April 21 meeting

At 1:03 p.m., President Eva Stimson commenced the meeting, and asked Becki Moody to give the invocation. Becki read the poem “As I Ventured to the Wood” by Mark Raymond Slaughter, in honor of Earth Day.

Eva welcomed people to the meeting, and asked the three guests present to introduce themselves: Ann Thomas works in the Presbyterian Center, and Megan and Melissa are students at the University of Louisville, graduating this spring.

Eva led the Pledge of Allegiance and opened the business portion of the meeting. Linda Patton made a motion to approve the prior meeting’s minutes as written; Ada Middleton seconded the motion--the minutes were approved as written. The members present officially welcomed Jessica Holman as a new club member. The nominating committee will provide a slate of officers for upcoming year at the next Peace Speakers meeting. The club will vote to elect new officers at the May 19, 2010 meeting, as the new officers need to be in place by July 1, 2010. Perry Chang attended the area speech contest recently, and mentioned that the next round of competition will be held in Sellersburg, Indiana, on the morning of May 15. Kay Chambers was unable to make it to the meeting, but asked that the speeches be audio recorded. Eva noted that she will record the meeting’s speeches, and also discussed possibly videotaping the speeches in the future.

Joelle Anderson assumed her role as Toastmaster and invited members of the Evaluation Team to explain their responsibilities: Speech Evaluator #1—Vince Patton; Speech Evaluator #2—Betsy Blocker; Timer—Ada Middleton; Table Topics—Patricia Longfellow; Ah Counter/Grammarian—Debbie Belt; Vote Counter—Perry Chang.

Debbie Belt announced invigorating as the word of the day.

Joelle introduced Eva Stimson, who gave her Competent Communication Project #10 speech entitled “Save Our Planet”--sharing ways in which people can help combat climate change.

Joelle then introduced Jessica Holman, who gave her Competent Communication Project #1 (Ice Breaker) speech. Jessica spoke of how she seeks to live by Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements in her professional and personal life.

Patricia Longfellow led Table Topics, asking people to make sales pitches for advertisements taken out of the phone book.

Joelle called for reports from the evaluation team.

Vince Patton deemed Eva’s speech “excellent” and “relevant” to Earth Day. He also thought she did an “outstanding job using stories.”

Betsy Blocker found Jessica to be both “confident and comfortable” in front of the audience, and noted that she spoke on a topic that kept listeners interested.

Timer Ada Middleton reported the following times:

Eva Stimson’s speech 9:00
Jessica Holman’s speech 7:05
Vince Patton’s speech evaluation 1:56
Betsy Blocker’s speech evaluation 1:06

Table Topics:
- Becki Moody 1:37
- Linda Patton 1:11
- Eric Darnell 2:04
- Debbie Belt 1:09

Ah Counter/Grammarian Debbie Belt counted between 37 space fillers and 4 sentence shifts/grammatical errors. The word of the day was used 5 times by the end of the meeting.

Vote Counter Perry Chang pronounced Linda Patton the Table Topics winner.

Joelle Anderson concluded her time as Toastmaster, and President Eva Stimson ended the meeting at around 2 p.m.

- Joelle Anderson