12-22-05 Meeting Summary
December 22, 2005 Meeting Summary
Theme: Best and Worst Christmas Gifts Received or Gave
Eddie K, our Toastmaster, wove together our first holiday meeting with a theme of Christmas gifts. He shared several of his best/worst gifts throughout the meeting, as did many of the other duty holders. Eddie’s best Christmas gift was a new black lab puppy that he received after his other dog had died. His new puppy was trained to be a hunting dog, but he ran into a field in 2003 and never came out—he was found the next year.
John Hornsten joined us as a returning guest. He works in Information Services, Development Support, and attended the meeting to hear Kim’s speech.
Our Wordmaster/Grammarian was Gadder F. Gadder’s ahs/ums limit is 851! The word of the day was thoughtful, an adjective meaning 1. Engrossed in thought; contemplative, 2. Exhibiting or characterized by careful thought, 3. Having or showing heed for the well-being or happiness of others and a propensity for anticipating their needs or wishes. For example, Gadder’s thoughtful brother bought him thermal underwear for the winter in Minnesota.
Gadder’s best Christmas gift was a pair of 14oz boxing gloves. He and his brothers used to fight. One Christmas, his dad gave them each a pair of boxing gloves so they could resolve their problems—they were allowed to box outside if they did not hit above the neck. Gadder’s brother (who’s now a cop) used to say, “Get the gloves!” A phase that still makes Gadder cringe!
Kurt J served as our Timer. He believes that the worst gifts that anyone can give are gift cards. Even if the wrong gift is purchased, at least more thought went into it than goes into a gift card. Kurt likes homemade gifts, probably because he receives those from his kids or because when he was young, they all made their gifts for each other one year.
Stacia S was our first speaker. Her speech, “The History of Christmas Trees” was speech number four from the CTM manual. Stacia researched the topic because one day, her boyfriend asked her about it. (Speech time: 7:22)
In many ancient societies, people used to worship plants and trees that remained green. Some believed that their boughs would keep out ghosts, evil spirits, and witches. Others believed that they were a symbol of everlasting life.
The Christmas tree as we know it began in Germany. It is believed that Martin Luther first brought the Christmas tree into his home and decorated the tree with paper ornaments and candles. In America, however, Christmas trees in the home were considered an oddity in the 19th century. In the 1830s, German settlers even considered them a pagan symbol and they were not accepted by most Americans. It wasn’t until 1846 when Prince Albert was seen with his children around the tree that it was considered fashionable to have a Christmas tree. In the 1890s, ornaments were homemade, including popcorn, fruit, nuts, and cookies.
Some interesting Christmas tree facts:
The 14th President, Franklin Pierce, brought the first tree into the White House.
Calvin Coolidge began the Christmas tree ceremony.
Today, 77 million Christmas trees are planted each year.
Thomas Edison’s assistants created electric tree lights.
Roosevelt banned Christmas trees due to the environment.
Tinsel was banned when it was lead-based.
European trees are typically about four feet tall.
Stacia looks forward to hanging homemade ornaments on the tree with her mom, making Christmas cookies, and caroling each year. Her dad, on the other hand, has a flocked tree with the same colored bulbs on it.
Eddie’s family has always had a flocked tree, too. This year, they have a green tree; he’s hoping that the green tree will bring him luck in the lottery. The best gift that Eddie’s ever given is an ornament that he purchased for his mother after she visited him in Salzburg, Germany. She had seen the ornament while she was there, but the store was out of them until after she returned home. Eddie picked one up for her after class the following week and brought it home to her.
Kim C was our second speaker. Her speech, “The Briefing”, is the first speech in the Speeches by Management manual. Kim began her job at Minnesota Life in 1998. In January, her position will be posted so that in May 2006 she can begin her new adventure in Taiwan, teaching English. (Speech time: 12:20)
History
In 1998, Network Systems was reorganized and the Collaborative Technology Competency Center (CTCC) was created. The group supports Groupware and Internet technologies (see below). They also provide level two support to the Tech Support phone line that Minnesota Life employees call when they have a problem. A level three support also exists, consisting of engineers who’s main responsibility is to plan for the future of the network.
