Nov 30: No place like "Home"

Melessa

Just because a meeting is light on speakers doesn't mean it has to be light on quality, as Tuesday proved. Toastmaster Linda Coleman opened with a few comments on the meeting's theme of "Home." I'd actually like to commend Linda for her quick wit and ability to make relevant, clever remarks to fill space. She made several that had me snickering. Congratulations as well to Melessa Baker for giving her Ice Breaker speech. It takes a lot of nerve to get up in front of a group for the first time and speak, and she did an admirable job. Setma Maddox left many of us wondering if she had been timed incorrectly (sorry we doubted your abilities Ron!), as her speech on leadership engaged the audience to such a degree that we lost track of time.

Greg Geis appropriately stepped up the number of Table Topics questions in consideration of the light speaking schedule, and we had some quality impromptu responses from the audience. Tammy's mother, Maxine, won Best Table Topics for her description of Altoona, Pennsylvania, and it was a showdown of veteran evaluators with George Arndt edging out Tammy Bailey for the win. Aaron "The Assassinator" Robinson kept us all in check with our ums, ahs, long pauses, and generally any other excuse he could find to ring the bell. The only real suggestion for improvement that was made for the meeting was that our applause could be a little louder, so any of y'all that missed last week's meeting, come on out this week and help us out.

Ryan Gallagher