by Denise McConnell DTM Club Growth Director
San Angelo Toastmasters held its annual Open House and Charterversary Event on Thursday, May 29th, celebrating the club’s nine-year journey since its inception. Jason Jett (President) welcomed attendees and introduced Pam Davis, one of the founding members, who recounted the club’s history. Initially established as Angelo State Toastmasters, the club originally held their meetings on the campus of Angelo State University (hence the club’s-chartered name). In 2018, the members rebranded with a name change to San Angelo Toastmasters to better engage the public. Pam’s anecdotes and humor contributed to the celebratory atmosphere, setting a positive tone for this event.
Toastmaster Sallie Spradlin-Jett outlined the agenda, which included prepared speeches, tall tales, and table topics, while highlighting the club’s achievements over the years, such as awards and membership milestones.
Grammarian Kym Schubert introduced the word of the day, “anecdote,” encouraging participants to use it in their speeches. She also mentioned her role in monitoring speech elements during the meeting.
Timer Larry Prince provided a detailed timing schedule for the various speeches, ensuring that each speaker adhered to their allotted time.
New member Chris Armstrong delivered his icebreaker speech titled “The Meaning of a Name,” focusing on legacy and personal anecdotes.
Benjamin Boyer shared his transformative journey, emphasizing small decisions that led to a healthier lifestyle in his speech titled “Start With One.”.
Guest Frank Jaworski gave a tall tale, “”30 Minutes or Less.” Larry Prince entertained the audience with his humorous tall tale “Grandpa’s Boots.” Karen Shadden gave a hilarious tall tale “One Foggy Morning.”
Table Topics Master Jason Jett then gave the audience tall tale prompts in which everyone could exercise their own skills in building a tall tale – impromptu style! Pam Davis, Jai Erwin, and Jesse Ford all did a marvelous job at presenting their own tall tale on the fly! (Congratulations, Jesse for winning the friendly table topics competition!)
The evaluation segment featured guest Chris Ritz as the General Evaluator, who introduced Hilda Guffey to assess Chris Armstrong’s icebreaker speech. Hilda praised Chris for his compelling delivery while suggesting improvements for visual aids. Joyce Trimble evaluated Benjamin Boyer’s prepared speech, commending his engaging style (with added emphasis on the googlie eyes) but noting technical issues with microphone placement. These evaluations aimed to provide constructive feedback to enhance the speakers’ future performances, contributing to the overall growth and development of the club’s members.
For an additional treat, Area Director Chris Ritz gave an overview of his role this year and challenged the members of San Angelo in achieving the D25 individual incentives and club incentives within the remaining thirty days of the Toastmasters year.
A special message from club member and District Director Jesse Ford included the acronym HOME: Helping Others Means Everything – a task that is well carried out by the members of San Angelo!
This event was an incredible success with three guests in attendance!
Happy 9th Charterversary, San Angelo Toastmasters!
