Tarrant County alliance brings new opportunities

The day could not have been more exciting! On Tuesday morning, October 26th, the Tarrant County Commissioners Court approved our proposal. Brenda Daniels, Gary Chiu and Pat Quick were in attendance to witness the vote. After six months of negotiations, Afterburners has forged a deeper partnership with Tarrant County. Since March, we have been at risk of losing our meeting location at the Tarrant County Plaza building, but thanks to several key people at Tarrant County we are now secure in holding our weekly meetings, officer training, contests and Youth Leadership series in the building by offering Public Speaking and Leadership classes to the Tarrant County Employees.

This new alliance will give our more advanced speakers the opportunity to work on their training skills. Also, because conducting a Youth Leadership series is one of the prerequisites for achieving a DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster Award), the extra Youth Leadership classes will assist more of our members in achieving their DTMs. We are grateful to everyone who helped make this happen. A special thank you to David Phillips, Tina Glenn and Dean Lampman. We are looking forward to a mutually beneficial relationship with Tarrant County!

Pat Quick

Go to the Commissioners Court agenda page,  click on the Oct 26 agenda, and you can see pdfs of the actual documents and a video of the meeting. Fast forward to about 24:00 to see our little part.

Oct 26: A scary good time had by all

Who said you can’t have fun and learn better communication and leadership skills also? Well, you can at Afterburners Toastmasters. Last night’s theme was "Halloween Costumes." We had some interesting costumes. 

We had some great speakers as well. Ryan Gallagher talked about a road trip to Marfa, Texas in “From Marfa with Love.” He told us about the great food he had, the infamous Marfa lights, and the connection he had with people who had been there before. Ryan won for the best speech of the night.

Setma Maddox's title, “Kicking and Screaming,” pretty much told us how she became District Treasurer; after that she decided it was a great opportunity. The moral of her story was, it's ok to say yes to other opportunities within Toastmasters International because it helps you grow, you meet new friends, and you don’t know where it may lead you.

Brenda Daniels, who is the Contest Chair for Division A Evaluation and Humorous Speech contest on Nov 6, talked about ways to participate outside your club.

Finally, we had special guests from the United Kingdom, Gordon Piggott, a member of Eastbourne Speakers Club, and his colleague Gerard O’Donovan, who won best Table Topics speaker. What a treat! They had nothing but good things to say about Afterburners. 

We continue to Lead the Way!

Antoinette Silas

An Invitation to the October 26 Meeting

Oct 19: Toastmasters in funny hats

Last night several of our speakers wore hats in honor of the theme "A Toastmaster Wears Many Hats!" The presentations can be equated to a train ride as we covered all the meeting roles and Toastmaster acronyms.

Pat Quick led the train by describing how to prepare for and to perform the Toastmaster role. Bob Titiryn tooted the train whistle by explaining the role of Timer. Conductor Dámaris Thorn gave a great lesson in the appropriate use of the English language, and Tom Brents counted the train stoppers — ah, umm, and-so, so, well, —. Our CPA deluxe, Steven Timmons, suggested several ways to prepare to be Vote Counter and what is expected at the meeting when serving in this role.

Whistle stop entertainment was provided by Brenda Daniels and Setma Maddox. Brenda pointed out that the Table Topicsmaster should know the theme and prepare questions ahead of time regarding the theme. She also provided guidelines as to who should be asked to answer Table Topic questions. Setma clarified many of the acronyms used in Toastmasters, explained how those acronyms get attached to your name, and provided a method to track your progress.

George Arndt kept us on track with how and why the General Evaluator should give feedback to the speech evaluators, and on the running of the overall meeting. Tammy Bailey demonstrated how to evaluate a speaker by giving Pat Quick a short evaluation on her presentation. Gary Chiu enlightened us to the fact that much goes on behind the scenes before a meeting can even take place, such as setting up the room and making sure all the equipment is in operative condition. Jodie Sanders reminded us that when we are not assigned a specific meeting role, we are in the Hot Seat. As such we should always be prepared to step up on the train and help make the meeting run smoothly no matter what role we are filling — including Speaker.

At the end of the meeting, two new members were accepted into our club. Welcome, Kim Alvarez and Teresa Wilburn!

We Are Leading the Way!

Setma Maddox

"An extraordinary learning opportunity"

I don't remember where I heard this quote, but I like it: "There is no man so poor that he cannot afford to learn from another."

Our October 19 meeting will be an extraordinary learning opportunity, not to be missed! Based on an advanced communication module called "A Toastmaster Wears Many Hats," we will present an in-depth look at each of the major roles in a Toastmasters meeting.

