TOASTMASTERS invades MSFV Rotary!!!
With Rich acting as MC and Dean Puretz as speech master, we were given a taste of what a Toastmasters meeting is like, sans the normal “um” counters and grammarian. Dean did select a word for the day (“dilemma”) which was supposed to be woven into any of the spontaneous talks the speakers gave, if they could.
Toastmasters starts members off with a 10 speech training manual, starting with an introduction talk or “icebreaker”. Successfully delivering all 10 earns you the Competent Communicator title. To give us a feel for the talks, club president Marilee started with an icebreaker focused on the hats of her life. Below is a picture of her in one of the dozen or so she used during her talk, a hat created to wear with the kindergarteners she taught. From the first few words, she had us completely enchanted.
Marilee took us from her baby bonnets to the cowboy hat owned by her older brother that she coveted, and eventually inherited when he outgrew, to those she wore every day when she worked in New York to hats from almost every other stage of her life. Including those from her trips visiting her mom back here in LA and making sure her mom’s electrician would only work during those visits. After a bi-coastal dating year, they now own a house together in Van Nuys. And she is still discovering new hats for each new stage of life.
Peter gave a very short talk on whether we just have or make our luck, relating a story of a Holocaust survivor – the father of a friend of his. Taken away from his family by the Nazis when Peter’s friend was just 7, the father was allowed to return a month later. He was determined to leave Germany with his entire family, as difficult as that was. He had been given a reprieve, and only a reprieve, because he had fought for Germany during WWI and been honorably discharged. During the early part of the war German Jews in Berlin were allowed to live a little longer in recognition of their military service.
Dean then tossed out phrases from famous movies for people to talk about for at least one minute and no more than two. Stan responded to a line from A Streetcar Named Desire, Max gave a charming synopsis of the Wizard of Oz and Marc got Casablanca, while Sara gave an amazingly developed talk that even tied into her job search, Rotary and the coming year based on Forest Gump. Doris then gave an example of switching the topic you’re given to one you prefer to talk on. Thanks, everyone! That was fun.
Toastmasters is an international organization focused primarily on education. There are talk booklets that focus on different skills, such as humor, motivation and management. Clubs are autonomous, and vary in size. This club, Rich’s club, has 20 members and is looking to grow. If you’d like to visit and see more, they meet every Tuesday morning at 7:00 at the Denny’s on the west side of Sepulveda Blvd. just south of Burbank Blvd