While our club meetings are always enjoyable, the past couple of weeks have really been fun in the context of the season! First, our Halloween open house had several excellent recitations including a spooky poetry from Anne Peterson, a tale from Japanese folklore from Yuki Suzuki, a heart-racing chase from the Legend of Sleepy Hollow as told by Phil Cosby, and a riveting tale of horror from Reema Mahamood – followed up with excellent insights into the scary during our Table Topics session. Illuminating, even thought sometimes the subject matter was a little dark!
As a follow up to those tales of terror, Olga’s speech this week kept the discussion about scary stuff going. She spoke about the “Psychology of Fear and Halloween”, which gave us all a lot to consider – why do people like to be scared?? She noted “a little bit of fear can help us appreciate the light in our life”, and pointed out that a jolt of fright can be cathartic – controlled fear clears the deck of the year’s stress. She also noted that our imaginations heighten fears – what we don’t see terrifies us the most. Olga’s speech left me thinking about why every now and again I want to do something a little thrilling, like a ghost walk or watching a suspenseful movie, and helped me understand that a little injection of fear here and there can be a good, healthy thing for our psyche. Thank you, Olga!
The theme of the meeting set by our Toastmaster, Phil, was Fall Planning – which we’re all presumably in the thick of, as fall is upon us! Our Table Topics Master, Naomi, pried out of us whether we were planners or not, and what kind of plans we like to make. We learned that Olga’s plans these days are subject to quick changes now that her family has adopted a dog (yay!) and Yuki mentioned that she will likely be preparing to dance in the Nutcracker again this year (a tradition for her) – and she has tickets up for grabs if you’d like to plan ahead and attend!
We wrapped the meeting with Reema’s evaluation of Olga’s speech, which highlighted the excellent delivery and pace, and Olga’s excellent use of language to convey her message – with evocative phrases like “hair-raising scares, fight or flight, hearts to race – adrenaline to rise, thrilling departure from the norm” – Reema noted Olga’s use of language lends poetry to what she’s saying, keeps the speech interesting, and incorporated nice use of alliteration. She noted a few things for Olga to work on, including framing her gestures in camera…all great feedback for all future speechmakers to bear in mind!
To wrap up, great couple of meetings, as always – and taken to greater heights by incorporating the holiday and the season! Looking forward to the next…
Lisa Wottrich, VPPR