Cedar Hill TM members "Walk the Walk."

Recently three members of Cedar Hill Toastmasters strolled the 5K "Making Strides Against Breast Cancer" walk in Hartford

to raise funds to fight breast cancer. A fourth team member was a breast cancer survivor. From L-R, Lizzie Legs, Boncal Buster, Marathon Martha.

Meeting - October 15

The meeting can be summarized as - Cedar Hill rocks!!! We had one guest in attendance last night.The meeting began with the introduction from Paul, Sergeant in Arms. He shared his grandmother's gardening tips on how to preserve the pansy plants over the winter.

Martha served the role of a Toastmaster and moved the meeting along. The word of the day "abstruse" came from Paula and many  skillfully used the word in the course of the meeting. Eliot as the Joke Master entertained with some light humor. 

Lyn, who is the recent winner of the Table Topics contest for Area 24, was the speaker of the evening. She presented her speech "Koo Koo Kangaroo" as project 5 - Your Body Speaks from the Competent Communicator manual. Lyn's was very entertaining in her story about attending a concert of Koo Koo Kangaroo group. As she demonstrated some of the dance moves from the concert, she got almost everyone jumping and stomping along with her. 

Kevin provided an evaluation of Lyn's speech. 

Joel stepped into the role of a Table Topics Master. He challenged everyone with a topic relating to hosting a guest from a foreign country as he was describing his recent experience with the Australian guests from the Friendship Force International. 

Joyce was the General Evaluator. She introduced her evaluation team consisting of one technician, Paul who served as a Timer and Grammarian. Paul kept track of time and those filler words that we tend to use. Joyce concluded her evaluation by recognizing each meeting participant individually with a Toastmaster cookie highlighting their contribution to last night's meeting. 

Paula, VP Education took roles for the next meeting on November 5.

Also, she reminded everyone about the upcoming Division Speech Contest on Wednesday, 

October 21.Our club member Lyn will be representing Area 24 in the Table Topics category at this contest. Please come out on Wednesday to cheer for Lyn. Congratulations and good luck to Lyn on this round of competition! 

Respectfully submitted by 

Martha Danielewicz

Secretary

Cedar Hill Toastmasters

The Winner

Lyn Wojik did us proud tonight. She won the Table Topics Area Contest held in Wallingford. She goes on to the Division contest to be held October 24 at Eversource. Come out and support her.

Winners

. . .  and the winners are

Fall Speech Contest at Cedar Hill Toastmasters

Last night was the Fall speech competition at Cedar Hill Toastmasters. Although, the attendance was low, we still managed to conduct the club contest featuring the Table Topics and Humorous speech. 

Paul was the Contest Master and ensured that the contest rules were announced and he moved the contest along. Paula was the Chief Judge. 

We had three contestants in the Table Topics category - Kevin, Eliot and Lyn. Each of them was given 2 minutes +/- 30 seconds to answer a question " If you were given one wish that would make a big difference. What would that be?" Lyn emerged as a winner of the Table Topics competition. 

Humorous speech contest featured one contestant - Kevin who presented a speech, an imaginary tale of King Arthur intertwined with some humor. Kevin was unanimously declared as a winner of the humorous contest. 

Congratulations to all participants. Lyn and Kevin will represent Cedar Hill Toastmasters at the Area 24 speech competition on Monday, October 12. Good luck to Lyn and Kevin. 

Also, Area 23 Director was in attendance as he was conducting the club visit and he helped cover one of the contest roles. 

Respectfully submitted by
Martha Danielewicz
Secretary 
Cedar Hill Toastmasters

Meeting - September 17

We had an interesting meeting, full of opportunities for everyone to speak and we also had lots of laughter throughout the evening. Kevin was the Toastmaster of the evening making sure we remain on track with the meeting agenda. Also, he reminded us to get credit on the meeting roles in the Competent Leadership manual.

Joyce challenged us with a work of the day - "palindrome". Just in case you did not know, there are also palindromic sentences, and Joyce exemplified a couple of them. Several members were very creative in their use of word throughout the meeting. 

