from "The Professional Speaker" Advanced Communicator manual, in which he persuaded a hypothetical audience of a faculty committee to hire him as an assistant professor. Tom Vamvanij gave his 10th speech from the Competent Communicator manual, inspiring us to reject the false hope offered by the iPhone.

Congratulations to Tom for becoming out latest Competent Communicator!

Our Table TopicsMaster, Justin Hall, asked us how we like to entertain ourselves in the summertime.

The General Evaluator was Andrew Engel, Speech Evaluators were Mick Normington, Maryam Ali, and Kalen Braman respectively. Supporting roles were played by Eamon O'Dea (Grammarian), Justin Hall (Ah counter), Giacomo Ravo (Time Keeper) and Jason Yan (Vote Counter).

After the meeting we brainstormed meeting ideas for the next two months, and then had our monthly dinner at Coco's Cafe.

Join us next week!

21st Meeting of 2011

After the excitement of last week's Open House, we somehow managed to make it to Friday with an unfilled agenda. Luckily our members were up to the task of signing up for meeting roles at the last minute.

Justin Hall stepped in as Toastmaster of the Day, and led us through a meeting on the theme of "Pet Peeves". Jordi Calveras gave his 2nd Advanced Communicator speech, "The Entertaining Speech", and related several amusing stories of the cultural clashes he experienced during his time in Japan.

Table Topics were led by Maryam Ali, and many of our new members and guests spoke about things that annoy them to a remarkable degree.

Our visitor, and veteran Toastmaster, Mick Normington stood in as General Evaluator and gave us valuable feedback from an outsider's perspective. Eamon O'Dea made his debut as Speech Evaluator for Jordi's speech. Supporting roles were played by Maryam Ali (Grammarian), Tatiana Makhinova (Ah-counter), Giacomo Ravo (Time Keeper) and Jason Yan (Vote Counter). It was not only Giacomo's and Ravo's first time filling meeting roles, it was their first meeting as full member! Congratulations to them!

Ahmed Aldkhil was also attending his first meeting as a full member. Our guests included Anastasia Kokanina, Weijia Li, Najah, Maryam Algassab, Mick Normington, and Andrew. We hope to see them again next week!

Visiting: Austin Tastemasters

The Austin Tastemasters is a Toastmasters club that meets monthly at various restaurants in the Austin area. Their June 2011 meeting was held at El Mercado, a Tex-Mex restaurant near the UT Austin campus and two of our members, Tatiana Makhinova and Maryam Ali, paid them a visit.

Tastemasters differs from our club primarily in it's setting. This meeting was held in the banquet room of El Mercado, and the colorful decor of the restaurant lent a festive mood to the proceedings. We were ordering and eating dinner during the meeting, which added an interesting challenge.

The meeting began with a business meeting in which the club nominated and voted on officers for the coming year. They followed Parliamentary procedure and it was interesting to see this in action.

The agenda was printed to look like a menu and the TableTopics, Prepared Speeches and Evaluations were referred to as Appetizers, Entrees and Desserts respectively.

Most members of Austin Tastemasters are very experienced speakers and have several Area and District officers and Speech Contest winners among them, but they are very welcoming of newcomers. According to member and District Governor Grace Jennings, it's a great place to join as a second club. There are good networking opportunities and a chance to learn from more experienced Toastmasters.

Austin Tastemasters' next meeting will be on Thursday, July 21 at Cannoli Joe's, an Italian all-you-can-eat buffet. For more information, visit their website at http://austintastemasters.org/.

Open House photographs

The banner

The audience

Jag is all smiles!

You can view more photos here on our Picasa page.

Open House and 20th meeting of 2011

This Friday, UT Sciences Toastmasters held our very first Open House!

Our recent efforts at outreach bore fruit as we counted 14 new guests at our event. Also present were founding members of our club Trey Gramann and John Schmidt, and Area Governor Paul Wilson.  And last but not least, 11 of our current and former members were in the house - a great turnout, considering how many people are out of town for the summer.

We were inspired by wordplay for our choice of refreshments: Three varieties of bread and a toaster allowed people to prepare their own Toast, and an array of spreads, sauces, cheeses and meats served as accompaniments. Some very unusual concoctions came about as a result!

Presiding Officer Justin Hall opened the meeting and invited all the guests to introduce themselves. Then Maryam Ali led the meeting as Toastmaster of the Day.

Two members delivered prepared speeches today. The first was by Teresa Lai, who has completed her Competent Communicator manual and is now giving her Advanced Communicator speeches. This was her first speech from the Speaking to Inform manual, and she spoke on "Toastmaster Rewards", in keeping with the Open House theme. The second speech of the day was delivered by Justin Hall for his 4th project in the Competent Communicator series. He spoke on "The Words We Choose" and how they impact the message we deliver.

Jordi Calveras posed a series of TableTopics questions, encouraging current and veteran members to share their experiences in Toastmasters International.

Tatiana Makhinova made her debut as the General Evaluator today. Alex Loh experienced his first time as Speech Evaluator for Teresa, whereas Kalen Bramann evaluated Justin. The supporting roles were filled by Grammarian Eamon O'Dea, Time Keeper Kayoko, Ah-Counter Jag Swaminathan, and Vote Counter Jordi Calveras. The Word of the Day was "Proficient".

Before the close of the meeting we encouraged the guests to consider becoming members, and three new members signed up on the spot! We're thrilled to have Ahmed Aldkhil, Giacomo Ravo, and Jiusheng Yan among our ranks, and we hope all our other guests will return to our regular meeting next Friday. The theme will be "Pet Peeves". See you then!

Photos from the 19th meeting of 2011

Pictures!

The group, minus Maryam.

The group, minus Kayoko.

19th Meeting of 2011

It was a day of firsts at UT Sciences Toastmasters.

The theme of the 19th meeting was "Cinema", and Albert Ntiri did a great job in his first-time role as Toastmaster of the Day.

Jordi Calveras delivered his first Advanced Communicator speech, from The Professional Speaker manual. His speech was the first project from that manual, The Keynote Address.

Eamon O'Dea also had a first this week - he was the TableTopics Master. Drawing inspiration from a conversation at last week's meeting, he invited each speaker to collaborate on the pitch for a hypothetical film. One speaker chose the set, another choose characters, and the rest developed a series of plot elements - each in the required 1-2 minutes. The final "film" was a swashbuckling adventure with evil princes, disguised princesses, and a stable-hand with dreams of greatness. The experience was tremendous fun!

Coming up next week: our club's first Open House!