09_14_04 Geospeakers Meeting Summary

Rocked to order right on schedule (11:45ish), by our president Ann Gunderson, who was also our galvanizer.
Club business: Fall Humorous and Evaluation Speech Contest for our Area C-2 will be Sept. 30, 2004. 6:30-7:00 "Indoor tailgate party" and 7:00-9:00 p.m. contests. Scroll down to C-2 on District 4 website for contest details and directions.

We have a contestant for the Humorous Contest: Shane Detweiler,
and for the Evaluation Contest: Mitch Smith is "considering it strongly if Cynthia cannot attend".
Toastmaster for the Evaluation portion: Neil Shapiro.
Ann Gunderson will co-chair the contest. Way to go Geospeakers!
If anyone is left who is able to attend, I am sure our contestants would like some support.

Other club business: Gary stepped in for our absent SAA's to set up the room, and is willing to fill in next meeting as well, since our SAA's will be MIA.
One other note; since Cecilia will most likely not be able to attend the Sept. 28th meeting, could Stephanie (Toastmaster) please assign an alternate (possibly Neil)? Thanks.

Our theme for the day: "What's New?" Newfangled fonts on our agenda for one. Next Carol introduced the evaluation team, consisting of our newfangled member Lauri timing for the first time, and Chris, double-dutying (is that a word?) as Ah/Wordmaster/Grammarian. Fran stepped in as evaluator for Mitch who could not make it today. Speaking of stepping in, Cynthia stepped in to do a speech in place of table topics, and Shane stepped into table topics (nothing novel here).

We continued with Cynthia doing an interpretive reading on Jerry Spinelli's "Star Girl". Cynthia started off the reading with an introduction to Star Girl, complete with passing out gold star stickers, in character with Star Girl. We were all quickly swept into her reading and mesmerized by her character.

Then it was on to table topics, where Shane admitted that the first thing that comes to his mind when he hears, "what's new?", is "pussycat", so he quickly changed it to "what's newsy". Armed with a newspaper, he posed questions from every section (except for the obit's) for each member to respond within the allotted time. The Most Humorous account was given by Chris, who expounded upon an article regarding "faith-based gardening", something about spreading an expensive nematode-rich goo in your yard in the middle of the night? (go here and navigate to Sept.10 column). Ann and Cynthia took Most Eloquent with an account of global warming and "(Scott Peterson) did he or didn't he". Finally, we had a three-way tie for Most Interesting, Ann, Cynthia and Fran, who foresees big problems ahead with the jobless rate. One of the more entertaining points of the table topics was when Shane, after hearing about how unpatriotic the Patriotic Act really is, went off to have a personal conversation with Ashcroft in the hidden thermostat microphone (just kidding of course). It was enlightening to see into the personalities of our members from the subjects they reflected upon today.

Next, Fran gave her evaluation of Cynthia's speech, giving excellent examples and explanations of how Cynthia fulfilled the objectives of her speech. She finished with "if anyone can find any suggestions for improvement, you're better than me!" and I dare say, she's right.

Everything rolled along smoothly, and we finished right on schedule.

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