Speeches by Loreen Buchanan on her 3 Flavorful Favorites and Nandi Shareef on “The Courage to Lead” had us both drooling and inspired to take action! Reviews by Brie Pawlak and Bill Fox rounded out the evening.

We look forward to seeing you all next week.

The meeting went a little long tonight but was lively and entertaining.  I’d say a good night was had by all.  A special thank you to Jeb Newton for hosting our young orator and his mentors.  For those of you that are interested Daniel will be giving his speech this Sat at 9am at the American Legion Savannah Post 135 (south of Forsyth Park on 1108 Bull St.)  More details from the contest can be found at http://www.legion.org/oratorical.

Special thanks to our guests and to our new member Neo.  We look forward to seeing you all out again at another exciting Hostess City Toastmasters evening each Tuesday at 6pm.   Remember, next week is the first Tuesday of the month and we’ll be going to B&D burger afterwards to celebrate!  Come and join in the fun

Tom Sharpe did a rousing table topics segment on the presidents which was a lot more fun than I remember school history to be. Four masterful presidents were in the house with Micheal Neal as George Washington, Murem Sharpe as James Monroe, Jeb Newton as Abraham Lincoln and Autumn Certo as Jimmy Carter. Doug Patten’s presidential trivia knowledge was impressive.

During the speeches Brie Pawlak showed us how we can create our own reality deliberately in her speech on “What is Avatar?”. Bill Fox simplified yoga making it accessible for everyone with his speech “What is yoga?”. Both speeches explored the theme of mind, body, spirit connection and tied together nicely.

Evaluations by Murem Sharpe and Doug Patten were heartfelt, honest and encouraging.

Awards went to Michael Neal for best Table Topics, Bill Fox for best speech and Murem Sharpe for best Evaluation. Also in attendance were Emily Knab, Araceli Harper, Nandi Shareef and 3 guests from SCAD.

Tom Sharpe, Loreen Buchanan, Jeb Newton and John Vandaveer entertained us with superbowl themed topics led by Autumn Certo.  Brie Pawlak continued the sports theme with her speech on “The Seventh Inning Stretch” encourgaging us to step out of our comfort zone and get in the game. Joanne Morton followed nicely with her speech “The Value of Anahata Healing Arts (AHA)” exploring the value of investing in a spiritual business.

Also in attendance were Michael Neal, Emily Knabb and our young guest Silas Certo who assisted Emily with the vote counting.

Winners were Loreen Buchanon for best table topics, Brie Pawlak for best speech and Nandi Shareef for best evaluation. Looking forward to another great meeting and theme next week!

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The program included two prepared speeches. Nandi Shareef introduced her four best friends with an intriguing speech entitled “Birds of a Feather”. The second speaker was Andy Uhlig, entertaining the audience with some of his humorous life anecdotes with the topic of “Who Moved My Cheese”. The vote for best speech went to Andy.

One of the most important parts of any Toastmasters meeting, evaluations, was led by our General Meeting Evaluator, Murem Sharpe. The winner for Best Evaluator went to Mark Finnern who evaluated Nandi’s speech.

Mark your calendars: Hostess City Toastmasters Club is planning an open house event with a humorous speech and evaluation contest for June 19th. It promises to be an entertaining evening for guests and Toastmasters alike. Stay tuned for more information coming soon!

Dawn’s speech with the skill task focusing on “your body speaks” was titled “The king Speaks and Toastmasters Listen”. It  highlighted the  the movie “The King Speaks” and how the theme relates to being a Toastmaster.

Mark Finnern revamped his speech “Five Ideas for a 21st century school” he is practicing for an event at the Jepson Center entitled “TEDx Creative Coast 2012“ in which he is a featured speaker. Dawn won best speech.

Autumn evaluated Dawns speech, and Bertha evaluated Marks speech. Bertha won best evaluator.

Mark Finnern deftly practiced his TEDxCreativeCoast speech about Purpose Driven Schooling. Murem Sharpe won Best Speaker as a radio talk show guest speaking about her tech firm Evoca with Bill Fox, Producer of Ageless Radio, serving as interviewer, resulting in a Best Speaker award. Evan Murphy and Doug Patten delivered valuable Evaluator reports with Evan bringing in the Best Evaluator award.

Dawn Howard carefully caught excess and filler words as Ah Counter, making sure that our club continues its remarkable record of cleaning up our public speaking, especially during our “Clean Up Your Public Speaking” membership campaign continuing through May. New members receive a local dues discount and the top member bringing in the most guests and members during this period receives a healthy dues discount and Toastmasters apparel.

Autumn Certo’s Ice Breaker Speech, “My Hand is a map!”, took us on a tour of the five important roles she has assumed during her lifetime, using her home state Michigan’s “hand” symbol as a map to guide her storyline. Nicole Hubbert delivered her speech, “Communication Technology”, to inform and caution us about how the many high tech tools we use are dehumanizing us. She implored us to consider using personal meetings and thoughtful postcards to experience humanity. Based on Laura Lee Bocade’s speech, “Rethinking your Drinking”, she dispelled any previous ideas we had about buying and using bottled water. The bottles create huge amounts of waste and the water is often polluted with metals and bacteria. The answer? Carry a stainless steel refillable water bottle!

The evaluation team delivered valuable feedback, with Nandi Shareef winning Best Evaluator and Jeb Newton coming in a close second.

Autumn Certo used the March Madness Basketball theme to get us on our feet to take the real or hypothetical positions of a basketball team — center, point guard, etc. Everyone stepped up to the challenge with either real-life basketball experience or by linking the topic to other life experiences. Jeb Newton’s speech about “The Bomb” won him a Best Speaker award with his intriguing story about the lost nuclear bomb down under Wilmington River. [Really!] Bertha Hernandez delivered a heartfelt speech about why being bi-lingual enhances ones personal and professional life. With Doug Patten smoothly managing the evaluation section of the meeting, Nandi Shareef walked off with Best Evaluator of Jeb’s speech and Araceli Harper did an excellent job as first-time Evaluator of Bertha’s speech.

News: We are now starting our one-hour meetings at 6:00 PM instead of 5:45 PM to give members that extra 15 minutes they need to exit work and carefully drive or walk to our meeting location: 35 Barnard Street, Suite 300 – the ThincSavannah facility just off Ellis Square.

News: We are now starting our one-hour meetings at 6:00 PM instead of 5:45 PM to give members that extra 15 minutes they need to exit work and carefully drive or walk to our meeting location: 35 Barnard Street, Suite 300 – the ThincSavannah facility just off Ellis Square.