Recap – Apr 15, 2014

Published April 15, 2014 | By swong

As usual we have lingering questions on April 15 each year; such as, “did I put my taxes in the mail or did I not?” While it is true that most people are anxious to meet tax filing deadline today, our anxiety was not about taxes. Our anxiety was about where our group would meet because the room normally reserved for our use was occupied by another organization. As our members and visitors began to show up, they are puzzled to find we could not use the room. To deal with the unfortunate situation, our leaders worked very effectively in locating a substitute room for the day’s meeting. A way to go, great leadership!

Due to the displacement situation, our meeting was 15 minutes delayed even though it was one of our most productive meetings. When we were settled into a room, our Sergeant at Arms, David Tabora led the pledge of Allegiance and introduced our President Chris Foley. Our President played the roles of both President and Toastmaster of the day. He created awareness by giving us a bit of history about April 15 and how taxes came about. Chris played his roles very well. He was a talented and skillful leader.

The first speaker of the day was our newest member, Jonathan Colton, doing his first Ice-Breaker, talking about himself in “Born there and never live there” from the Competent Communication Manual speech which kept the audience engaged. Jonathan showed us that we have a renowned traveler in our midst. Jonathan has now joined our fearless and bold speaker’s club. Once again, it was our pleasure having him as a speaker.

Our second speaker was Maureen Bastedenbeck. She persuaded the members in how to reach more fans on Facebook. She told us how to use the “Likes” function to grow our network and increase our exposure to other available tools. She walked us through a step by step check-in process using the apps on our cell phones. Right there 3 members who had their cell phones available began connection with the outside world. Thanks to Maureen for being very persuasive.

The Table topic master was Rocki Chaparro, who made us aware of how some of us use Procrastination, delay or postpone. She demonstrated her points by using three participants. The three participants were, Connie Vieira, Rowena Donaldson and Binh Nguyen. Rocki posted different questions for each participant: She asked each in the following way: To Connie, “Are you a list maker when it comes to procrastination?” To Binh, she said, “Are you Get up and Go?” And to Rowena, “What will you do if you were to win a million dollars?”

The winner for Table Topic was Connie who cited that the word of the day prepared her in making key decisions for life management. David Tabora was our Timer and Counter. He made sure all the minutes were accounted for. Thanks David. Lavonne Catron was our Grammarian. She captured our minds in reminding us of the “who and who’s” graduating from leaning on the crutching words. Thanks Lavonne, great job being our Ah-Counter of the day.

We had two visitors. Our returning visitor was Mary Dean and first time visitor was Tim Renner. The two were invited by Maureen Bastedenbeck who continues to live the dream of growing our membership. Way to go Maureen!

Even though we were 15 minutes short of time due to the room situation, it was a great meeting as always.