Experience the Excitement and Suspense of the Brown Bag Meeting!

The notorious Brown Bagger!

Guess who tried to fool us on our “April Fool’s Bagger” meeting? If you weren’t there last Tuesday, April 3, you would not know.

Like many other Toastmasters clubs in District 25, Afterburners always soars high when it comes to providing quality, enjoyable, educational meetings; and to make it a fun evening, our VP Education Steven Timmons, also known as the “Brown Bagger,” actually wore a brown bag on his head.

We created our agenda just before the meeting started. As we came in, each of us drew a role from a brown bag and everyone did a fine job, including myself as the Toastmaster! Hope you don’t think that I’m such a fool, because I know for a fact that all the speakers delivered a 5-7 minute off-the-cuff speech and only had 30 seconds after the time they drew the topic to prepare. As far as we know, this has never happened in Afterburners history; plus, our illustrious Club President Jodie Sanders told us a very short but remarkably hilarious joke.

Here’s what some of our speakers thought about their experience:

Tom Brents: When Steven Timmons asked if I would participate, my first reaction was "Wow, in my 30+ years as a Toastmaster, I have never done this." The next thought was, "I am very confident about my speeches when well-prepared, how will this turn out?" Next, I knew that if I had a framework to organize my speech, probably I could succeed. And that’s the way it turned out. I would like to do it again sometime.

Gary Chiu: "They always say that one should do what one fears most.” Whoever came up with this axiom most likely did not have to reach into a brown bag containing slips of paper with random subjects written on them, and to speak for a minimum of 5 minutes on said subject in front of 20 critiquing Toastmasters. No notes. No Google. No way!

I drew "What would the World be like without Chocolate?" Slowly, cautiously, I talked about my hazy recollection of the history of chocolate. I gathered a bit more confidence discussing how the holidays would be all messed up due to the absence of the brown stuff. I concluded with how all of us need to march up Capitol Hill to ensure Congress does not take away our chocolate privileges, for we are the 99%!

It is truly a "rush" when the green light finally flickers on and the realization dawns that I've just spoken for five entire minutes on a completely random topic. Ah, how sweet that is!

Ryan Gallagher: Part of the challenge I wanted was having something I wouldn't ordinarily select to speak on, so this fulfilled my expectation. The second most important thing I learned is the necessity of implementing some sort of organizational structure to your speech, impromptu or not. The first most important thing I learned was that I’m not afraid of getting up there and making a fool of myself  — the possibility to crash and burn was very real but thankfully it didn't happen, though I would have had a good time no matter what.

Tammy Bailey graciously led the Table Topics about April Fools’ Day and first-timer guest Ingrid won the ribbon. Our friend Teresa Wilburn was also present and evaluated a speech! Gary took home the ribbon as the best speaker and Jodie Sanders won best evaluator.

Finally, I just received my Competent Leadership award and I hold the rights to brag about what happened that night! Next time, make sure you come to our special meetings because you never know what you might be missing.

Rose Timmons, CC, CL