Wednesday, July 24, 2013

28th meeting of the year


Friday’s meeting, themed “Summer fun and joy” was opened on-time by presiding officer Jag.  He then introduced the Toastmaster for the evening, Marcia, who rolled out the carpet for the first to two speakers, Zhufeng.

Those of us who have never been to Yellowstone National Park were treated to a full-blown tour of the highlights complete with a white-board diagram. Zhufeng’s speech was informative and detailed as he explained the layout of the park. No one would have guessed that he also had not yet visited, but was planning on doing so later this summer.

Our second speaker, Vema, shook up toastmaster methodology a bit by giving a purposely impromto speech on Online vs. Traditional University education. He presented several strong points as to why online classes will never take over, citing specifically the importance of community and in person networking in relationship building.

Thejas next introduced the Summer fun and joy themed topic session. Many of the grad student members described their favorite part of summer with one word: work. We were excited to hear from our guest for the evening, Dr. Khaled. He spoke on the relaxation of growing up by the sea. The session took a unique turn as Thejas prompted the group to use three words he gave them during their 1-2 minutes to tell a story. We all thoroughly enjoyed Sophia’s masterly-crafted tale about a botched wedding while using the three words: renunciation, watermelon, and ocean. She succeeded Kristen’s two-week reign as the table topics winner.

General Evaluator Kalen led the feedback for the meeting with Jag evaluating Zhufeng and Thomas evaluating Vema. The meeting ended on time.

After the meeting, a few members continued the post-meeting-dinner tradition and found themselves eating meaty/veggie brats at a gathering of food trailers near campus.

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