Toastmasters Verbal Expressions

09/12/2026

🎤 Toastmasters Labor Day Holiday Meeting! 🎤

We had a great time celebrating the Labor Day Holiday at our latest Toastmasters meeting!

With 12 attendees, including 1 guest, Bryan Flores, we enjoyed an evening filled with speeches, evaluations, Table Topics, learning, and plenty of opportunities to connect.

📖 Word of the Day: GREGARIOUS
Meaning: Fond of the company of others; sociable.

A perfect word for a group that enjoys coming together, learning from one another, and growing our communication skills! 😊

👏 Meeting Team

Toastmaster of the Day: Ron Williams
Thought of the Day: Nancy Bateman
Speakers: Drew Fischer & Sydney McGee
Evaluators: Amber Hyland & Mo Aina
Table Topics: Becky Casey
Table Topics Speaker: Anthony Hanson, Bryan Flores, Tr

🏆 Congratulations to our winners!
🥇 Best Speaker: Drew Fischer
🥇 Best Evaluator: Mo Aina
🥇 Best Table Topics: Trevor Combs

Thank you to everyone who helped make the meeting a success, and a special welcome to our guest Bryan Flores again!

Let's keep connecting, communicating, and being gregarious! 🗣️👏

09/05/2026

🗺️✨ Choose Your Own Adventure! 🎲🎤

What an incredible Toastmasters meeting! This week, we stepped into a world of choices, challenges, and new adventures as we embraced our theme: “Choose Your Own Adventure.”

Every role helped make the journey memorable:

🧭 Tour Guide (Toastmaster of the Day): Amber Hyland
📖 Word of the Day: Obstinate — stubbornly refusing to change your opinion, behavior, or plans, even when others try to persuade you or show you that you may be wrong.

💡 Wisdom Wayfinder (Thought of the Day): Becky Casey

🎤 Quest Masters (Speakers):

Jonathan Blakey — “It’s Just a Game, Right?”
Becky Casey — “Being Mentoring Without Realizing It!”
📝 Journey Reviewers (Evaluators):

Tommy Kenyon
Nancy Bateman
❓ Question Quest Master (Table Topics): Sydney McGee

🎯 Table Topics Speakers:

Nash Wadud
Bryan Flores
Mo Aina
🏆 And our adventure winners are…
🥇 Best Speaker: Jonathan Blakey
🥇 Best Evaluator: Nancy Bateman
🥇 Best Table Topics Speaker: Nash Wadud

🌟 16 amazing attendees joined us, including 3 guests and 2 new members!

A warm welcome to our guests:

Suman Podila
Bryan Flores
Macey Rollins
🎉 And congratulations to our new members, Trevor Combs and Nash Wadud! We’re excited to have you on this journey with us.

👏 A special THANK YOU to Trevor, Nash, Bryan, Andrew, and Ron for stepping up and filling roles at the last minute. Your willingness to jump in helped make the meeting a success!

And THANK YOU for providing a picture, Nancy!

Every Toastmasters meeting is a new adventure — a chance to speak, learn, lead, encourage, and grow.

So, what adventure will you choose next? 🚀

08/29/2026

🎤✨ What a GREAT Toastmasters Meeting! ✨🎤

This week’s theme was “Just Because” — and just because we could, we learned, laughed, spoke, and celebrated! 🙌

👏 Meeting Highlights
🎙️ Toastmaster: Becky Casey
💡 Thought of the Day: Drew Fischer
🗣️ Word of the Day: Whim
⭐ Speaker: Marc Donnelly — “Interesting Things” about ants, eagles & stars! 🐜🦅⭐
🎯 Evaluator: Ron Williams
💬 Table Topics: Amber Hyland

🏆 Congratulations to our winners!
🥇 Speaker — Marc Donnelly
🥇 Evaluator — Ron Williams
🥇 Table Topics — Sydney McGee

🌟 July Spirit Award: Ron Williams, Jose Salazar & Drew Fischer
👏 July Perfect Attendance: Amber Hyland, Nancy Bateman, Ron Williams, Sydney McGee & Tommy Kenyon!

We had 12 attendees, including our guest, Bryan Flores! 👋 Thanks for joining us, Bryan!

🎉 Great energy, great conversations, and great growth!

Want to build confidence, improve your speaking skills, and have some fun along the way?

Come visit us at our next Toastmasters meeting! 🎤💪

08/21/2026

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7496410008088158209

🏆✨ This Week at Verbal Expressions Toastmasters ✨🏆 Our theme was Small Wins, and Toastmaster of the Day, Tommy, led us through a meeting that celebrated the little victories that add up to meaningful growth. Whether it's volunteering for a role, speaking up during Table Topics, or simply t...

08/19/2026

🏆 Congratulations to Anthony Hanson — Outstanding Officer Award! 🏆

We are thrilled to recognize Anthony Hanson as the recipient of the Outstanding Officer Award for Sergeant at Arms from Toastmasters District 50!

Awardees are selected from nominated and qualified officers each term from more than 100 clubs across District 50. The nominations are reviewed by a committee based on each officer’s defined responsibilities and their outstanding service during the term.

And Anthony certainly earned this recognition!
Every club needs an ANTHONY! He is dependable, resourceful, engaging, capable, and fun!

Anthony was new to Toastmasters when he initially stepped up to take on this role. He was always there before meetings to get the Zoom room set up and make sure everything was ready to go. He took care of the many details that happen behind the scenes — club equipment and materials, meeting logistics, the meeting space, and making sure our members and guests had what they needed.