Why are we doing this? One reason is the explosion of growth our club is experiencing. Some of our newer members joined after just one or two meetings, and are now thrust into the arena without proper preparation for the roles we're asking them to perform. Another reason is our need to balance meeting the educational & leadership needs of all our members with the desire to remain respectful of everyone's time on meeting nights. Knowing more specifically how each role should function can help us accomplish that goal with our usual Afterburners success.

This week's meeting will provide insight into each major role and guidelines on how to execute each one as well. I hope to see each of you there as we learn from each other!

Tammy Bailey

Special Meeting on Oct 19!

I am personally inviting you to our SPECIAL Afterburners Toastmasters Meeting next Tuesday, October 19, at 6:50 p.m. Well, our meeting actually begins at 7:00 p.m. on the dot; however, the extra ten minutes will give you time to visit.

The SPECIAL speakers during this meeting will describe the opportunities available during an Afterburners Toastmasters Meeting. You will learn several important speaking and leadership skills. For example, when someone calls you by name, do you respond: "It is I" or "It is me." When do you use the words "that" and "which" in a sentence? What is a double negative? Am I talking about a car battery? Come to the meeting to find out!

Dámaris Thorn

Calendar reminders

Our regular monthly business meeting is next week, Oct 19, immediately after the regular meeting.

District 25 is having a Marketing Workshop on Saturday, Oct 23, 1:00-3:00 pm, at Texas Wesleyan University. If you are interested, more information and online registration are available on the D25 website. It costs nothing to attend, you can get a free lunch (if you RSVP online), and you can meet other Toastmasters and find out what's going on in their clubs. (Take your Afterburners business cards with you!)

The Division A Contest is Saturday, Nov 6, at Polytechnic United Methodist Church, 1310 Collard St, in Fort Worth. If you are going to be involved as a helper or contestant, be there at 2:00 pm, otherwise the contest starts at 3:00 pm. If you want to help, talk to Brenda Daniels, contest chair. Jodie Sanders and Mack Mercer will be representing our club in Humorous Speech and Speech Evaluation, respectively. We would like to have lots of familiar faces out there. (Jodie would like to have some audience members who know the right places to laugh at her speech.)

If you're planning on going to the Fall District Conference on Nov 19-20, better get those plans in gear. Prices go up after Nov 6, which is a little over 3 weeks away!

Remember that you can see all upcoming club events by checking the calendar on the Members home page on the website. Clicking on an event will open a small window where you can read more details about it.

Oct 12: Coming to a New World

Taking on the toastmaster role at short notice, Steven Timmons did a great job of getting the meeting organized beforehand, and keeping it rolling along. Over 30 people were present, including three first-time visitors.

For me, the high points were Holly Trinh's icebreaker speech, "Freedom," about her experience leaving Vietnam as a young child, and Rose Timmons's evaluation of that speech. Both women are quiet, but shining, examples of courage and determination in living in a country that's not their own.

David Thorn wore safari garb for "Don't Feed the Orangutans." This was a nice example of a funny speech with a serious underlying theme uniting its parts. As well-constructed as David's speeches have been so far, I'd say he needs to start thinking about the next contest.

As an experiment, we tried a procedure used by other clubs in having the timer make reports after each meeting segment. This allows everyone to know the speakers' times earlier in the meeting. We welcome your feedback on how well you think that worked.

Jodie Sanders

Keep up with what's happening on the D25 website

The next big District 25 event is the Fall Conference, Nov 19-20.
It's time to make your plans!
Go here for specific information.

The Dream Big Commitment List — is your name on it?

Or just go to the D25 main page and look at everything going on.

Oct 5: We Were At the Movies!

Doesn't this look like Greg?

Boy, did you miss a good Afterburners meeting tonight! Our theme was "Your Favorite Movie." Too funny. One of the highlights was Toastmaster Greg Geis. He really got into the theme when he wore a TopGun outfit while presiding as toastmaster.

Our winner of Best Speaker Mrs. Rose Timmons really stood out in her speech "Culture Shock" when she summed up that it's not always a foreigner who needs to adjust to another person's culture but everyone needs to be open to learning something new. She culturally shocked us.

Another highlight was Table Topics which was filled with Love, Greek Epics, War, and Humorous characters. Everyone that was chosen had interesting movie insights.

Lastly, the biggest highlight of the night was Ms. Saraí Garcia announcing her engagement and we are all invited. Hooray!!

Come and join us at Afterburners Toastmasters every Tuesday evening.

Antoinette Silas