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