Eliot put some humor into the meeting with the Joke of the Day. 

Before we moved on to the speaking part, Kevin asked John, club President, to announce the changes to the timing procedures at our club. Specifically, John introduced the new rule requiring the timer to make the red card conspicuous in the event the speaker was going over time. 

Larry as Speaker 1, presented a speech entitled "Political Smorgasbord" from the Entertaining Speaker series. Larry entertained us with his humorous opinions on several presidential race candidates. Joel stepped up as Speaker 2 with an impromptu speech "The Year's Biggest Story" in which he introduced us to the controversial issue of Patriots' deflated footballs and challenged some of the opinions on this issue. 

Both speakers were very passionate about the topics and there was no doubt that they had drawn the audience's attention and sparked a lot of enthusiasm. 

Larry's speech was evaluated by Eliot and Joel's speech was evaluated by Elizabeth.  

Larry was also the Table Topic Master and gave a chance to the members to express their opinions about the presidential candidates. Each Table Topic participant would draw a name from the bag and then the fun began. 

Paul was the General Evaluator, John performed the task of Timer and Martha presented the Grammarian report. 

Paula, VP Education, reminded us about the upcoming speech contest at our club on October 1. The featured categories are - Table Topics and Humorous Speech. Members are encouraged to participate in the contest. 

John concluded the meeting with the club business items. He informed that based on the latest officers' meeting, our club will make an effort to start and end the meeting on time. Also, he announced that he will be coordinating the mentor program and strongly encouraged members to take advantage of it. 

It's time to submit the club dues. They are due October 1. Please contact the Club Treasurer, Kevin, to take care of dues. 

Respectfully submitted by 

Martha Danielewicz

Secretary

Cedar Hill Toastmasters

Meeting - September 3

Hello Fellow Toastmasters, 

Yesterday, we another great meeting at Cedar Hill Toastmasters, with great attendance. Two guests joined us along for with the reporter from Newington Life publication. 

Paul was the Toastmaster for the evening. With some guests in attendance, he took the time to explain the roles performed in the meeting as the meeting went on. Elizabeth presented an invocation, a new addition to our meeting format. We shared an inspirational thought of bringing improvement into our lives by making small steps that eventually get us closer to the completion of a goal. 

Mike, the Word Master, encouraged us to use the word of the day "equivocal" in a sentence during the meeting thus building our vocabulary. 

Larry presented a great joke and got us all laughing. 

Then, we moved to the speaking part of the meeting. Speaker 1, John, delivered a speech from the Special Occasion speeches series. In his speech "A Toast", John was toasting to the Summer season and the beauty that it brings - the memorable moments with family and friends, fun times at the beach, games at the ballpark, etc. 

Speaker 2, Paula presented the speech from the leadership series. She shared her experience with working on the High Performance Leadership (HPL) project that aimed at achieving the distinguished status for our club. 

Speaker 3, Ilir gave his second speech from the Competent Communicator manual. In his speech "My Life in America" we learnt about his experiences in this country and how they shaped his vision on life and perseverance during the hard times. 

During the Table Topics session, Prend, our Topic Master, gave us a chance to practice impromptu speaking by answering simple, but often challenging questions. Prend asked everyone to vote for the best Table Topic presenter. Once the votes were counted, Kevin emerged as a winner. 

During the Evaluations, the evaluators analyzes the speeches and provided the verbal and written feedback to the speakers. Joyce evaluated John, Kevin evaluated Paula and Elizabeth evaluated Ilir. 

Eliot performed the role of General Evaluator. Paula delivered the timer's report and Paul as a Grammarian was keeping score of our grammar and the use of filler words. 

John, the President of club, concluded the meeting reminding officers about the officers' meeting on September 17. Also, John reminded us about the upcoming speech contest at our club on October 1. The speech contest will be in two categories - Humorous Speech and Table Topics. Members are encouraged to participate in the contest. 

Everyone, have a great holiday weekend. 

Respectfully submitted by
Martha Danielewicz

Cedar Hill Toastmasters