The meeting was called to order by President John Desmond at . There were eleven members and two guests present.
JD Austin led the pledge and shared with us his Thoughts of the Day, “Earth Day is an occasion to reflect on what we can do to make our fragile world a cleaner, healthier, safer place to live,” Christopher Dodd- Senator from Connecticut. Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s when you had everything to do, and you’ve done it,” Lord Acton-one of the foremost historians of the 19th century. “You can have anything you want if you will give up the belief that you can’t have it.” – Robert Anthony, author.
John acknowledged the attendance of Joshua Darland, a returning guest, who is becoming a member in this meeting and giving his Ice Breaker Speech too. Buddy Cheeks brought us another guest today, Ai Co Abercrombie, who is a South Mountain Community College advisor.
Grammarian Glenda Humes, presented the Word of the Day, Quotidian – found in the course of ordinary events, “ a placid everyday scene.” Synonyms are: everyday, mundane, unremarkable, workaday, and routine.
John introduced the Toastmaster of the day, JD Austin, who then called upon Gen. Evaluator Azra Mahmood to introduce her team which included:
Timer: Buddy Cheeks
Ah-Counter: Jay Ortiz
Grammarian: Glenda Humes
Speech Evaluator #1: John Desmond (for Nick Orlando)
Speech Evaluator #2: Sandia Hayes (for Joshua Darland)
The members voted unanimously to have Joshua Darland as a new member and to reinstate Vashi Worley as a member.
JD then introduced the Topic Master of the day, Pat Honzay, who asked us questions about Earth Day. John Desmond felt we can save the environment by each of us moving to a desert island so we would need no clothing and would use the elements around us and thus save the environment of the United States. I’m not sure if we would be able to save the island’s environment if we using its elements to survive and since we were each to live on a different island I think I’d suffer from too much aloneness.
Sandia Hayes felt the benefits of carpooling were more than just keeping the air clean. She told us of the psychological benefits of stress management by sharing frustrations with another prior to getting home and facing family; the educational benefits of sharing recipes, learning new vocabulary words, and getting a wine list from other carpool members. There was another way to use even less fuel and that would be for her insist her husband buy her a new Harley so all the carpool members could ride their bikes to work and save the environment even more.
Mike Trier shared with us a rather funny song, which he remembered from the very beginnings of Earth Day.
Even Ai Co joined us by sharing what she would do to instill enthusiasm in people to save our environment. She would teach people to be good to themselves and to live in balance with themselves and other.
Nick Orlando did his usual magnificent job of entertaining us with his after dinner speech, “It’s fun to do the impossible,” while showing us his impossible feat of tying a rope in a knot without letting usof the ends – notjust once, but three times during his presentation.
We learned much about Joshua Darland as he presented his first speech, “Ask me about the arts.” You could hear the passion he has for the arts as he told us of his volunteer positions with the different ones he loves best. He also gave us two websites which we can look through to find out what is happening in Phoenix in the arts: ArtlinkPhoenix.com and Showup.com. He explained the artists in Phoenix share themselves with the public on what is called “First Friday.” One can learn more about this on the websites.
John shared what will be happening at the district level and th national level just prior to closing our meeting at 12:40 pm. Again we started late and ended late.
