10_12_04 Geospeakers Meeting Summary

October 12 Geospeakers meeting theme was Forces of Nature, in honor of Mount St. Helens' recent rumblings. Stephanie led us in a stirring Galvanizing Quote from 19th century geologist G.K. Gilbert, beginning, "It is the natural and legitimate ambition of a properly trained geologist to see a glacier, witness an eruption, and feel an earthquake."

We mulled over the schedule, noting that most people seemed to be operating with an out-of-date one, so a new one will be sent out. Newly scheduled speaker Division C Governor Carmel Weiler will be with us on Nov. 23.

President Ann Gunderson congratulated everyone on the strong showing of Geospeakers at the recent Area C-2 Evaluation and Humorous speech contests, in which both Mitch and Shane placed second, respectively. Ann of course was contest co-chair, Neil and Stephanie TMed the respective contests (keep track of E and H at start of paragraph), and new member Lauri judged.

TM Mitch very thoughtfully introduced the theme by commenting eloquently on the current state of S.F. Bay visible from his abode and contrasting it with the marsh environment and fauna that existed in the past. Ann leapt into the environmental opening with her speech (#8 Basic C&L manual, Add Impact to Your Speech), a prop-packed presentation, "To Buy or Not to Buy .... and Why". She showed us many products made with natural materials, such as organic and unbleached cotton dishcloths and paper towels made from 100 % recycled paper (80% post-consumer). Ann had fabulous statistics, lost on my missing agenda, concerning the astounding amount of nasty chemicals required to make one standard cotton t-shirt, and the phenomenal amount that would be saved in trees, emissions, chemicals and trash if every household in America purchased and used just ONE roll of said paper towels rather than their usual mainstream brand. She even had tasty organic cookies she shared with us. We liked her speech.

Carol followed up on the theme by giving us a practice run of a speech she is preparing from the Technical Presentations advanced manual, on the recent activity of Mount St. Helens. She had downloaded wonderful photos of the volcano in recent days (check it out regularly at the cool Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam site). Plus there were samples of the earthquake recordings of the last couple weeks, including the infamous "harmonic tremors". Her presentation went a long way towards clarifying for non-volcanologists what has been happening on the mountain. We look forward to seeing the final polished version of this speech.

Both Ann and Carol needed a bit of work on keeping within time. They fed and educated us so we didn't complain.

Gretchen led us in Table Topics exploring the Forces of Nature, on which I can report due to Stephanie loaning me her notes. We had 3 pairs of winners:

• Humorous shared by Neil (yellowjacket nest in my unused car's door) Shapiro and Lauri (born in Finland but toughest winter ever spent was in Bay Area when furnace broke) Kanerva.
  
• Eloquent shared by Stephanie (don't step on the mines while mapping in military training zones) Ross and Chris (sandstorms get in my ears) Gutmacher.
  
• Interesting shared by Stephanie (see above) Ross and Mitch (hanta-bearing desert rats in my truck) Smith.

Lauri gave his first evaluation, of Ann's speech. He did a thorough job noting many excellent aspects, and had an understandably difficult job coming up with suggestions for improvement.

Stephanie was a disappointed that so few people managed to use her excellent words of the day; ROIL and TROPICAL DEPRESSION. The candy fund became plump as a result of the ensuing fines. (I think we have a conflict of interest over using WODs versus purchasing chocolate.)

As Master Evaluator, Chris acknowledged everyone on speeches, evaluation, etc, also Gretchen and helpers for setting up the room in Bldg. 2 for our meeting.

Great meeting folks, next time back to our usual venue in Bldg. 3.

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