Meeting Notes - January 17

Nick Samoylov commanded today's meeting as Toastmaster. January 17th is the birth date of Benjamin Franklin, and he served as the theme for today's meeting. Nick filled the dead air with interesting facts about Ben, and even brought in an omnibus containing all of Mr. Franklin's Almanac's for members and guests to peruse.

A little known event, that was omitted, is that Ben liked to wear a towel on his head, as seen in the picture to the left. No one knows why. It is suspected that Ben, a constant experimenter, had an accident with a new hair dye he had been developing utilizing some left over ink from the presses. Always ready to announce his successes, but contumacious about his failures, Ben chose to wear a towel without explanation. When asked about it, he'd respond contemptuously, "Well, what are you hiding under that wig buster?"

Mike Angel did the heavy lifting today providing our one prepared speech. With this speech Mike completed his first Advanced Manual, the Interpretive Reading Manual. The assignment was to present a famous speech. Mike presented Patrick Henry's, "Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death, a speech that Patrick Henry delivered to Virginia's House of Burgesses. It was a pleasure hearing the speech in it's entirety. The catchphrase is no shibboleth, but the culmination of a well reasoned and well argued position. Mike did a very good job presenting the speech stepping outside of his soft spoken style to project the force and passion of the words.

Eric Peterson was our Table Topics master, and in the spirit of Ben's birthday provided us with questions based on facts about Ben Franklin.

As General Evaluator I, Deron White, did my summing up. Nick did an excellent job running the meeting. My main critique is that we have fallen into the habit of running past 12:45. As a lunch club of professionals this is critical: starting on time is human; finishing on time is divine.

Next week:

We will be treated to a speech by Dave Trzupek with Janet Reese evaluating. Mike Angel has stepped forward to ply us with Table Topics. Deron White will be Toastmaster. That leave the following roles to be filled:

• General Evaluator
• Speaker #2
  
• Word of the Day - or even Joke of the Day
• Ah-Dinger (counter)
  
• Grammarian
• Timer

Please e-mail me as Toastmaster if you wish to fulfill a role.