March 18th Meeting

Our theme for the evening was "Sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left." by Itzhak Perlman, Symphonic Violinist. DTM Tim Manson later explained to us how this violinist was playing his violin in a concert when a string broke in the middle of a song. Because his fellow musicians continued to play, Itzhak Perlman recomposed the music he played to avoid the notes requiring the broken string. Table Topics for the evening dealt with this theme.

We had an exciting meeting! It's always a little more exciting to have a meeting when there are guests and lots of prepared speakers. On the 18th we had three guests and three prepared speakers!

Our Guests:

We had returning guests Elsa Lozoya and Gale Brazier visit and announce their intentions to join the club! We also had an MBA student from Mary Hardin Baylor, Victoria Lin, visit. Victoria is Chinese and English is not her first language, although her English was very good. She hopes to join Toastmasters next semester if her schedule allows in order to improve her English and to help her understand American culture better.

Our Prepared Speeches:

CC Lita Daniel gave a demonstration speech from an Advanced Toastmasters manual about table settings and what to do with all of the dishes and silverware at a formal dinner. She even brought some wine glasses to show us that different wines require different shaped glasses and why. It was a very interesting speech.

Next, ACB/CL Frank Jaworski regaled us with a toast from the Specialty Speeches Advanced Toastmasters manual. He reminded us old-timers about when the club began almost five years ago! But he also gave a brief history of the club to help newcomers understand how far we've come in the last five years. Unfortunately, we cannot have beverages (aside from water) in our new building, but we Toastmasters have active imaginations and enjoyed the toast anyway.

Our last speaker of the evening is one of our newest members, Lynn Johnson. She gave speech #2 from the Competent Communicator manual and showed us exactly why she has joined Texas Stars Toastmasters. Her speech was one she would give at her company's Board of Directors meeting and showed her prowess as a businesswoman. Lynn has prior public speaking experience from being in Toastmasters in the past and that training really came through. She convinced Texas Stars Toastmasters that she is an up and coming force to be reckoned with!

Table Topics were conducted by ACB/ALB D. Kirkland and even though we had three speeches, we were able to have a few Table Topics.

Evaluators for the evening were: Bob Daigneault for Lynn Johnson, Tim Manson for Frank Jaworski and Anna Jaworski for Lita Daniel.

The Toastmaster for the evening was DTM Tim Manson. Here is Tim handing out the awards for the evening:

Best Table Topic Speaker: Katie

Best Evaluator: ACS/CL Anna Jaworski

Best Speaker: Lynn Johnson

Announcement: During our first meeting in April we will have a New Member Induction service.

March 11th Meeting

We had a great meeting last week with many people in attendance at the portable building we're now meeting in at Christ the King Catholic Church in Belton.

Unfortunately, no one came with a prepared speech, so we did Table Topics the Tim Manson way. We had Extended Table Topics -- which means we were given our Table Topic and had to speak for 3-5 minutes, instead of the typical 1-2 minutes. This exercise was developed by our Vice President-Education, Tim Manson, DTM, to show members that they can indeed give a 5-minute speech.

Our Table Topics Master for the evening was one of our newest members, Lynn Johnson. She did an excellent job and provided the club with considerable food for thought. The winner? Frank Jaworski and his topic related to the hard economic times our country is now facing.

Here is a photo of Frank Jaworski, ATM-B, CL accepting his award for Best Table Topic speaker from our Toastmaster of the evening, another new member -- D. Kirkland, ACM-B, AL-B.

March 4, 2009 Meeting

The quote for the week of 3/4/09 was "I do the very best I know how -- the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end." -- Abraham Lincoln

We had one delightful Ice Breaker speech by Lynn Johnson. She did a terrific job. It was easy to see she has had previous Toastmasters' training. Here she is accepting her award for Best Speech of the evening from Distinguished Toastmaster Tim Manson.



I had the honor of evaluating Lynn. Here is a picture of me accepting the Best Evaluator award from Distinguished Toastmaster Tim Manson.



New member Kathy Thrush was our Table Topics Master and she did a fabulous job! She gave all of us fun quotes to work with. The one I got had to deal with someone saying something kind to you that perhaps you didn't deserve at the time, but you worked hard to be deserving of at a later date. That reminded me of my sister who gave me a book and wrote in it that I was a great writer. I hadn't written or published anything yet, but I wanted that to be true. Today I have published 3 books, written for two medical textbooks and one nursing journal. I am thankful my sister believed in me like she did.

For that quote and my story, I won Best Table Topic! Here is DTM Tim Manson giving me that award.


I hope everyone enjoyed the meeting as much as I did! I'm looking forward to our meeting tomorrow night.

Texas Stars Toastmasters

Greetings! This blog is being started for Texas Stars Toastmasters, a central Texas Toastmasters club. We meet on Wednesday nights at Christ the King Catholic Church at 6 p.m. We are currently meeting in Portable Building #1.

Officers (as of March 2009):

President: Anna Jaworski, ATM-S/CL
Vice President-Education: Tim Manson, DTM
Vice President-Membership: Lita Daniel, CC
Vice President-Public Relations: D. Kirkland, ATM-S/CL
Secretary: Janet Scherer, ATM-B/CL
Treasurer: Bob Daigneault
Sergeant-at-Arms: Frank Jaworski, ATM-B, CL

On February 25th, we had an induction ceremony. This was exciting and we're so happy to welcome new members to the club! Welcome Sue, Kathy, Lynn, D. and Carrie!

We also had one speaker, so Sue Tullier received the Best Speaker award that evening. Here is Toastmaster Janet Scherer congratulating Sue Tullier on her achievement.



Distinguished Toastmaster Tim Manson was our evaluator. Here is Janet Scherer giving Mr. Manson his trophy.



Mr. Manson also had the distinction of winning Best Table Topic for the evening. Here he is accepting his award.