Since Kim began supervising, three people have quit, two people have transferred laterally, and five have been promoted to the level three team. She currently provides leadership for eight full time associates and one project leader. The longest period of time that she’s had the same people on her team is one year. The biggest challenges for her team are being providing on-call support 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year (24x7x365) and supporting AccuServe Online.
Groupware technologies include: Lotus Notes, Sametime (instant messaging), iNotes (Domino web access), e-mail archive (meeting SEC and NASD requirements), anti-spam, anti-virus, Palm Pilots, Pocket PCs, Blackberries, MS Exchange, Outlook Web Access, and Lotus Notes Application Development.
Internet technologies include: Web Sites hosted at Securian, COM+; Websphere, UNIX, and Load Balancers (for Java); Imaging (FileNET), File Transfer (FTP/PGP, Connect:Direct, Connect:Enterprise, and Secure Transport).
In addition to supporting these technologies, Kim’s job consists of the care and feeding of the CTCC team. Each day, she comes to work with a big heart, dumping her love into her team (she attributes this to being single). She communicates with her peers, supervisors, and business owners, sometimes apologizing for mistakes that her team has made, which can be the most difficult part. Kim’s team has to try to be robots in order to get it right 100% of the time—sometimes that just doesn’t happen—but, she considers the team to be a family and a community, who looks out for each other and recognizes each others’ gifts.
Q&A (Q&A time: 2:51)
Q: Why shouldn’t people apply for the job?
A: The politics of the job can sometimes be difficult, especially when managing the resources that the politics demand. The job also demands 100% accuracy all of the time, which is difficult to attain.
Q: What is “support” for Groupware/Internet?
A: Second level support is as broad as possible so that the engineers can work on preparing for the future. For example, if an e-mail is not received, Kim’s team may try having the e-mail sent to a different account to determine the reasons that it didn’t reach the intended recipient. If Kim’s team can’t figure out the problem, it is elevated to level three who provides suggestions to fix the problem.
Laura C served as our Table Topics Master. She asked Kelly Taschler to graciously thank the person who gave her a particular gift, which Kelly drew from a variety of papers that Laura offered. Kelly response thanked Laura for a beautiful picture frame. She said that it looked vaguely familiar, perhaps because she had given it to Laura the previous year! Receiving familiar gifts is a common theme in Kelly’s family. For example, Scott has three pair of socks that all play jingle bells. He received a pair each year, for three consecutive years! (Response time: 1:27)
Dave B evaluated Stacia’s speech. The best gift that Dave ever gave were gift cards! He went to every coffee shop in Woodbury and bought a $5 gift card for his wife. Then, he wrote her a poem to accompany the gift cards and sent her out once a month for some alone time.
The purpose of Stacia’s speech was to work with words. Dave commended Stacia on the words that Stacia chose, since they were easy to understand. He also commended her research of the topic and its timeliness, as well as the ease with which Stacia spoke. Some things that Dave recommended for future speeches are to focus on reducing ahs/ums/connectors/you knows, adding a stronger introduction and conclusion, and to ask the audience to guess the answers to the trivia that Stacia provided. (Evaluation time: 2:58)
Betsy S evaluated Kim’s speech. She commended Kim’s ability to get through a speech that she was obviously passionate about, her use of natural gestures, her pauses in place of ahs/ums, her audience involvement, her visual aids, and her call to action. She also liked the way that Kim “bought” time to think of an answer to the questions. Betsy would have liked to see more of a summary at the end of Kim’s speech and to see Kim slow down so that she didn’t seem out of breath. (Evaluation time: 2:51)
Reports
Gadder noted several ahs/ums/connectors, as well as a couple of uses of “thoughtful”. He especially liked, “super-bad”, “jingle bell socks”, and “dump my love into my team and they take the heart of it”.
Kurt’s times are above in parenthesis. Every year, he wraps a jar of dirt for his daughter to teach her that she must be gracious no matter what people give you.
Our General Evaluator was Mark H. Mark’s only criticism was that the meeting ran a bit late. Other than that, he thought that duty-holders fulfilled their duties well and appreciated the specific examples provided by the evaluators.
Spirit Award: Kim C (Laura C was a close second).
