September started off with a Bang at gem City Forum Toastmaster’s Club. First Phil Drake educated us on memory and how easy it is to make it work for us. He also used the Library’s overhead to project a powerpoint to emphasize his points and make it easier for all of us to visualize what he was talking about.

Then Jim Alvord taught us about RC airplanes and how they work. Jim brought several of his planes for show-and-Tell and explained their specialties and demonstrated how the radio moves the control surfaces to make the planes perform their unique specialties.

All of the planes were of the newer electric flying variety and included a Fokker DVII from WWI, a Millenium aerobat that is a super lightweight fully aerobatic stick plane, a Miss 2 trainer with a polyheidral wing for stability, a LARGE Electro Kaydet that’s one of his favorites for all round control and functions like a work-horse as well as an aerobat, and a foamie “Combat” plane used in aerial combat streamer cutting matches. It was very informative and entertaining.

This past week Michele Hubbs introduced us to a speech about America’s only Emperor, Norton !. Yes there really was an Emperor in San Francisco in the mid-eighteen hundreds. Google it if you don’t believe it, like I didn’t.

He was quite a character and Michele had us all following Norton through the streets of San Francisco as he Knighted good deed doers, attended the Theatre with his two dogs, and paid for his purchases with his own Imperial Promissory money.

At the end of her speech she actually presented everyone with a copy of Norton’s 10 dollar notes. Michele used pictures of the Emperor and his bicycle, and in his official regalia uniform to make believers out of us all. And she even stayed within the time limit!!  Congratulations Michele on a very enlightening and entertaining presentation.

If you’re not coming to the Gem City Forum Meetings, you’re missing out on a great time as well as some very good speeches and lessons in how presentations should be done.

Hope to see you at the next meeting, Tuesday September 16th at the new Macon County Library at 5:30PM.

Where else can you learn how to be an effective public speaker with a group of friendly and supportive fellow club members, and know that you’ll get help and pointers to make your presentation better - for your own good without getting heckled or laughed at when you’re first starting out.

Besides - it’s a lot of FUN and we always have a GREAT time.

Til next time - the floor is yours!!

Jimbo

The summer is just flying by and I just noticed I haven’t posted since June - my Bad. The summer always brings a bevy of activity with vacations, bar-b-ques, picnics, etc., it’s hard to keep up with it all. I hope your summer is filled with FUN activities as well.

The Gem City Forum Toastmasters Club is still meeting every Tuesday and offering a safe learning environment for our members and guests to practice public speaking and leadership skills. If you’re in the area of Franklin, NC please stop in and join in the activities.

Our usual meeting spot is the New Macon County Library off Siler Rd. on Tuesdays at 5:30PM. But - for the next two weeks we will have to meet at the Prudential Bldg. downtown next to the Gazebo Parking Lot due to scheduling conflicts at the Library.

This past week we were treated to two wonderful speeches from our scheduled members. The first speech was from our veteran, John Becker. John is one of our favorite speakers because of his interesting subjects and expressive delivery. Also known as “Baldhead the Realtor”, John is a real character in the community adn also an active drummer with his band. As always John delivered an insightful speech based on “Vocal Variety” and he knocked it dead.

Our second speaker for the evening was a new member, “Winnie May” who gave her “Ice Breaker” speech. Winnie blew us all away with her talk about raising her 12 children and some of the obstacles and rewards of a large family. When she was done we all came to the realization that her topic “Cheaper by the Dozen” truely was a myth. Winnie delivered a very professional speech for her first time at Gem City Forum, and we are all looking forward to hearing her future speeches as she grows and developes along with the rest of us.

That’s it for now - I’m heading out to the flying field for a few hours with my friends as we fly our R/C planes. I hope to see you at our next meeting at the Prudential Building, Tuesday night at 5:30PM.

