1_08_02 Geospeakers Meeting Summary

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1_08_02 Geospeakers Meeting Summary

GeoSpeakers Notes: January 8, 2002

Present: Carolynn Box, Chris Gutmacher, Fran Hostettler, Gretchen Luepke-Bynum, Janice Murphy, Tara Kneeshaw, Cynthia Ramseyer, Carol Reiss, Stephanie Ross, Neil Shapiro, Jorie Schulz
Guest: Jim Palandri

The meeting was called to order by President Carol Reiss, who made the following announcements:
Officer training will be offered on Thursday, 17 January, 2002, at the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church on Santa Cruz Avenue, from 7-9 p.m. Food will be available. So is reimbursement from GeoSpeakers for those who attend. Quenton, Cynthia, Neil, and Carol plan to be there.
Please e-mail Carol Reiss with your nomination for GeoSpeakers Toastmaster of the Year. A brief write-up as to why is also helpful. The club TM of year will be considered for Area C2 TM of year, and will at the least receive a round of applause plus one of those great certificates :) at the next Area C2 speech contest.
The International and Tall Tales Speech Contest will be arriving in March. Let's see if we can get several GeoSpeakers to compete! Contests are always a great deal of fun, even if just as an attentive listener.
Today's meeting carried on what has become a GeoSpeakers tradition: the first meeting of the New Year is devoted to Table Topics featuring the reading and review of books. Proving what a LITERATE group GeoSpeakers is, the following people reviewed the following books in a 3-5 minute time-frame, which was also gave everyone an excellent opportunity for extemporaneous speaking:

Janice: "Ivanhoe" by Sir Walter Scott and "The Ya-Ya Sisterhood" by Rebecca Wells
Jorie: "The Botany of Desire" by Michael Pollan
Cynthia: "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant
Tara: "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
Chris: "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkein
Stephanie: "Shopgirl" by Steve Martin
Neil: "The Ritual Bath" by Faye Kellerman
Gretchen: "Gardens in the Dunes" by Leslie Marmon Silko
Carol: with a little help from her daughter: "The Geologic Story of Yosemite National Park", USGS Bulletin 1595 by N. King Huber, and excerpts from Casie's report (found in the recycling bin) on "The Yosemite" by John Muir.
Carolynn: "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" by Rebecca Wells
Fran: "Ubiquity" by Mark Buchanan & "Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkein
In her meeting evaluation, Cynthia Ramseyer noted that Chris Gutmacher did a superb and graceful job at Toastmaster, making witty and apropos introductions and observations. All the speakers persuaded the audience to expand their reading lists for 2002. Particular highlights of the book reviews were Janice Murphy's observation that Sir Walter Scott was "an okay writer" and Jorie Schulz's excerpted reading from "a plant's-eye view of the world" that posited that plants are a lot smarter than homo sapiens (read the book!), and Cynthia's observation that female phenomes had a lot to do with the premise of "The Red Tent." Fran Hostettler gave an impassioned reason for her 10+ readings of "The Fellowship of the Ring" -- the story, the poetry, the mythology, the whimsey, the "little jewels" of prose, and the unending need for humankind to understand and resist "the gathering forces of evil" that are, unfortunately, ever present in the world, whether human or not. The most INTERESTING trophy went home with Jorie, the most HUMOROUS trophy with Tara ("my first one!"), and the most ELOQUENT trophy, albeit shared by Fran and Cynthia, went home with Cynthia because "Fran gets these all the time -- I don't!"

Next GeoSpeakers meeting Jan. 22, 11:45 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Theme: Martin Luther King Jr. Fran Hostettler is Toastmaster, Carol Reiss is Table Topics master Gretchen is Master Evaluator Cynthia Ramseyer is speaking, and Tara is giving her ICEBREAKER!!!!! And the best reason to BE THERE! .... Quenton will sing!!

FOOTNOTE: In response to Cynthia's observation that she was woefully ignorant of the Judaic tradition reflected in "The Red Tent," Neil Shapiro kindly supplied the following: "The five books in the Torah are Bereshit, Shemot, Vayikra, Bamidbar, and D'varim. These correspond to the familiar Genesis, Exodus, etc. The names in Hebrew come from the first word, or a word in the first sentence of the book. For example, Bereshit means "In the beginning". As you get beyond the Torah, into what we call Nevi'im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings), the order of the books will be different depending on whether you are looking at a Jewish Old Testament (such as that published by JPS) or a Christian version (such as King James or Oxford). Let me know if you have questions - you can ask me anytime about anything! I'm not guaranteeing I'll always know the answer, but I have good sources!"

Created by Carol Reiss for Geospeakers.

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