Theme: Best and Worst Christmas Gifts Received or Gave
Eddie K, our Toastmaster, wove together our first holiday meeting with a theme of Christmas gifts. He shared several of his best/worst gifts throughout the meeting, as did many of the other duty holders. Eddie’s best Christmas gift was a new black lab puppy that he received after his other dog had died. His new puppy was trained to be a hunting dog, but he ran into a field in 2003 and never came out—he was found the next year.
John Hornsten joined us as a returning guest. He works in Information Services, Development Support, and attended the meeting to hear Kim’s speech.
Our Wordmaster/Grammarian was Gadder F. Gadder’s ahs/ums limit is 851! The word of the day was thoughtful, an adjective meaning 1. Engrossed in thought; contemplative, 2. Exhibiting or characterized by careful thought, 3. Having or showing heed for the well-being or happiness of others and a propensity for anticipating their needs or wishes. For example, Gadder’s thoughtful brother bought him thermal underwear for the winter in Minnesota.
Gadder’s best Christmas gift was a pair of 14oz boxing gloves. He and his brothers used to fight. One Christmas, his dad gave them each a pair of boxing gloves so they could resolve their problems—they were allowed to box outside if they did not hit above the neck. Gadder’s brother (who’s now a cop) used to say, “Get the gloves!” A phase that still makes Gadder cringe!
Kurt J served as our Timer. He believes that the worst gifts that anyone can give are gift cards. Even if the wrong gift is purchased, at least more thought went into it than goes into a gift card. Kurt likes homemade gifts, probably because he receives those from his kids or because when he was young, they all made their gifts for each other one year.
Stacia S was our first speaker. Her speech, “The History of Christmas Trees” was speech number four from the CTM manual. Stacia researched the topic because one day, her boyfriend asked her about it. (Speech time: 7:22)
In many ancient societies, people used to worship plants and trees that remained green. Some believed that their boughs would keep out ghosts, evil spirits, and witches. Others believed that they were a symbol of everlasting life.
The Christmas tree as we know it began in Germany. It is believed that Martin Luther first brought the Christmas tree into his home and decorated the tree with paper ornaments and candles. In America, however, Christmas trees in the home were considered an oddity in the 19th century. In the 1830s, German settlers even considered them a pagan symbol and they were not accepted by most Americans. It wasn’t until 1846 when Prince Albert was seen with his children around the tree that it was considered fashionable to have a Christmas tree. In the 1890s, ornaments were homemade, including popcorn, fruit, nuts, and cookies.
Some interesting Christmas tree facts:
The 14th President, Franklin Pierce, brought the first tree into the White House.
Calvin Coolidge began the Christmas tree ceremony.
Today, 77 million Christmas trees are planted each year.
Thomas Edison’s assistants created electric tree lights.
Roosevelt banned Christmas trees due to the environment.
Tinsel was banned when it was lead-based.
European trees are typically about four feet tall.
Stacia looks forward to hanging homemade ornaments on the tree with her mom, making Christmas cookies, and caroling each year. Her dad, on the other hand, has a flocked tree with the same colored bulbs on it.
Eddie’s family has always had a flocked tree, too. This year, they have a green tree; he’s hoping that the green tree will bring him luck in the lottery. The best gift that Eddie’s ever given is an ornament that he purchased for his mother after she visited him in Salzburg, Germany. She had seen the ornament while she was there, but the store was out of them until after she returned home. Eddie picked one up for her after class the following week and brought it home to her.
Kim C was our second speaker. Her speech, “The Briefing”, is the first speech in the Speeches by Management manual. Kim began her job at Minnesota Life in 1998. In January, her position will be posted so that in May 2006 she can begin her new adventure in Taiwan, teaching English. (Speech time: 12:20)
History
In 1998, Network Systems was reorganized and the Collaborative Technology Competency Center (CTCC) was created. The group supports Groupware and Internet technologies (see below). They also provide level two support to the Tech Support phone line that Minnesota Life employees call when they have a problem. A level three support also exists, consisting of engineers who’s main responsibility is to plan for the future of the network.