Jimbo

Last night we had a wonderful meeting with two GREAT speechs at the Gem City Forum Toastmasters Club meeting in the Prudential Building downtown. The meeting started on time at 5:30 and our Toastmaster, Phil Drake did his usual outstanding job of leading and keeping everyone on track. He also used a very clever segway from the theme for the evening into a useful short story example of a Toastmaster’s role that he recently was witness to. His story provided us with lessons we can all use in our own growth as toastmasters. Phil was so slick in the transition that we all followed along without even thinking about it.

Our Table Topics Master, Kathy Clifton brought three members to the front to talk impromptu about some of their interesting and thought provoking experiences and passions. Kathy always makes us think when she’s the Topics Master.

Teresa was our Joke Master for the evening and she entertained us with two jokes for the price of only one. Let’s just say they were so good, that I had to tell my wife when I got home.

John Sapp headed up the speechs part of the meeting with some enlightenment in the fine art of motorcycle buying and family preparation psychology. John is a seasoned presenter and his obvious passion for his recent Honda acquisition was clearly delivered with enthusiasm which infected the entire audience. John’s use of humor and good sound logical advise intertwined to make a convincing arguement for buying a motorcycle, especially with the recent gas price hikes we’ve all been subjected to.

Then it was Nancy Porter’s turn and Nancy delivered the type of speech that scares me the most, the “serious” speech. “You Is or You Isn’t” Nancy took us back to a lesson she learned from her Mama as a youngster, there is no gray area in being honest! Nancy incororated 4 examples from her own past job experiences to demonstrate her point clearly and effectively. Through the effective delivery of facts about each example and the alternative ‘Correct Way’ that she presented as a correction fix, Nancy showed us her expertise in the field of Money Management and the dark side of mis-management. It was made very clear to us all and very professionally delivered that when it comes to money honesty (and all other things in life), when other people put there trust in you to handle their money, you need to be 100% honest and trustworthy. There is no other option - “You Either Is - or You Isn’t!”

Inclosing, I’d like to thank all of our participants and extend an open invitation to our three guests Kerri, Christine and Martha to come back and spend another evening with us whenever you can. Hopefully you’ll become infected with the enthusiasm and passion that our members and speakers shared last night and decide to join us as members for our weekly Gem City Forum Toastmasters Club meetings. Don’t forget - next meeting is our Officer Elections so please be at the Macon County Public Library on the 17th of June at 5:30PM to vote for your new leaders.

See you there!
Jim

Our regular Tuesday night meeting of the Gem City Forum Toastmasters Club was started on-time and our first time Toastmaster, John Sapp introduced the theme “Isn’t it Wonderful?” with some very thought provoking questions for the audience to ponder.

The normal meeting participants fulfilled their duties flawlessly, even though we had to perform like a first meeting club without our timer’s watch and warning light and other meeting niceties we’ve gotten used to. It was fun to rough it, so-to-speak, and it didn’t slow anyone down even a little bit.

As our General Evaluator, Emily Markham pointed out the Table Topics Master, John Becker showed us a side of some of our membership that (tongue-in-cheek) pointed to Pyro tendencies in our youth. But there is now and always has been a fascination with youth and matches/ fire that transcends logic and surfaces in an almost primordial nature. At least we out-grew it.

Our two speakers for the evening, Phil Drake & Michele Hubbs entertained us in their normal Exemplary fashion. Phil taught us a short but highly fact filled 100 yr. history of western North Carolina and the Cherokee Indians, that left all of us wanting to know more. Michele used humor, very well delivered, to teach us not to Procrastinate. Her excuses / reasons as to why procrastination isn’t a good thing or a bad thing either, left everyone in stitches. In closing she handed out a step-by-step anti-procrastination guide only to assure us that she intended to start following it in a couple of weeks, “when she got around to it.”

A great evening of entertainment and sharing was ended with a beautiful rainbow as we left the Macon County Library at meeting end.

Plan on attending the June 17th meeting to vote for your new officers. Elections will be held at that meeting, so think about moving up to the next level and becoming an officer for the next year and serving your fellow members.

