This week’s meeting was a little more formal than our
regulars. In fact, this meeting was different for a few reasons, and by a few
reasons I mean just one fundamental reason. September 26th was our
Electric Toaster’s Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contests. It was yet
another week full of impromptu role volunteering, and as always our attending
members stepped to the plate.
There was no Thought of the Day, so instead I stole a quote
from our Toastmaster Craig: “Truthfully that is the best way to get the most
out of Toastmasters—to just jump right in and go for the gusto.”
I think it’s worth taking a moment to acknowledge that Craig
really walks his talk on the subject. For as long as I’ve been attending our
Toastmasters chapter he’s been consistently stepping up to fill roles on the
fly, often some of the more difficult ones on the spot. So my hat’s off to you.
ANNOUNCEMENT: We have an official new member: Greg
Bingham. Welcome to ET!
HUMOROUS SPEECH
CONTEST
The Skinny: Firstly, the content of each speech had to be
original to qualify in the contest. Each of the three contestants required a timing
of 5 – 7 minutes. Contestants whose speeches were less than 4 ½ minutes or
longer than 7 ½ minutes would be disqualified. Appointed judges would mark up
points based off of the criteria rubric they’d been handed. The appointed
counter, Jean, would then tally up the scores to determine the winners. The
order of each speech’s deliver was selected at random.
Contestant 1: Karen Groth – Outhouses, Mice, and Other
Critters
Karen volunteered to do this speech about a minute or two
before she delivered it. She told us about growing up in her parents’
farmhouse. They had an outhouse out there, and her experience in it caused her
to live in mortal terror of spiders, which I assume must’ve been crawling all
over her. She had a high point with mice, albeit short-lived. It was when a
mother mouse that ran past her with three baby mice trailing behind. Apparently,
since then mice have organized an association dedicated to harassing her.
She told us about her place at the beach. They love to eat
her kitchen towels, her cleaning clothes, and her sofas. Evidently they don’t
like Kleenex for some peculiar reason. My guess is out of reverence to the
Great Green Arkleseizure, who sneezed out the universe (See Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). One
day a chipmunk came running into Karen’s house (looking for Dale, no doubt). She
and her husband had quite a difficult time shooing it out.
They’ve also had trouble with baby squirrels nesting in the
roof. Her husband barricaded the hole, and then the mother squirrel began screaming
bloody murder. They figured it must’ve meant there were still baby squirrels in
there so they unblocked it to let them out. Then they put the barricade back up.
Mama squirrel started screaming again. This cycle went on until finally all the
babies left.
Karen wraps up her speech by informing us that she doesn’t
like Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, or any of their children. Clearly, Karen is no
fan of rodents, but they all seem quite fond of her. Well... of her house, anyway.
Contestant 2: Craig Jones – Twenty Pounds of Trouble
Contestant 2: Craig Jones – Twenty Pounds of Trouble
Over the course of their marriage, Craig and his wife have
had several dogs. They were always big dogs, and they were always outside dogs.
Finally they decided one day to adopt a small dog: a beshon-shitzu mix weighing
about twenty pounds. Her name was Lucy Lu. As soon as they brought her home
they immediately realized that a name like that didn’t appropriately fit the
character of their new dog. The more fitting name they came up with is [drum
roll]… Night Terror! No, I’m lying; they renamed her to Sassy.
She was their first dog ever to be allowed in the house, being
that she is hypoallergenic. Sassy likes to tease the cat by running up to its
face and fall back before it can land a swipe at her. One of Craig’s favorites
things about Sassy is that every day when he gets home, she’s staring out the
window looking out for his car, and when she sees him, she knows it’s time to
play. Sassy will grab a small chew-bone, and he’ll chase her across the
hardwood floor, which causes her to slip and slide all over the place until she
finally reaches a patch of carpet.
Another is the classic fake-out. Holding the bone, he throws
his arm but keeps it in his hand, and Sassy bolts down the hall after it. By
the time he tosses it for real she realizes she’s too far away. So she turns back
to run towards it, but her momentum over the frictionless surface causes her
body to continue that direction as she runs backwards (Jackson’s got nothing on
her).
Sassy loves Craig’s son’s dog, PD (short for ‘Pug Dog’).
When they drive to visit his son she knows from two blocks away and goes wild. As
soon as the door opens she’s bursting through the hall and chasing after him
around the house. For a few minutes anyway, until her little body is depleted
and she crashes for a while. And the she goes wild again.
Contestant 3: Mike Fajen – Swap Meet Mania
Contestant 3: Mike Fajen – Swap Meet Mania
Growing up, Mike’s parents were devout churchgoers, but
sometimes they would take a Sunday off and go to the Swap Meet at the Drive-In
Theatre. He described the experience to be, “as colorful and diverse as the
Star Wars bar scene.” One time there was a “potential gold mine” of a booth in
particular that caught his eye: booth 122. Loaded with bikes, stereos, ham
radio equipment, and CBs, he joyously began rummaging to look for a price tag.
Then he heard a voice [insert grouchy voice], “get your hands off the goods!” His
brother, who was examining a skateboard for sale, was similarly treated. Mike
explained that all he wanted was just to know the prices. The grump didn’t
care; he rudely stated it was too expensive for them and to pike off. The two
were shocked at this man’s crudeness, but later they hatched a mischievous plan
to teach him a lesson.
