Officer Training Scheduled for January 30

Club member Terry Bartholomew has  training planned on January 30 for club officers who haven’t been to training yet and all interested members. Just click on the image if you want a copy.

Nancy Brinker featured in Toastmasters Magazine

Toastmasters helped @NancyGBrinker of @komenforthecure hone her speaking skills. More: (Nov., TI mag, pp.28) bit.ly/TMIMag—
@Toastmasters (@Toastmasters) December 03, 2011

In case you were wondering

13 members and 2 guests—including Past District Governor Marianne Meadow—members turned out for a very entertaining meeting, so entertaining in fact that President Rick Eshbach called it magnificent. If you remember, but are still confused by, Rick’s Table Topics question about the shark  driving down a lonely road, click on the link in his comment for some clarification.

Franz Liszt

Remember that notice at yesterday’s meeting that it was the 200th birthday of Franz Liszt (as well as the 87th birthday of Toastmasters International)? There’s a really interesting article about Liszt in today’s New York Times. Titled Still Wondering if Liszt was any Good, the article confirms many of the assertions we heard about Liszt’s manner and dress (don’t miss the photo that’s printed), but it questions Liszt’s reputation more than you were led to believe. It seems contemporary composers like Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Schumann were not entirely enthusiastic about his music, and it ends up asking So is Liszt any good? And the answer, Well, yes and no. But I’m sticking to the story I told.

Congratulations, Bob!

We’re a little late noticing it, but we welcomed Bob Miller to our meeting yesterday as the Division C Table Topics champion. He won the title at the Division Contest Thursday night, and will represent the Division in the District 29 finals on November 4.

Strawberry Shakes for Research

Remember how Nancy Brinker started the Komen Foundation? And remember how the Komen Foundation sponsors the Race for the Cure? Here’s a painless way you can remember the work of our namesake and support the work of the Komen Foundation.

Shake is Strawberry. $1.00 from each one sold goes to Race for the Cure!! Pumpkin shakes will definitely peak out shortly !—
Mark Bucher (@BGRBurgerJoint) October 01, 2011

Maybe  BGR would like to host a meeting.

Read a Book/Change your Life

At today’s meeting, Miranda told a spellbinding tale about the effect a book about Lewis and Clark had on one man. After the meeting, she pointed me towards This American Life‘s reporting on the changes reading a book can make. I’m curious enough to find out more; if you are too you can follow this link to the original broadcast.

Area Contest is October 1

Web Clippings for September 24

A new version of Web Clippings includes links to a Nancy Duarte presentation on storytelling, a Simon Sinek post on maintaining your passion, and more.

View “Web Clippings for Toastmasters–24 September” on Storify

Web Clippings

I usually post Web Clippings on the District 29 site every week. I was going to repost some items  here, but I decided it made more sense just to make the entire collection available here. Here are the most recent items; I’ll try to make my regular posts to the District blog available here, too. This issue includes another look at the Toastmasters International convention, crowdsourcing for Toastmasters, some perspective on filler words, and more.

View “Web Clippings for Toastmasters–19 September” on Storify