It’s a good way to gain valuable leadership skills and helps in completing your Competent Leader requirements for advancement in Toastmasters.

See you at the Library on June 3rd at 5:30PM for the next installment in becoming a Competent Communicator.

Our May 20th meeting at the Prudential Building was a lot of fun and even somewhat educational. Our Toastmaster for the evening, Danny Clifton, opened the meeting and kept us all on track so the evening flowed smoothly along.

The Grammarian, Bill Hanger, enlightened us on the difference between ‘use’ and ‘utilize’ which are grossly mis-used in our everyday verbal interchange. The main ephasis is that we ‘use’ the word “utilize” way too often and most of the time incorrectly in our regular communications. We should be using the word ‘use’ far more often, as to utilize implies that we are using something in an unusual or different way than normal. Think about that when you want to ‘use’ something in the future.

Our jokemaster, Phil Drake, had us all in stitches as usual with his “fish story” and I guarantee it’s not at all what’s going through your mind right now. Strong minds Rule! That’s all I’m going to say about it.

Our guest, Winnie Mae was brought in on Table Topics and did an excellent job for her first time in front of the group. Winnie is a ringer with some experience at talking in front of people and her short speech proved it. Likewise, our Dwayne Phillips and Kathy Clifton filled out the topics with descriptions of alternate useses for glasses (of the soda drinking variety) and a #2 pencil. It was a fun time for all attending.

Finally our speaker for the evening, Jim Alvord, gave us an insight into what it was like taking flying lessons out of San Jose Municipal Airport in California in the 80’s. Jim was doing speech # 5 “Your Body Speaks” from the Competent Communicator” series and used the ups. downs, and other obscure angles experienced from the cockpit of a small airplane to give the audience a sense of what happens during stall practice and takeoff & landing sequences during flight lessons.

During the business portion of the meeting our acting President, Jim also reminded everyone to start thinking about who might want to run for office as the June Elections are close at hand. The meeting was over way too soon again as seems to be the case every week. If you’re in the Franklin, NC area on Tuesday night - stop in and experience what a Toastmaster’s Meeting can be like with a very Dynamic group of individuals like we have in the “Gem City Forum Toastmasters Club.”
Until next time!

April 29th we all learned a little more about Nikola Tesla and all that he did for our current lifestyle. Nikola was truely a ‘GENIUS’ and our modern day electricity generation, distribution and utilization are a testament to Mr Electricity himself. Jim left us all wanting to know more about this great unsung hero and his other accomplishment. There was a promise made to share more in a future speech on the subject and to share a lot more details about the man and his life.

On May 6th our own John Becker entertained us in his usual gallant style. John is a master at using vocal tone, inflection, and facial expressions to get his message across. Using colorful word pictures he can draw the picture directly in your mind’s eye so you see exactly what he does. It’s a very unique talent and we’re all that much richer in our own ability to give speeches because we’ve shared in John’s.

Coming up this week May 13th we will be entertained and enlightened by our VP of Membership, Ms Kathy Clifton. Kathy always has great stories to tell and I for one am really looking forward to it.

I’d also like to extend a hearty Welcome to our guest last week, Marc Cutrone of Mountain Resort Properties, LLC. We look forward to future visits and if the spirit so moves you Marc, we’d love to have join our group.

That’s it for this update - hope to see you at the Macon County Library this Tuesday at 5:45PM for our next sintilating get-together. Yes - that’s 15 minutes later than usual do to a schedule conflict at the Library. See ya There!!

Jimbo

Tuesday April 22 was a magical night for Gem City Forum members at the Prudential Building in Franklin. NC. The meeting started with Danny Clifton as acting Sargeant At Arms calling the meeting to order and introducing the Toastmaster for the evening, Phil Drake.

Michele Hubbs started us off with the words ‘Fewer’ & ‘Less’ as the grammarian and the meeting was off and running never to look back.

