NI Speechmeisters

We are blasting off on our pathways! with Dr. Johnson leading the way last week, then this week Michael making his very first icebreaker speech.....and WINNING!!! Great job everyone!

What a great turnout at today's International Speech Contest and Evaluation Speech Contest! Congratulations to Jonathan and Nicholas for taking 1st Place in their respective categories!! A big thank you to Joe Jarrett for coming and representing our district. A HUGE Thank You to all of those who attended and helped make it a success.

Pathways has been released!!! Pathways offers 10 learning paths. All paths are based on one of five communication and leadership disciplines and include public speaking. Nine of the 10 paths are a combination of communication and leadership, with one path focused solely on public speaking.

Learn more here: https://www.toastmasters.org/Pathways-Overview

Did you see this months issue of Toastmasters Magazine? As presentation technology is evolving, you're able to create more interactive content with your speech. "Toastmasters are able to use a free app called Aurasma to experiment with augmented reality in their own presentations."

Here's how to use augmented in your next speech: https://youtu.be/pEVKtPEcgQg

Get your copy of Toastmasters Magazine: https://www.toastmasters.org/Magazine

This year will be our 25th year as a Toastmasters club! Please join us and make it to 26 with us, it's where leaders are made!

Fellow Toastmasters:

We have the following room changes coming up starting with this week.

8/30: Mopac C, Cafe 1 meeting room

9/6: Mopac B, Cafe

9/13: 1S15 (Home room)

9/20: Mopac B, Cafe

9/27: 1S15 (Home room)

Congratulations to our Storytellers!

I am happy to report that our very own Toastmasters prodigy, Darin Gillis, won the NI Speechmeisters Tall Tales contest with his story called "Gone Fishing". All who heard it can agree it was a humorously riveting tale with shockingly realistic photos.

Alejandro Buritica received the 2nd place award with an astounding story called "Jerry and the Gold Rush". Kudos to those who appreciated how Jerry changed his name to Jimmy following a remarkable series of events.

Darin will go on to represent NI Speechmeisters in the Austin Toastmasters Area Contest, with Alejandro as the backup.

Congratulations guys, and good luck in the upcoming contest!

Tall Tales Contest, August 24th

NI Speechmeisters will hold a “Tall Tales” contest on August 24th, during our regularly scheduled meeting time. As part of the contest, there will also be an Evaluation Contest to select a “Best Evaluator”. Winners will go on to the Area and District contests in September and October.

What is a “Tall Tale”?
For the purposes of the contest, a Tall Tale is any 5-7 minute themed speech or plot of a highly exaggerated, improbable nature,

Props are allowed and encouraged.

What about Evaluations?
Evaluators in the Evaluation Contest will listen to and evaluate a common speech given by an external speaker. Each evaluator will prepare a 2-3 minute evaluation following the prepared speech.

Who can enter the contest?
Any Toastmaster member in good standing

Can I enter both the “Tall Tale” and evaluation contest?
Absolutely.

What is the competition?
It’s fierce. So far, we have Alejandro Buritica, Michael Hagar, and Darin Gillis competing in the contest.

I can do better than those guys!
We can’t wait to see it! To enter the contest, please send your name to NI Speechmeisters president [email protected].

At our meeting this week, Bill Driver took the reigns as Toastmaster in an auspicious start to the new officer term. Congratulations to Darin Gillis for completing his Icebreaker with a couple fun stories about his "darin-g" audacity. I was almost blown away by his story of how a 3-2 vote auspiciously saved him from walking into a minefield on the Libyan border of Egypt. Alejandro Buritica led the Table Topics in a round of daring stories.

Congratulations to all the new officers starting their terms this month.

Bill Driver, President
Alejandro Buritica, VP Education
Kamaal Ahmed, VP Membership
Jonathan Brumley, VP Public Relations
Juan Gonzalez, Secretary
Michael Hagar, Sergeant at Arms
Darin Gillis, Treasurer

Today's NI Speechmeisters meeting was Chasmogamic!

April is “Invite a Friend” month, and a chance to win a $50 gift certificate!

The April "Invite a Friend" month contest will help increase awareness of the Toastmasters club here at National Instruments. We want to give everyone a chance to experience the benefit of working with us on public speaking skills. AND we want to add new members. New members add energy and fun to our meetings.

Contest Rules:

The member with the most points on May 1st will win a $50 gift certificate!

To get points, invite your friends to the meeting. Each time one of your colleagues attends as your guest to one of our April meetings, you get 1 point. Bonus: If your colleague returns as a guest in April, you get 1 more point for each return visit! Super Bonus: If your guest signs up as a member in April, you get 10 additional points!

To make sure you get points for your guests, make sure the guest signs the guest signup sheet and lists you as the member who invited them. OR, you can let one of the club officers know that a guest on the signup sheet attended because of your invitation.