Preston Persuaders

The end of the year is soon upon us….time to take stock of our goals and re-evaluate what we want to accomplish for the new year!  That was the theme of tonight’s meeting and it was very apt, great job Toastmaster Ed!  Venkata reminded us all that it’s all too easy to be hacked, so unless you want your ACCESS DENIED, it’s always good to do proper research before purchasing electronics and to routinely change your passwords to keep our on-line lives safe!  During Lisa’s speech she reviewed the roles during the meeting which was a great refresher for established members as well as a fantastic source of information for new members and guests.

Happy Fall y’all!

Monday night’s meeting was very energetic - we had a full house! With Toastmaster Son Nguyen leading the way with some great food for thought from a book called The Slight Edge (which was also our theme of the day), we transitioned to the prepared speeches only after setting the tone with some great laughs from our Joke Master Valerie Harris. 

Did you know that in Chinese culture, the number 8 (pronounced Bah) is considered auspicious because it rhymes with the character for making money (pronounced Fah)? In fact, the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China started at 8:08:08pm on August 8th, and in Hong Kong, a license plate containing the number 8 sold at an auction for $640,000. These are just some of the fun tidbits about the alluring number 8 that we learned throughout the evening of 8/8. Fittingly, the theme was “8” and the word of the day was “Infinity” ∞.  

Hello friends and fellow Toastmasters!

We had another fun-filled, high-energy meeting last night! There were many new faces in the crowd as we opened the night with the theme: “What’s Your Brand?”

Last night was both fun and inspiring. Our Joke Master Claudia kicked us off with a hilarious airline video that left us in fits of laughter before we transitioned into our two prepared speeches of the evening. The first speech by Ravi M. called upon us to “ask for it” in order to get what we want in life, and the second speech (by yours truly) was about gratitude and ownership of one’s circumstances. During Tabletopics, Eric had each person pull a mystery item from a bag (including a wallet, an iphone, and a rubber duckie) to use as the prompt for their one minute impromptu speech, and Mays creatively turned a standard listener report into a full on game of jeopardy!

Welcome to a new year of Preston Persuaders!