“Mothers”

The meeting was called to order by President John Desmond at 11:38. There were ten members and one guest present.

Tita Taylor led the pledge and shared with us her Thought of the Day.  John acknowledged the attendance of Buddy Cheeks, a returning guest, who later pitched in to assist one of our speakers with his PowerPoint presentation.  Grammarian Beth McNally, presented the Word of the Day, “propitiate” – a transitive verb which carries the meaning: to render favorably inclined; to appease; to conciliate.

The minutes for the previous (Mar. 2) meeting had not yet been posted, thus approval of same was postponed and John introduced the Toastmaster of the day, Laura Buzin.

Laura noted the theme of today’s meeting: “Mothers,” and then called upon Gen. Evaluator Steven Martindale to introduce his team which included:

      Timer: John Desmond

      Ah-Counter: Jay Ortiz

      Grammarian:  Beth McNally

      Speech Evaluator #1: JD Austin (for Mike Trier)

      Speech Evaluator #2: Beth McNally (for Pat Honzay)

Laura then introduced the Topic Master of the day, Dolores, who – in keeping with the day’s maternal theme - called upon Mike, Beth, Tita & Steven to extemporaneously share their thoughts on mothers and motherhood.      

Mike was our first formal speaker, presenting a non-manual speech project on “Hispanic Reading Achievement.”  This fact-filled research project is a precursor to a series of Advanced TM speech projects he has in the works.  Mike was followed to the podium by Pat Honzay, who recently joined RioCopa and favored the assemblage with her Icebreaker speech.

General Evaluator Steven called for reports from the evaluation team and then presented his general meeting evaluation.  Among his notations was the late start of the meeting, which inspired him to be brief and return control of the meeting to Laura.  Laura reminded the group that anyone who had dues checks for the upcoming term should turn them in to Tita, and then returned meeting control to John.

John concluded the meeting by mentioning his and JD Austin’s participation as Timers at last Saturday’s Area Speech & Evaluation contest; the possibility of a guest TM speaker (soon) on the subject of performing speech evaluations; and

RioCopa’s status as the G4 Area leader (7 points) in the Distinguished Club Program. 

Asked for any guest comments, Buddy replied that he was prepared to submit his TM application, and was referred to Mike for assistance in that process.  Members were again reminded how they can submit their dues in a timely manner, as we get DCP credit for doing so:

§         Submit your check ($24) to Tita. (Alternate drop-off: Rio 4th Floor receptionist, “attn: John Desmond”;

§         Go online: http://www.riocopa.org; look for Member Resources, left-hand column; then “Pay Your Dues.”

We ended our meeting at 12:32.

Submitted by,

John Desmond