I’m just going to start off by making note that this week’s
recap is going to come up a little short. For whatever reason my recorder quit
on me less than twenty minutes through the meeting. My memory is already a
little foggy about some of that meet, and I’d sooner cut the parts I’m unsure about
over rambling on with inaccuracies.
“I’ve had the opportunity to discover a new place a couple weeks ago. It was wonderful to have a break. It was wonderful to see new and exciting things to explore. So I encourage everybody at every opportunity to explore new places.”
October 10th’s ‘Word of the Day,’ imperative,
was given to us by Grammarian Ryan. Imperative is defined as something
absolutely necessary or required; unavoidable. Jeff found himself having quite
a lot of fun with this word. I believe in his grammarian report Ryan chalked
Jeff’s usage to four counts (to me it felt closer to twenty).
SPEAKER 1: Angela –
“A Team Meeting”
The speech Angela shared with us had been composed for her
team at work. She had prepared a PowerPoint presentation to go with it, but for
last minute reasons she had to share a printout of the slides instead. Evidently
Angela recently posted her resignation from her current management role. To allude
to how she felt about her team and the oncoming challenges they face, she drew
parallels from a thoroughly thought out metaphor about the Iditarod.
Like sled dogs, her team members exhibit similar qualities,
those being their stamina, speed, thick coats, endurance, and a love of work.
“If you ask them to do something, they will give it 110% simply because you
asked them to,” Angela said, quoting an Iditarod musher. In her slide she
mentions the lack of snow in some of the pictures. The pups who’ve never ran an
Iditarod aren’t aware of what they’re training for until they get there. She
compares this to the next few weeks of uncertainty during the transition of her
leaving.
Angela then went into a story about a rookie Iditarod musher
whose lead dog got a sore wrist, and had no choice but to leave it behind at a
checkpoint. The same thing happened to her next two lead dogs. She tried twelve
of her remaining thirteen dogs hoping to find a new lead. None of them worked
out. She was left with the thirteenth dog ‘Gopher,’ a follower who in Angela’s
words “never had an original thought in his life.” To her surprise Gopher took
them all the way to Nome, because leadership can emerge in sometimes unexpected
ways.
SPEAKER 2: Craig – “A
Vacation to Remember”
Craig put together a speech for us minutes before presenting,
which he called “A Vacation to Remember.” After moving “from heaven… into
Detroit” for a two year stay, he decided to take him and his family on two
vacations. One of which was in Kitty Hawk, famous for the Wright brothers of
Dayton, Ohio. Heading through the Smokey Mountains, he described them as
‘totally unimpressive mountains,’ well compared to the Saw Tooth Mountains in
Canada and here in Oregon.
After that they went on a camping trip, only to find out
that they had arrived just in time to be hailed on by an oncoming hurricane.
Craig said he’d gone through tornadoes, earthquakes, and thunderstorms, but it
was his first experience being stuck in a hurricane. Though perhaps a little
wetter than he’d hoped, he nonetheless was grateful for the experience and
challenged us to seek similar adventure in our own lives.
EVERYTHING ELSE:
The week’s Table Topics was provided by Topicsmaster Jean
Pirkl, who gave us some great questions. Evaluations were then delivered by
Kerry who evaluated Angela, and Jeff who evaluated Craig’s speech. Gail Worden
served as General Evaluator. Mike delivered to us his Timer’s Report, and Sue
did the same as our Ah-Counter.
- Best Speaker Awarded to Angela Mahoney.
- Best Evaluator Awarded to Jeff Brooks.
- Best Table Topics Awarded to Gerard (Guest).
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