Because of Anthony’s dependability, all of our other officers and members were liberated to focus on their own roles and meeting activities. And because of all this good work, our club ended the Toastmasters term as Distinguished by December! 🎉
The Sergeant at Arms role requires organization, problem-solving, physical logistics, hospitality, networking, relationship-building, and plenty of follow-through. Anthony demonstrated all of these skills — and did it with a great attitude along the way.

Anthony, thank you for stepping up, being someone we could always count on, and making such a positive contribution to our club.
Congratulations on this well-deserved award! We are so proud of you! 👏🏆
And we'll say it one more time:
Every club needs an ANTHONY! 😊

08/14/2026

🌱 Toastmasters Meeting Recap: “Nip It in the Bud!” 🎤

This week’s Toastmasters theme, “Nip It in the Bud!”, gave us a fun throwback to the classic television program The Andy Griffith Show and Barney Fife’s famous advice: “Nip it in the bud!” 📺🌱

It was a great theme for an evening of communication, confidence, and leadership—and our members certainly delivered!

🎙️ Toastmaster of the Day: Kimberly Bass
📖 Word of the Day: Avert
💭 Thought of the Day: Sydney McGee
🎤 Speaker: Kay Jones
🔥 Hot Seat Speaker: Ron Williams
📝 Evaluators: Becky Casey & Kimberly Bass
💬 Table Topics: Kimberly Bass

Table Topics Speakers:
• Mo Aina
• Sydney McGee
• Nash Wadud

🏆 Congratulations to our winners!
🥇 Speaker: Kay Jones
🥇 Evaluator: Becky Casey
🥇 Table Topics: Mo Aina

👥 Attendance: 8 attendees, including 1 guest

A special thank-you to everyone who stepped up to serve:
⏱️ Amber Hyland – Timer & Grammarian
🧍 Kimberly Bass – Posture Monitor, Evaluator, Table Topics & General Evaluator
🔎 Nash Wadud – Ah Counter and guest

From speeches to Table Topics, every role helped make the evening engaging, supportive, and full of opportunities to practice communication and leadership.

And just like Barney Fife would say… sometimes you’ve got to “Nip it in the bud!” 😄🌱

08/07/2026

🔥 Things got HOT at Toastmasters... and not just because of the weather! ☀️🎤

This week's meeting took a fun twist, and everyone was ready to jump in!

🌞 Theme: It's Too Hot!
🎤 Toastmaster of the Day: Nancy Bateman
📖 Word of the Day: Unworded!
🎯 Table Topics Master: Ron Williams

This wasn't our typical Toastmasters meeting:
❌ No prepared speeches
❌ No evaluations
✅ Just great conversations, quick thinking, and lots of laughter!

Our 9 participants answered two thought-provoking Table Topics:

💭 Round 1: What is the most important thing you achieved or plan to achieve in your life, or who is the most important person in your life?

😎 Round 2: What's your favorite way to stay cool when you're outside in the summer heat?

From heartfelt life goals to funny summer survival tips, everyone brought their own unique stories and personality to the conversation. The variety of responses reminded us that every voice has a different perspective—and that's what makes Toastmasters so special.

Sometimes, the best meetings are the ones that break the routine. This unstructured format encouraged everyone to participate, sharpen their impromptu speaking skills, and most importantly... have a great time together!

👏 Thank you to Nancy Bateman for leading the meeting and Ron Williams for keeping us thinking on our feet!

08/01/2026

🎬🍿 Lights, Camera, Action! 🍿🎬
Our Toastmasters meeting was a true Summer Blockbuster filled with inspiring speeches, quick thinking, and plenty of laughs!

🎤 Toastmaster of the Day: Jonathan Blakey
🎬 Theme: Summer Blockbuster
📖 Word of the Day: Riveting – completely engrossing and compelling
💭 Thought of the Day: Jonathan Blakey
🌟 Featured Speaker
🎙️ Drew Fischer delivered an outstanding New Member Icebreaker, giving us the opportunity to learn more about his journey and setting the stage for many great speeches to come!
📝 Evaluator
Sydney McGee provided thoughtful, encouraging, and insightful feedback.
🎭 Table Topics Master
Andrew Schmitt kept everyone on their toes with fun movie-inspired questions!
🍿 Table Topics Speakers
Jonathan Blakey
Amber Hyland
Michael Noll
Ron Williams
Kay Jones
Brittany Van Cleave
Nancy Bateman
One of the highlights of the meeting was imagining our lives on the big screen! Members answered questions like:
🎥 What would the title of the movie about your life be?
⭐ Who would play the leading role in your movie?..plus an additional creative question for each participant that kept the audience entertained!
👏 Attendance: 11 members
🏆 Congratulations to our winners!
🥇 Best Speaker: Drew Fischer
🥇 Best Evaluator: Sydney McGee
🥇 Best Table Topics Speaker: Brittany Van Cleave
Every Toastmasters meeting is an opportunity to build confidence, sharpen communication skills, and have fun doing it. This meeting was nothing short of riveting!

05/07/2026

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7458231289125494785

🎊 This Week at Verbal Expressions Toastmasters 🎊 Our theme was May Flowers, and Toastmaster of the Day, Ron, reminded us that growth doesn't happen overnight. Just like "April showers bring May flowers," strong clubs, confident speakers, and meaningful progress all require intentional effort, ...

04/30/2026

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7455696593002876929

🎊 This Week at Verbal Expressions Toastmasters 🎊 Our theme was Coping with Stress, and Toastmaster of the Day, Kay, led a thoughtful and engaging meeting focused on building resilience and navigating challenging moments with intention. 💭 Thought of the Day: Michael shared that recent change...