On the fly or Can I Buy You a Drink?

Tuesday, July 10, 2007
15 Attendees
Word of the Day - Bastion

How many of you have been faced with the following scenario? You’ve been asked to participate in a meeting that starts at 10am. While you gather with other attendees you get a call or a head pops into the conference room. Your supervisor is running late and you are asked to conduct the meeting until (s)he arrives. What do you do?

Attendees of today’s meeting witnessed one such occasion. Due to a variety of reasons out of our control, we often have to take life as it comes, wing it so to speak.

Our featured speaker was unable to present her presentation during the meeting and we needed to improvise. Part of what Toastmasters is all about is to teach you how to think on your feet and to deal with unexpected situations. Participants perform various functionaries; discuss table topics and present projects to a very supportive and constructive group of peers.

Without second thought, the club decided to extend the table topics to cover for the opening in the program. Club President Joe Simpson served as the Table Topics Master and after a brief debate over the true meaning of the Word of the Day (Bastion) – was it a noun or verb or adjective – we moved briskly through the topics.

The topics started with Joe bringing a large red cooler from beneath the podium and plopping it down on the table. Opening it up, he invited various members and guests to have a drink after they spoke about a topic related to the drink they chose.

For example, Sergeant at Arms Cynthia Jimerson spoke about the benefits of Green Tea; Gene Hargreaves talked about drink boxes and grandkids; member Tony Li discussed whether tap water was any worse than bottle water; Vice President of Education Paul Burke extolled the virtues of vitamin or sports drinks; although he didn’t drink coffee, guest Mike Gainor changed topic and discussed his drink of choice.

Again, being able to improvise and make the best out of a fluid situation is one of things you’ll get practice at here in the Toastmasters @ Metro. What a great turnout (15 total) – bring a lunch and we’ll see you next week!