2007/07/12 Club Meeting Minutes

Lisa, as our new SAA, started our meeting at 7:30pm. We had a full agenda for the meeting. Total 15 members attended the meeting.

Jane, as the Spark Master for the meeting, told us a very inspiring story -- a story about a cracked pot. The lesson is that a cracked pot can offer something that not-cracked pot can't offer. So be just the way you are.

Salina, as the Toastmaster for the night, introduced functionaries for the meeting, each of which describes his/her duty. We also picked the word of the day: verity.

Shay, as the Table Topic Master, introduced her table topic -- say something about our new president Joe. Total 13 members participated in this section. We all learned something new about Joe and Sam snagged the Most Improved Table Topic Speaker Award at the end.

In our club business meeting, our president Joe handed out the tentative event schedule for 2007-2008 Toastmaster Year. This schedule (club-events-2007-2008.xls) is also posted in our club website: www.scbtoastmasters.com. All attending club members approved this schedule.

A brief break was right after the business meeting. Thanks to Joe for the snacks.

The prepared speeches section is after the break. There were total four speeches. Ken gave a "demo meeting", introducing Toastmasters to non-Toastmasters. His speech assignment was on "Vocal Variety".

Jie gave a speech on "the power of data warehousing". She introduced what data warehousing is and what it can do. Her speech assignment was on "Getting Comfortable with Visual Aids".

Stephanie chose one topic from 5 possible topics, and gave an impromptu speech on "going green". She presented the reasons that we need to go green and gave us some practical examples of how to do so. Her assignment was on "Speak off the Cuff".

Cindy gave a persuasive speech on why we should "bike to work". She provides us her supporting materials from several different aspects, such as the environmental affect and the health. Her assignment was on "Persuade with Power".

Stephanie and Cindy tie for the Most Improved Speaker Award.

Following this is the Evaluation section of the meeting. Louise, as the Master Evaluator of the meeting, introduced each evaluator to evaluate each speaker.

Mike evaluated Ken -- very effective demo meeting. Comments were to skip the detailed history of Toastermasters.

Lisa evaluated Jie -- very good use of visual aids and good introduction examples. Comments were to (1) use more colors on slides; (2) write out some technical terms, such as OLAP.

Joe evaluated Stephanie -- very good use of humor. Comments were to give some counter-examples.

Kerry evaluated Cindy -- very effective supporting materials and very good use of graphics. Comments were to (1) use personal stories to enhance the effects; (2) make words in the visual aids easier to read.

Louise evaluated the whole meeting, and asked for Grammarian reports from Jennifer and Ah Counter reports from Sam. The Most Improved Evaluator for the night is Kerry.

Salina gave out awards for the night.

At the end, Joe held an induction ceremony for Kristin and we voted her in as our newest club member. Welcome Kristin!

The meeting adjourned shortly after 9:30pm.

New Club Officers Kickoff Meeting

Joe, as the incoming president for our club, organized the new club officers kickoff meeting on June 21, 2007. Six incoming club officers attended the meeting:

President:  Joe
VP of Education (VPE): Kerry
VP of Membership (VPM): Jennifer
VP of Public Relation (VPPR): Sam
Secretary: Jie
Sergeant at Arms (SAA): Lisa

We started the meeting with the simple Spaghetti dinner. After that, Joe handed out the agenda for the meeting. The agenda is listed below with the discussion notes.

8:30pm Distinguish Club Program goals

Toastmasters Internationals set up Distinguish Club Program (DCP) goals to determine the health of a club. To achieve a Distinguish Club award, a club needs to have at least 20 members or net growth of at least 5 members. In addition, DCP defines total 10 goals. For each club, at least 5 goals need to be satisfied to be recognized as a Distinguish Club.

We identified the strength of our club: supportive, friendly, dynamic, and organized. Currently, we have 18 active members (or paid members) in our club. To achieve a DCP award, we need to work harder to attract new members.

8:45pm Reports, plans, ideas from each area of responsibility (7 minutes per officer)

In this section of the meeting, each club officer talked about his/her key responsibilities, what we have done well, what needs to be improved.

As the club president, Joe will work with club officers to set our club goals and plan how to achieve these goals.

As the VPE, Kerry will (1) make meeting schedules, (2) work on various mentoring programs, such as a mentor coach for each different style of speeches, (3) do more recognition on members when they achieve goals, (4) refresh meeting procedures once in a while.

As the VPM, Jennifer will work on building new membership, such as (1) follow up with guests, (2) hold open houses, (3) design welcome folders for guests.

As the VPPR, Sam will (1) improve our website, (2) post our meeting schedules to craigslist, (3) make and post flyers, (4) possibly do some press release, (5) post meeting videos to YouTube.

As the Secretary, Jie will (1) take meeting minutes and post them on the blog, (2) update club roster, (3) update member progress after each meeting.

As the SAA, Lisa will (1) call meetings to order, (2) collect and count ballots, (3) keep track of meeting supplies, such as evaluation forms, ribbons, etc, (4) make new signs for our club meetings.

As the Treasurer, Louise missed the first meeting, but she is an experienced treasurer. She will (1) collect membership dues and submit them on time, (2) make room rental arrangements for our club meetings.

9:30 Schedule for 2007-2008

In this section of the meeting, we talked about the overall schedule for 2007-2008. Joe has posted a tentative schedule to our website www.scbtoastmasters.com for members only.