Thursday, April 28, 2011

March & April Speeches

March started with the International Speech Contest (3/2) and the Evaluation Competition (3/9). On 3/16 Amy VanCamp delivered her Ice Breaker, sharing with us the different places she lived and how she came to run her own coffee business in Texas, moved to Portland and started her own PR firm. Craig Jones told a story of "borrowing" someone's boat for a  mission impossible that ended up with hauling down to the police station.

Jackie Scherer shared a „crazy story” of persistence during the 3/23 meeting. From getting up early and hitting the peak slopes in Oregon, California and Utah, to teaching her kids to never say “I can’t”. Time after time, injury after injury, she’s always gotten back up on her skies. Bachir Salpagarov took us on a trip to Karachay. We climbed the snowy peak of Mt. Elbrus, visited his home city, learned about the Karachay language, customs and traditions and a rich diversity that was sheltered from the rest of the world by the Iron Curtain and news of war and terrorism in the surrounding regions. One of the seven republics of the Northern Caucasia suddenly became very close to us.

The last meeting in March brought Sarah Skinner's meaningful story of learning from mistakes. Did you know failure is just succeeding at the wrong thing? Carrie Henderson, a seasoned speaker of Electric Toasters, proved that we toast, too, and we toast well! Carrie was mastering her toast for a dear friend, Carol.

April brought some interesting speeches as well. On 4/6 Jason Kent presented El Salvador from a perspective of  a Habitat for Humanity volunteer. Jason went to South America to build houses for a community of Salvadorians without real homes.

April was rich in great speeches as well. During the 4/1 meeting Laurel Vallarta talked about the extreme sleeping techniques (demonstration included!) and Jeff Brooks introduced his new best friend, who happens to swallow a lot of objects but seem to be now back on track with focusing on nice bones to chew instead.

On 4/20 Mike Fajen spoke about diet and how three things are suspects in people’s health problems: gluten, sugar and dairy products. Guest Shane Kennedy practiced for the division speech contest with the Socratic Warrior theme and a speech about his experience at Marine officer candidate school.

Open House on 4/27 had Ania Osińska-Bulloff delivered a speech on a desire to travel the world from the comfort of one's own home, the invention of the Airstream, and where the vehicle has taken people in the world and in their lives.


Published by Ania Osińska-Bulloff, VP of Public Relations

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