09/13/05 Geospeakers Meeting Summary

Our President, Chris Gutmacher, rocked the meeting to order. She called on Imelda White, today's Galvanizer, to help us get our voices warmed up. In line with the Theme for the Day, "Jury Duty", Imelda used a quote from Thomas Jefferson relating to judges and the law. Chris went over some club business-she asked the new members to stay a few minutes after the meeting to take pictures for the club web site. Then Chris discussed our upcoming hosting of the Area Humorous/Evaluation Speech Contest. She is planning to go to the Area meeting to check on estimates of attendance. One club is not planning to participate. She asked Geospeakers to consider participating in the contests. Carol reminded members that dues are now being collected, with the fee for the next six months raised to $36.

Then Chris introduced Mitch Smith (aka "Hopalong Mitch") as Toastmaster, and we moved into the main part of the meeting. Fran Hostettler, Master Evaluator, introduced the Evaluation Team: Lauri Kanerva as Timer, Sharon Metzler as Ah-Counter, and Imelda as Wordmaster-Grammarian. Next came the Prepared Speeches.

Daniel Malmon introduced himself to the group with his Icebreaker speech. Using his horoscope as a unifying theme, Daniel's speech entitled "Verging on Virgo" gave us all a very humorous glance into his persona. Using one definition of Virgo's, that is, "persnickety perfectionists who need a lot of fiber in their diet", he noted that he is possessed by a banana-phobia, whereby he only considers eating a completely unblemished banana, and he will most likely eat it in the check-out counter of the grocery story lest it form a dreaded brown spot on being packed in a bag and removed from the store. On the other hand, his food fetishes allow him to eat almost anything else without qualm, including the digestive organs and other parts of stinky, boiled mutton while he and a friend traveled in the outback of Mongolia. Daniel also attributes his intense curiosity to being a Virgo, and gave as an example his taking on a project in grade-school of becoming an expert on the functioning of toilets. Virgo's tend to compartmentalize and organize, and Daniel says he LOVES Tupperware! Virgo's are predisposed to worry, and Daniel stated that his number one goal is to minimize stress, in his job and even the clothes he wears, even though he was once told by a pagan witch practitioner that "wearing sandals is no way to go through life!" The speech was an outstanding Icebreaker, and we look forward to hearing more from this venturesome Virgo.

Next Ann Gunderson gave her speech "Be a Part of the Preservation of Our Planet", the Persuade with Power #9 Manual speech. She told of attending a Sierra Summit meeting focusing on motivating people to be passionate about improving the environment. Many celebrity speakers, including Al Gore, noted that we live in unprecedented times, and the time for us to become active in environmental causes is NOW. The speeches encouraged educating ourselves and informing others. Americans do value the outdoors, and with the right information and encouragement, can make a significant difference in our environment and our future. Ann said that the meeting challenged people to evaluate how our convenience and comfort balance the overall life of the planet, giving as examples the wastefulness of bottled water and the associated plastic containers, and the lack of uniformity in product labels. She also passed on some of the suggestions as to what we might do to contribute, in transportation issues and energy audits for the home. Finally, Ann distributed packets of information from the meeting with further specifics about what individuals can do to help the environment. Ann had a lot of valuable information in her speech, and it was obvious how deeply motivated she feels about the environment. Nice job!

Next we moved on to Table Topics. Gary Curtis is facing the possibility of soon serving on a jury and he was looking for other people's experiences with Jury Duty. Several Geospeakers had served as jurors, and several had opinions about the efficacy of the jury system. Awards went to Fran for Most Humorous (she served twice on a jury and has mixed feelings about how well the jury system functions), Lauri for Most Interesting, discussing his take on the infamous jury award to the woman who spilled McDonald's coffee in her lap, and a four-way tie for Most Eloquent to Fran, Mary Caroline Mattly. Lauri, and Ann (who didn't speak, so this must have been mis-transmitted and actually go to person-X). We had some interesting discussions on Jury Duty, including Mitch's advocacy of professional juries, Sharon's doubts about whether justice is adequately served in our courts, and Carol Reiss's and Mary Caroline's willingness to serve on juries in the future if they are called upon.

Chris and Neil gave their evaluations of Daniel's and Ann's speeches. Chris praised Daniel for a "fabulous" Icebreaker speech, well-crafted and filled with humor. Neil complimented Ann on a really well done speech; he added a few suggestions including more emphasis on the emotional content of the subject to punch the subject home even more emphatically.

Imelda finished the meeting with a quote from then President Nixon indicating his feelings that if the president does it, it can't be illegal (??????). The meeting was then rocked to a close.

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