Emily Markham gave us a couple good laughs as the jokemaster for the evening.

Kathy Clifton did a masterful job of dishing out Table Topics, and Bill Hanger not only talked about a Bear looking for food after waking from Hybernation, but he looked very much the part as he lumbered around the lectern looking for his virtual feast.

But the show stopper for the evening was when Nancy Porter gave her speech about how she and Jim dealt with their blossoming teenage daughter going out for a date. Using a bell prop and facial expressions that conveyed emotions that all parents could understand easily at the gutt level, Nancy took us all back to our first experiences of teenage dating and “Lovers Lookout.”

Nancy told us about the agreement made prior to going out and the understandings that somehow got innocently derailed and accidently discovered and the ensuing chase that had us all in stitches as we thought back to some of the experiences we’d all gone through in the past.

It was absolutely one of the best speechs that we’ve ever heard at a Gem City Forum Toastmaster’s Meeting. Nancy congratulations on a job Very Well done!

Hope to see you all at the April 29th meeting back at the Macon County Library.

What an exciting meeting we had. Other than the jokes from Jokemaster, Danny Clifton the meeting was April Fool Proof.

John Sapp, the VP of Marketing & Advertising for Drake Enterprises gave his “Ice Breaker” speech and had us all paying close attention as he told of his journey with a youth group and their subsequesnt Hijacking at machete point. It was easy to see that John has had some experience in front of a crowd and we’re grateful that he’s joined our group and look forward to many more enlightening and entertaining speeches in the future.

Our Immediate Past District 37 Governor, Mike Kesselring was on hand to stretch thinking as well as entertain on a whole different level of speech giving as he used his body and props to deliver a multi-level speech which was very educational. Mike was down on his knees for part of the speech and up on a chair which was a fence gate that he climbed in his early childhood to get away from a playful dog.

We all gained a new dimension of thinking in speech presentation from Mike for which we will all benefit as we advance through the Toastmasters’ sequence on our way to becoming better speakers.

Our own Phil Drake did a masterful job as the Topic’s Master. Phil also added a new twist with his everyday ‘Spy Kit’ (open to interpretation) and his two other pertinent questions that were thought provoking and even reflective for the group.

Our other special guest, Jean Robor, from the Burlington Toastmasters Club took Phil’s topic of  ’Our Current Economic State’ and showed us she’s been there and done that as she moved us to believe that we’re currently in a pretty good place even if things sometimes look a little rough.  It was easy to tell Jean has had some experience at the lectern as well. We thank her for sharing her skills and entertaining us as well.

All of our members performed their duties masterfully as always. The level of support and overall feeling of peaceful and joyous caring shared at these meetings is just unbelievable. We truely have one of the most amazing groups of caring individuals looking out for and encouraging each other to greater heights of personal achievement that I have ever experienced. It’s great to be back among you all.

Till next time - “May all your Wishes come true!”

Jim

A good time was had by all tonight at the “Pru” building…  President Emily Markham kicked off the evening with a tremendous theme, “Dreams, the seedlings of Reality”. She related a story about Leslie Newton, the daughter of one of her friends who had a dream to become a personal fitness trainer. Leslie was told by her peers that she didn’t have what it would take to become a good trainer… Too tall, too skinny, you know the “dream killers”… But Leslie affirmed that she in fact had enough “heart & desire” to overcome any odds and she did. It was a great story, and Emily told it well.

