07_13_04 Geospeakers Meeting Summary

Today's meeting was held in Building 15, Room 3245, not our usual place in Building 3, due to schedule conflicts. Our new president, Ann Gunderson, called the meeting to order. Mitch Smith galvanized us with a quote about borrowing an inspiration, from no less a personage than Oscar Wilde. (The artist James Whistler said of one of Wilde's toasts, "I wish I’d said that." Wilde replied, "You will, James, you will.")

Club business:
The first order of business was the installation of new officers. For this occasion we had our new Area C-2 governor, Peter Jarvis, on hand to do the honors. The next task was for Ann to give a farewell toast to Cynthia Ramseyer, who is leaving the USGS for a new job, and promotion, at NASA. Cynthia promises to be back in September, but will be missing from our group until she settles into her new position. We’re glad that Cynthia will still be with Geospeakers, but we at the USGS will definitely miss her.

Neil was also our toastmaster today, introducing the theme of "Toasts!" Gretchen Luepke Bynum, as master evaluator, introduced the evaluation team as follows: Carol Reiss as timer, Cecilia Willer as ah-counter (a.k.a. "the wizard of ahs"), and Shane Detweiler as wordmaster/grammarian.

In the interest in continuing education, Stephanie Ross reprised her award-winning speech "Tips on Toasts." Many of us had already heard this speech in a contest. Today she gave it as "The Speech to Inform," Speech #1 of the Speaking to Inform Advanced Manual. The objectives were to present new and useful material in a well-organized manner so that the audience was not only able to remember the information but also motivated to learn to use it. Stephanie's formula for composing a toast for any occasion with the elements Hello-Hook-Humor-Heart-Close-Clink more than met these objectives. Fran Hostettler gave the thoughtful speech evaluation that she does so well.

Stephanie performed double-duty today as table topics master, and indeed, who better to lead a session about "Toasts!" In fancy dress she imaginatively included everyone in participation as we were each assigned the task of writing down a hypothetical happy occasion that called for a toast. Then we had to compose a toast, using Stephanie's formula, to go with the occasion that we drew from an elegant beaded evening bag (we didn't have a top hat handy).

Nothing BANAL about the occasions--ranging from unusual to far-out--cooked up by our ever-enterprising members. Mitch was Most Humorous in toasting a group of lifeguards who saved him from a shark attack after the shark ate his surfboard; Mitch was particularly pleased to point out that the shark died from eating the board. Most Interesting was guest Peter Jarvis, who toasted a boy's graduation from kindergarten when there was some question as to whether or not he'd make it. Peter will of course have to come to the next Geospeakers meeting with his trophy! Mitch, Ann, and Cecilia shared a 3-way tie for Most Eloquent. Cecilia toasted a "most improved" baseball player. Ann congratulated a girl on being named Playmate of the Year.

Mitch closed the meeting with the Last Word, which he proudly borrowed from one Joshua Podesta's senior English paper on the etymology of the word "toast."

Thanks to Carol for providing the sparkling apple cider, with which we all participated in the numerous toasts of today. And a special word of thanks to everyone, who helped set up and clean up the meeting room. That sentence is punctuated correctly, because everyone present helped. (I just recently finished the bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves).

So ends another unique Geospeakers meeting.

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