Since Kim began supervising, three people have quit, two people have transferred laterally, and five have been promoted to the level three team. She currently provides leadership for eight full time associates and one project leader. The longest period of time that she’s had the same people on her team is one year. The biggest challenges for her team are being providing on-call support 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year (24x7x365) and supporting AccuServe Online.
Groupware technologies include: Lotus Notes, Sametime (instant messaging), iNotes (Domino web access), e-mail archive (meeting SEC and NASD requirements), anti-spam, anti-virus, Palm Pilots, Pocket PCs, Blackberries, MS Exchange, Outlook Web Access, and Lotus Notes Application Development.
Internet technologies include: Web Sites hosted at Securian, COM+; Websphere, UNIX, and Load Balancers (for Java); Imaging (FileNET), File Transfer (FTP/PGP, Connect:Direct, Connect:Enterprise, and Secure Transport).
In addition to supporting these technologies, Kim’s job consists of the care and feeding of the CTCC team. Each day, she comes to work with a big heart, dumping her love into her team (she attributes this to being single). She communicates with her peers, supervisors, and business owners, sometimes apologizing for mistakes that her team has made, which can be the most difficult part. Kim’s team has to try to be robots in order to get it right 100% of the time—sometimes that just doesn’t happen—but, she considers the team to be a family and a community, who looks out for each other and recognizes each others’ gifts.
Q&A (Q&A time: 2:51)
Q: Why shouldn’t people apply for the job?
A: The politics of the job can sometimes be difficult, especially when managing the resources that the politics demand. The job also demands 100% accuracy all of the time, which is difficult to attain.
Q: What is “support” for Groupware/Internet?
A: Second level support is as broad as possible so that the engineers can work on preparing for the future. For example, if an e-mail is not received, Kim’s team may try having the e-mail sent to a different account to determine the reasons that it didn’t reach the intended recipient. If Kim’s team can’t figure out the problem, it is elevated to level three who provides suggestions to fix the problem.
Laura C served as our Table Topics Master. She asked Kelly Taschler to graciously thank the person who gave her a particular gift, which Kelly drew from a variety of papers that Laura offered. Kelly response thanked Laura for a beautiful picture frame. She said that it looked vaguely familiar, perhaps because she had given it to Laura the previous year! Receiving familiar gifts is a common theme in Kelly’s family. For example, Scott has three pair of socks that all play jingle bells. He received a pair each year, for three consecutive years! (Response time: 1:27)
Dave B evaluated Stacia’s speech. The best gift that Dave ever gave were gift cards! He went to every coffee shop in Woodbury and bought a $5 gift card for his wife. Then, he wrote her a poem to accompany the gift cards and sent her out once a month for some alone time.
The purpose of Stacia’s speech was to work with words. Dave commended Stacia on the words that Stacia chose, since they were easy to understand. He also commended her research of the topic and its timeliness, as well as the ease with which Stacia spoke. Some things that Dave recommended for future speeches are to focus on reducing ahs/ums/connectors/you knows, adding a stronger introduction and conclusion, and to ask the audience to guess the answers to the trivia that Stacia provided. (Evaluation time: 2:58)
Betsy S evaluated Kim’s speech. She commended Kim’s ability to get through a speech that she was obviously passionate about, her use of natural gestures, her pauses in place of ahs/ums, her audience involvement, her visual aids, and her call to action. She also liked the way that Kim “bought” time to think of an answer to the questions. Betsy would have liked to see more of a summary at the end of Kim’s speech and to see Kim slow down so that she didn’t seem out of breath. (Evaluation time: 2:51)
Reports
Gadder noted several ahs/ums/connectors, as well as a couple of uses of “thoughtful”. He especially liked, “super-bad”, “jingle bell socks”, and “dump my love into my team and they take the heart of it”.
Kurt’s times are above in parenthesis. Every year, he wraps a jar of dirt for his daughter to teach her that she must be gracious no matter what people give you.
Our General Evaluator was Mark H. Mark’s only criticism was that the meeting ran a bit late. Other than that, he thought that duty-holders fulfilled their duties well and appreciated the specific examples provided by the evaluators.
Spirit Award: Kim C (Laura C was a close second).
posted by Mutual Voices Toastmasters | 11:00 AM
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