Table Topics Leads to Tall Tale

Our Table Topics master today, Jay Ashcraft, was particularly creative with his topics. After posing questions to three speakers about the debt limit debacle in Washington, he introduced a new format.

Four members — Dan, Pat, Jill and Elizabeth — were invited to the front of the room. Jay asked Dan to start telling a story and after one minute, turn it over to Pat. Each speaker then had one minute to continue the story. The story took crazy twists and turns as each speaker added his/her embellishments.

It was a fun way to do Table Topics today. Thanks, Jay!

Speech Contest Congrats!!!

Gail Pither

Andrea Spence

Congratulations to our International Speech Contest winner, Gail Pither, and to our Table Topics winner, Andrea Spence, who will represent Chamber Chatters at the Area 19 contest!!!!!

The contest will take place on Monday, March 29th here at 777 Peters Avenue.

Go Gail and Andrea!!!!!

Do YOUR Table Topics openings have Sudden Impact?

Ordinarily July meetings can be sort of blah.  Members are out on vacation and attendance is in the dumps.   Today we had 1/3 of our normal crowd.  All the makings of a so-so meeting were in place, a shave away from being realized.  But this is CHAMBER CHATTERS and we are happy to speak out of the box.  And so we did.

We nixed the regular meeting format and devoted the entire hour to Table Topics practice.  EVERYONE at the meeting got to speak FOUR times during the hour.  First, we each completed two rounds of delivering a compelling opening statement. That’s it.  Practicing just the opening statement reminded us how important an opening statement is to public speaking.   Stephen Richardson, our resident DTM,  pointed out different flavors of openings (techniques) and we tried them on.  We all got out of our comfort zones and tried hard.  Dug deep.  Trusted each other.  Let it rip.

After two rounds, we then incorporated what we learned as a group about compelling openings and did TWO MORE rounds of start-to-finish Table Topics.  The Full Monty.  And let it be said that the QUALITY of the final two rounds was highly indicative of the directed practice that we had just put in as a group.  I have NEVER heard a meeting with better Table Topics responses in my entire Toastmasters experience.

After the meeting we all lingered, knowing that a special meeting had just taken place.

This *speak out of the box* meeting style is precisely why Chamber Chatters has such a robust club.  We get the job done.

• Visit Us.

• Join Us.

• Practice with Us.

• Speak out of the box with Us.

• Grow with Us.

And it won’t be sudden, but MEMBERS THAT PRACTICE WILL HAVE IMPACT.

-Wendy Goody

Julia Child VISITS PLEASANTON!!!!!!

Well Kind Of.

Libby Gal swept the Table Topics voting with her perfectly affected Julia Child accent! Turns out she’s a good authority on what she sounds like because Libby met her in person in Palo Alto when Libby was a nubie pastry chef! I think we need a pastry meeting with all the treats!

-Wendy Goody

About the JAM…

Sometimes one has to do what one has to do.  Such a moment presented itself in February.

Terry confessed to the group in Table Topics that he eats a peanut butter and jam sandwich every day.  It’s his favorite food for heaven’s sake! And he’ s a jam snob too.  Boysenberry is his preferred flavor…. Never mind that he’s a successful financial professional working for Merrill Lynch.  Never mind that he wears a suit and tie every single day.  Never mind that he’s way past toddler age!

And let it also be known that Terry was dragging his feet in getting through his Competent Communicator book.   Turns out, the peanut-butter-and-jam-sandwich-loving-fiend is a tad shy.

I immediately saw an opportunity.  You see, my mother has been making boysenberry jam ever since she was a kid in 4-H.  She’s like a jam afficionado.  And I had a stash.  Moms are awesome aren’t they????

Bribery is supposed to be subtle, but I nixed that tradition.  Two jars of homemade boysenberry jam got Terry through two more speeches and he’s now well on his way.  At Chamber Chatters, we get the job done through whatever means.  As long as it tastes good!

-Wendy Goody

Table Topics in a Box

The box is acrylic. The cards are packed in tight. The questions, well they were right on and what fun we had!

Gail found the product on a website and introduced us to these great cards (135 in the box) with questions on them. Presto, instant table topics for a meeting or for twelve meetings! We went with the “original edition;” there are many others to choose from. I used them the week I was table topics master – and it was soooo easy (maybe too easy?). I think it’s good practice to devise table topics on my own – but I really liked these and think we will use them on an occasional basis. They are a ready-to-use resource that your club might want to try. Check them out for yourself at http://www.tabletopics.com/original.html