One of the features of the swap meet was the announcements
that came on the radio, usually mundane and repetitive. So they went into the
snack shack to inquire about how expensive it would be to air an announcement.
“Three repeats for twenty-five cents.” So they paid the quarter and wrote out
an announcement. Several announcements came and went, but they never heard the
one they wrote. Mike thought maybe they’d checked to verify it first. Then they
finally heard it:
“Attention bargain hunters, everything in booth 122 is free.
The man wants to go home. Please help yourself, so that he may pack up and
leave.”
People from all over the swap meet came running for that booth.
He was shouting and cursing and grabbing his stuff back from people. Each time
the announcement was repeated the chaos grew as more and more people coagulated
around his booth, driving the man insane. He yelled and argued with people, and
tried putting a box over his booth number, which was taken off. Not too long
after the last repeat he and his brother decided to get out while the gettin’
was good.
TABLE TOPICS CONTEST:
Four of us volunteered to participate in the Table Topics
Contest. The order was decided by each of us chooses a number between 1 and 20.
Greg was selected to go first, the other three of us ushered outside the room
to wait until we were called upon. One by one we came in and delivered our best
topic speech based off the question. Again, there was a timing limit of 1 – 2
minutes, and going over meant disqualification.
The contest question delivered by Jeff Brookes: “Close your
eyes and think of the outdoors, when thinking of beauty, size, or something
that greatly impacted you, what do you see. Why did it impact you?”
Contestant 1: Greg – Told us about working controls at Mt.
Bachelor, working night and day shifts until the job was done. In mid-summer,
he was standing on the mountain, overlooking the horizon as the sun was
setting/rising (he couldn’t remember which). He also remembers that experience
because of an accident that next day that he called “one of [his] almost
greatest failures.”
Contestant 2: Ben – Trying to think of something better, what kept surfacing was a summer day I spent in John Day. At age ten I went bicycling with family up a small mountain. Taking a break, we took a picture next to a huge boulder, and headed back. Going downhill, my speeding bike got trapped in a tractor track until I crashed into a rock that sent me flying off. The bike had horns on the ends of the handles and one snagged my pants in the groin. I avalanched down the hill, pulling my bike down with me.
Contestant 3: Myron – Originally from Seattle, when asked the question, two things come to mind for Myron. They are Mt. Rainier and Mt. Hood. As time continues to pass he feels that the effect of those two mountains has only increased. Both he and his father have climbed Mt. Rainier, and has climbed Mt. Hood a couple of times as well. “Somehow it just astounds me that there’s this big gigantic mass of ice and rock… not so far from a relatively major metropolitan area.”
Contestant 4: Shannon – Shannon grew up at her grandma’s in rural Ohio. She’s always loved the outdoors and would often be found playing by the creek in the woods behind the house. As an adult she often feels like she never has a moment’s peace to herself. To relax from the stresses of daily life she loves to retreat into the wild. In fact, she was happy to share that later that afternoon she would be escaping to Sauvies Island. One of the reasons she enjoys it so much there is because it reminds her of the area she grew up in.
Contestant 2: Ben – Trying to think of something better, what kept surfacing was a summer day I spent in John Day. At age ten I went bicycling with family up a small mountain. Taking a break, we took a picture next to a huge boulder, and headed back. Going downhill, my speeding bike got trapped in a tractor track until I crashed into a rock that sent me flying off. The bike had horns on the ends of the handles and one snagged my pants in the groin. I avalanched down the hill, pulling my bike down with me.
Contestant 3: Myron – Originally from Seattle, when asked the question, two things come to mind for Myron. They are Mt. Rainier and Mt. Hood. As time continues to pass he feels that the effect of those two mountains has only increased. Both he and his father have climbed Mt. Rainier, and has climbed Mt. Hood a couple of times as well. “Somehow it just astounds me that there’s this big gigantic mass of ice and rock… not so far from a relatively major metropolitan area.”
Contestant 4: Shannon – Shannon grew up at her grandma’s in rural Ohio. She’s always loved the outdoors and would often be found playing by the creek in the woods behind the house. As an adult she often feels like she never has a moment’s peace to herself. To relax from the stresses of daily life she loves to retreat into the wild. In fact, she was happy to share that later that afternoon she would be escaping to Sauvies Island. One of the reasons she enjoys it so much there is because it reminds her of the area she grew up in.
CHUCK NORRIS:
After all the speeches and table topics contest speeches
were made, it took a few minutes for all the points to be tallied up and the
contest winners announced. Fortunately, I came in prepared with some Chuck
Norris jokes in the event that we needed time to burn. So while the winners
were being determined I told this joke: “Chuck Norris’s calendar goes from
March 31st to April 2nd, because nobody fools Chuck Norris.”
CONTEST WINNERS:
The winners of today’s two contests, Mike Fajen for the
Humorous Speech, and Myron Peto for the Table Topics, will be representing the
Electric Toasters chapter as they move on to the next stage of the contest.
Second place winners Craig and Shannon will be on standby to replace them if
need be, should they for some reason can’t make it. Congratulations!
THE HUMOROUS SPEECH CONTEST
1st - Mike Fajen
2nd - Craig Jones
3rd - Karen Groth
1st - Mike Fajen
2nd - Craig Jones
3rd - Karen Groth
THE TABLE TOPICS CONTEST
1st - Myron
2nd - Shannon
3rd - Ben
1st - Myron
2nd - Shannon
3rd - Ben
