Come Sherman, and let us use the Wayback machine to experience Linda T as Toastmaster with the theme of “1975: Then and Now”.

It was a time when The Captain & Tenille knew “Love Will Keep Us Together” and Glen Campbell was a “Rhinestone Cowboy”. A young director named Steven Spielberg kept vacationers out of the water with his movie “Jaws” while the cast of Monty Python went searching for the Holy Grail. If you wanted to be fashionable, you were wearing bell-bottoms or made sure you had grown sideburns.

Donna G conducted us through 1975 with a wide variety of table topics. Nancy J reminisced about finishing up grad school and how not to be fashionable. Amy G wished for the return of “Family Hour” television introduced by the major networks back in 1975. Julia S shared how she watched TV and what she watched (giving her a chance to bring up Gilmore Girls again). And finally, guest Steve C was forced to choose among the 1975 TV series Ghostbusters, the 1984 movie Ghostbusters, or the newly announced remake of Ghostbusters.

For prepared speeches, Mark I prepared for the Area 12 International Speech contest next week with “A Pilot’s Pilot”, the story of Robert ‘Bob’ Hoover and dealing with people. Megan S  spoke next giving basic manual speech #2 Organize Your Speech, entitled “Social Media Savvy or How You Can Engage with the Facebook Page.” And to wrap things up, Jerry M shared the work of American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar while covering speech #2: Interpreting Poetry from the advanced manual Interpretive Reading.

Best Table Topics – Nancy J
Best Evaluator – Mike R
Most Improved – Megan S and Linda T
Best Speaker – Jerry M

Quote of the Week: “You started with a genuine compliment and I think that was really nice. I think that when you do that, then the person who’s being evaluated is more open to whatever you’re going to say next, so you can really slam them.” (Just kidding!)

Once again, I will make an appeal to the club to bring in items for the Opportunity Drawing at the Area 12 speech contest next week. These donations help defray the cost of the contest and raises money to send the winners on to the Division and District contests. (That last sentence felt like the first two seasons of the TV show “Glee” where all they talked about was making it to Regionals. Or at least it felt like the “Community” parody of “Glee”.)

For next week, dust off your tricorders, phasers, and pointed ears as Felicia D leads us with the theme of “Live Long and Prosper”.

See you on Thursday,

John W