6/30/20
Kellon led our meeting with an important theme centered on the Tulsa Race Riots. He outlined the history, happenings, and effects of this impactful event. This massacre occured in June 1921 in Tulsa Oklahoma when mobs of white residents attacked black residents and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has been called “the single worst incident of racial violence in American history.” Over 800 people were injured across 35 city blocks of a thriving community. There are conflicting reports about how many died in the massacre between 36 and 300 people may have died. Thank you Kellon for your work as our Toastmaster and for bringing attention to this historical event.
Harry gave our first speech of the evening. Harry recently completed his Pathway in Presentation Mastery and has launched another Pathway: Motivational Speaker Series. His first speech of his new Pathway, as in all Pathways, is the Ice Breaker. Harry gave a great speech about how he approaches self-introductions, and gave us some tips on how to craft an introduction speech. Harry is a skilled and experienced speaker and made the Ice Breaker into an informative and helpful speech while also giving us more insight into how he thinks about professional and social situations.
MIguel gave our 2nd speech of the evening, titled “How to Give Kind Feedback”. He gave a great overview of how to think about giving feedback, complete with statement prompts and a structure for shaping feedback. He outlined some key foundational elements of giving meaningful feedback including: feedback should be improvement-focused, actionable suggestions. He gave examples of specific feedback and compared his suggestions to the popular “sandwich” method that Toastmasters often use. Miguel often brings interesting, thoughtful, and useful topics for his speeches and Toastmaster themes.
Bill led our Table Topics activity of the evening and providing thought-provoking questions including: Tell us about a time you had to introduce yourself to someone in a difficult situation, How have you approached an ambiguously defined task?, Tell us about a time when you had to have a conversation with a loved one about differing political views, What do you think of the 4th of July holiday in terms of what it means for democracy?
During the business meeting, Diana handed the baton off to Harry as the officer term ended during this meeting, so it was her last meeting as President. The club is in excellent hands with Harry at the helm and the additional officer roles will be announced in July. This was also Vinod’s last meeting of the term as Area Director but he assured us he will still join our meetings going forward. Thank you to Harry for taking on the President role, and and Vinod for the last year of support!
We had 10 attendees. Thank you all for joining!