Danny Clifton was our “Grammarian” tonight… It’s always with great anticipation that we hear him bring forth the grammarian word of the evening.  One can always count on Danny to put a good deal of thought into bringing an interesting ”word” that will enrich our vocabulary, and he usually brings a cool application of the word in the form of a short story… Awesome Danny… Tonight he told us that the amount of vocabulary words a person posseses can have a direct effect on their positions in life. For example, CEOs have roughly a “vocabulary score” of 250, Managers, 190, and Workers 90.  So let’s keep growing our vocabularies! On a personal note, I think that the vocabulary correlation here is tranlated into the ability to express ones self more efficiently which in turn also helps one to be able to understand more of what one hears… and thus the World becomes, not a playground, but a “Learning Ground”. Thanks again Danny…

Whew… it’s late.. I will continue this tomorrow sometime…   But I will tell you that Michelle Hubbs “ROCKED” the place tonight… A near flawless speech… She took us on a journey through the space age beginning in the late 50’s with Sputnik.. the first man made satellite.. I can’t do the speech justice because Im falling asleep at the wheel here.. Will somebody else please take over!!  Good night…  ONE MORE THING… WELCOME BACK JIM A. 

Folks, this was a very good meeting… great fun.. and a happy atmosphere…. The meeting opened with Danny Clifton acting as the “S of A” followed by Phil Drake, the evening’s Toastmaster. Phil expounded on the meetings theme “Somethings happening here” by bring the audience up to date on some current events that are taking place in Franklin and Macon County. Phil told us that according to his retail business figures that revenues were the largest they’ve been in 3 years. He also noted many of the new business enterprises that have sprung up in the county along with an expansion in the building sector. Franklin is on the MOVE!

Michelle Hubbs was our grammarian and brought the word “Expunge” to our attention. I knew immedately what that word meant, because at one time in my adolescense I heard a judge tell the magistrate to “expunge” my record of all charges! Ha, and you think I’m a criminal? No!  It was a simple episode of “egg throwing”!   Expunge means to ERASE all record of any statement or charge.

Danny Clifton was the “Ah-UM” counter this evening. I believe we put him “out of business” for the most part.  All of this evenings speakers seemed almost flawless in regards to… ah… um… duh… ahem….etc…. We are all improving !

Phil Drake was our Joke  Master… Phil never ceases to amaze us… I don’t know where he gets his material, but it is always entertaining and interesting. This particular evening, he told us that he was a “math major” and then proceeded to daze us with stats that only the “Three Stooges” would really utilize or understand!  Phil deferred his real role to Duane, who told us a hilarious story about his son attempting to change the oil of his girlfriend’s car… ah.. and with the assistant of the girl friend… Needless to say it was a very funny disaster!  Nice story Duane!

Bald Head/ John Becker (ME) was the Table Topics Master…  I told the audience that their pet(s) would have an exclusive view of their behavior at home that no one else would be privy to and to tell us from their Pets perspective….. just what the Pet actually thought of them…. The responses were … well… you can just imagine now can’t you?  John Sapp told us about his Collie observing him trying to install an underground electronic dog fence… John, being a good sport revealed some things that were just crazy wrong….and told us that his Collie just cocked his head, drooped an ear.. as if to say… “John… you are one of the dumbest humans I’ve ever seen”!

Theresa, one of our new members told us a quick story about her dog and how she would alert the dog with a vocal command “KITTY” , “KITTY”! The dog would run to the window to see the cat, but when Theresa would say “GET EM”, that her dog would run BACK TO HER and away from the Kitty!

Our main speaker of the evening was the infamous and redoubtable, Kathy Clifton! Kathy executed a fine oratory this evening. NOT ONE “ah-um”!  Her speech was technically excellent. Great facial expressions, hand movement, audience eye contact, and good canvasing of the lecturn area.  Kathy’s speech was about “Passion” and her passion for her business, Exit Smokey Mountain Realty. She outlined the beginnings of her enterprise with a number of interesting facts about the Exit International Corp.  She proceeded to explain to us how her business has grown exponentially over the last 6 years and how this night was the company’s anniversary! We all enjoyed her speech and certainly felt the passion in which she spoke about this evening. Good job Kathy!

I would like to comment that on this particular evening the room seemed to be full of “joy”… Everyone was smiling, we all had such a good time and a lot of laughs!  Don’t forget to invite someone to come with you next week.  We will be meeting at the Prudential Markham Bankston Realty building at 5:30… BE THERE!!