Latin Leaders - Toastmasters Club #583774

Congratulations to our newest members, Liz and Alex, seen here with our president Ramon Diaz receiving their new member kits.  As Ramon said, this is always exciting for us to see new members just starting out, building on the strengths they already have, and becoming better communicators.  Liz gave her ice breaker speech today and we learned a little bit about her and her goals.  Michelle Alba-Lim gave her a great evaluation that I’m sure Liz very much appreciated.  

I took over as Table Topics Master today because Jorge was feeling a little ill and his throat was hoarse.  But he still made it to the meeting and helped out as our timer and vote counter today.  Wow.  Thanks Jorge.

Don’t forget our club speech contest is coming up on March 10.  Jorge and Liz will be helping me on the contest planning.  This is an important event for our club, so plan to be there and support your team.  Our winner will go on and represent our club at the area contest.  Last fall both of our contestants went all the way to the division level.  Let’s go!

The theme of this meeting was “Show Your Talents”.  The table topics questions were designed to reveal to everyone what your particular talents are and how they are being used.  Daniel Cossack was the Table Topics master asking the questions, and also participated as a table topics speaker.  Michelle Alba-Lim was our esteemed Toastmaster of the evening and did a good job of keeping everyone interested and having fun.  Our two speakers were Delfino and new member, Susie Gonzalez.  

This was Delfino’s 10th speech which now qualifies him as a Competent Communicator.  I don’t know what he said but at the end of the speech all of the members of the club were hugging each other.  On behalf of the entire club I’d like to congratulate Delfino on his meritorious accomplishment.  Delfino joined Latin Leaders just about one year ago and has been very consistent in working through the manual at a pace that seems to be the most productive.  And I think it shows as we watched his progression from his first speech to his 10th.  He is indeed a competent communicator and I sincerely hope  he will now continue working on the more advanced speeches.

Susie Gonzalez is our newest member and gave her first speech, the Ice Breaker.  Now we know where her fear of public speaking comes from and I think we have a good idea of her strengths as a speaker.  Susie is very pragmatic and enthusiastic.  I know she will do very well in Toastmasters.

We have another Ice Breaker speech next week so don’t miss our next meeting.  We have lots of things planned for the club so stay tuned.

We had a full meeting room today with lots to do.  Salvador ran the meeting as Toastmaster of the day picking a theme of learning (different than the chosen theme) and also acted as the general evaluator for the meeting.  Michelle, as our new VP Membership, gave an advanced speech from the Persuasive Speaking manual entitled, “A Great Team”.  Todd was not able to make this meeting and will have to reschedule his prepared speech.  Ramon was the Table Topics master using the topics cards and getting a few members to try a little charades.

Our newest members, Jorge and Susie, were formally inducted into the club and presented with their New Member kits.  I was able to drive out the the Toastmasters International headquarters and pick up the manuals in time for the meeting.  We also had a couple of guests sit in on our meeting, Liz who had been here before, and Oscar who is looking for a good Toastmasters club.  There is so much to learn in Toastmasters and our meetings make it fun to learn.  We certainly hope to see you all back again.