Volume 1 - Issue 1 GUTS Gazette

“So much fun I want to get out of bed on Saturday morning to come” said Marty, who joined at the end of the meeting. “Thanks for the welcome and valuable evaluations” and “like all the Dramatics” were comments by our visitors. We had 27 people and the energy was felt from the GUTS cheer led by our President Lea Nicholson til the awards were handed out.

Toastmaster of the Day Beth Casteel masterfully wove the theme “Idioms” throughout the meeting. She used idioms from other cultures, familiar idioms, and enlightened us on how idioms may mean different things in a different culture. For example, we all know what “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” means in America. In Japan, to “scratch someone’s back” means to outsmart them. Many of Beth's idioms came from the new book I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears by Jag Bhalla.

Speeches were given by Jennifer, Jim and Carolyn.

Jennifer Robinson gave her speech from the CC Manual, Project #9 (#10 and completion of her CC is just around the corner!) titled “My Challenge of Learning Chinese in Taiwan.” Jennifer gave us a vivid and honest picture of her struggle and perseverance to become fluent in Chinese. She convinced me that as difficult as it would be, immersion into a language is a great way to learn even if it included watching Chinese horror and vampire pictures.

Jim Chamberlin’s speech of “Caught Between Two Worlds” entertained and gave us a glimpse into another Toastmaster Club.

Even though the PowerPoint presentation of her speech was unavailable, Carolyn Buttolph persevered and gave a detailed talk, from the Leadership Excellence Series, titled “Motivating People.” She shared how motivating people was a complex issue because no one is the same. The challenge is to “structure the environment” so that “people motivated themselves.”

No one could say “Don’t Get Caught with Your Pants Down” with Theresa Del Grippo facilitating Table Topics, as they gave their opinion on “My crazy one”(from Dominican Republic), “Chip on my Shoulder”, ”One’s belly boils over(from Japan), and “ One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Chris Harrop was not “… banging on the tea kettle” (long winded-Yiddish) pointing out our Dramatic moments. Chris succinctly told of our moments of outstanding speech craft.

Bernie Cohen “left no stone unturned” in telling us about our use of the word of the day “vernacular” or tallying our Ums and Ahs. He reminded us that when we feel the need to use an “Um or Ah” think period (.) and pause… in silence.

Anil Savkar did not “split any hairs” enlightening us to grammatical errors.
Alice Sasscer did not leave us “hanging by a thread" for long as she announced the award winners.

Best Table Topics went Paul White who did not answer the question asked but “smoothed his way into” a great story. Best Evaluator was Diane Tuluceanu who managed to come up with a few pointers for our seasoned Toastmaster Jim.

Carolyn Buttolph took best speaker award.

We “called it a Day” when Cindy Lai Robinson gave her remarks as General Evaluator. Cindy commented that a good evaluation follows the same outline as a speech with opening, body and conclusion where thoughts are restated in summary form.

All idioms used above were furnished by TMOD Beth Casteel in her program.
Another great, GUTS, gathering with food, fun and “food for thought.”

Submitted by Jarlene Buzzell