This month began a new annual tradition for our club as well with the Norwalk club, our
Annual Inter-Club Debate. This year's topic was "Outsourcing Labor to Foreign Countries - For or Against". The meeting was opened with an extemporaneous with members from either club in the audience open to participate. The topics that for the extemporaneous debate was "School Cameras in Public Schools - For or Against". All presentations were very competitive. We look forward
to next year's event.
This month ended with our exciting "International Speech Contest". This year's competition featured veteran speakers as well as some quite new ones. Congratulations to Melanie Szlucha and James Jorasch for winning their respective contests in the 2004 International Speech and Tall Tales Club Contest. We would extend a round of applause to all members who participated in this year's contest.
Both of these events were very well attended by members and guests alike.
January, 2004
This month was the beginning of a regular schedule for one our most popular
special events, Comedy Improv Night.
Our workshop will now have a regular slot on the second Wednesday of every month.
Please check our official schedule to confirm
upcoming dates.
December, 2003
Our 2003 Holiday Party occurred at Jazzmine's in early December. It was reported that we had a good turnout, great food and interesting conversation. It also featured our 2nd Annual Story-Telling Experience - an always unique extemporaneous group exercise.
October, 2003
A warm congratulations to Paul Bailo for his second place victory in the
2003 District 53 Table Topics Contest. The District level is the highest level
one can go for competing in Toastmasters' Table Topics contest.
Read the newspaper coverage.
September, 2003
Congratulations to Paul Bailo and James Jorasch for winning their respective contests in the 2003 Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contest.
April - June, 2003
Yet another Stamford Toastmaster shined at the 2003 Toastmasters District Level Contest/ conference. Check out the results of the Spring 2003 Speech Contests for all the details.
Also at the District 53 Spring Contest Conference was
Joe Coldebella offering a seminar titled "Unleashing the Vocal Variety Tiger From Within". Based on his
wildly successful Table Topics at the Stamford Club meetings, this
seminar demonstrated that a speech is much more effective when you
vary your vocal pattern. There was an interactive component to the
workshop (not unlike a game show!) in which participants were given
a word or phrase to use in a manner to project a feeling or emotion.
The exercise demonstrated to the participants that the way you speak
is just as important as what you say: vocal variety is essential if
you want to thrive as a speaker. This seminar was the hit of the
conference - congratulations Joe!
February 2003
This month saw the conclusion of the "Bring a Friend in February"
campaign. Members got tickets for a drawing based on the number of friends
they brought in. Congratulations to Jeremy Ulrich for winning the drawing
top prize - $50!
January 2003
January 20, 2003 was another big night for the Greater Stamford Toastmaster
Club. Two officers of the club completed their CTM. Joe Coldebella gave a stirring speech about seeking out failure as a way to stretch out your comfort zone while Jesse Baker capped his impressive run of speeches with an insightful look at the tactics of some of the world's greatest speakers.
December 2002
Congratulations to Paul Campilii and James Jorasch. Paul completed his CTM December 9th and on the same night James completed his ATM-Bronze.
Watch out for these guys, I don't think either one is going to slow down after achieving these milestones!
Holiday Party 2002
The end of year holiday party is a long tradition for the Greater Stamford
Toastmasters club. This year more than 20 members turned out for an engaging
evening at Jazzmine's under the Stamford Mall, including two members
of the Norwalk club. After a number of toasts dedicated to the accomplishments of the year, the party headed off in a direction probably not unusual
for a bunch or Toastmasters - speech games! Jesse Baker started a game that seems destined to become a holiday party tradition - each person
makes three statements about themselves: two true and one false. The
rest of the members try to find the fib. You'd be surprised at how convincing
Toastmasters can be with their lies! An you would be surprised to learn
what members had done in their lives - who knew that Sylvia and her husband
had acted in a film with Julia Louis Dreyfus?
November 2002
Congratulations to James Jorasch, who continued his streak by winning the District Table Topics contest held November 9 in Bristol, CT. Taking
second place in the Humorous Speech contest was Nancy Follis-Wilms from
our neighboring Norwalk club. Congratulations Nancy!
Full History
For a historical overview of the Greater Stamford Toastmasters chapter,
please check out our History page.
Upcoming Events
Don't forget to check our schedule page for details
on our upcoming events and meetings.
Monday October 31st was a day for Tricks and Treats for the members of the Greater Stamford Toastmasters club. Our club's room was decorated in true Halloween fashion with the accompanying spider webs by our Treasurer Liya Magdeeva and Toastmaster member Mai Dinh. We were also treated to a ghoulish feast during the refreshment break which included such tasty treats as chocolate eye candy and a blood (raspberry red actually) punch with floating green iced fingers.
The Halloween theme continued with the Table Topics segment of the meeting in which members were asked to construct a continual story based on Halloween nick nacks (plastic bats, a fake decapitated finger etc.) which was drawn from a black cauldron.
