12-29-05 Meeting Summary

December 29, 2005 Meeting Summary
Theme: New Year’s Resolutions
Lori G, our Toastmaster,

Our Wordmaster/Grammarian was Marian J. The word of the day was declaration, because everyone should raise their resolutions to that level and make them public! Declaration means, 1) An explicit, formal announcement, either oral or written. 2) The act or process of declaring. 3) A statement of taxable goods or of properties subject to duty. 4) Law a) A formal statement by a plaintiff specifying the facts and circumstances constituting his or her cause of action. b) An unsworn statement of facts that is admissible as evidence. 5) Games. A bid, especially the final bid of a hand in a certain card game.

Marian would like to keep better track of what she eats, not from a weight perspective but because currently she eats everything she sees. She would like to only eat things that are handmade.

Dan B served as our Timer. Dan is still working on his 2005 resolutions. He laughs at the people in the club the first two weeks of January because he knows that by the third week, the club will be empty again. He can always tell the people that are going to “fall off of their resolution” because they praise themselves daily when speaking to others. Dan learned that it takes 21 days to create a habit, so the two weeks at the club in January isn’t enough.

Kathy J got us started with a Round Robin version of Table Topics. She will finish school this year, so will commit more time in 2006 to her kids’ school teaching them about art. The top 10 New Year’s resolutions are as follows:
1) Spend more time with family and friends
2) Fit in fitness
3) Tame the bulge
4) Quit smoking
5) Enjoy life more
6) Quit drinking
7) Get out of debt
8) Learn something new
9) Help others
10) Get organized

Kathy asked Kim C: How in 2005/2006 do you plan to REALLY help others? (Response time: 2:12)
In 2005 and in 2006, Kim will transition somebody into her job. In 1997, she left the College of St. Catherine, supervising student employees in the Computer Center. Now, her staff doesn’t have as much option to leave as the students did. Kim also has more interest in her current staff. In Taiwan, she thinks people will probably be helping her, but hopes to help people balance their view of US citizenship without tarnishing it.

Kim asked Laura C: At least three things could have been speech topics for your speech today. Without manual restrictions, what could you have spoken about? (Response time: 2:20)
Laura has a hard time going against the rules and she’s a perfectionist. Today, she was going to speak in praise, but she forgot her manual. She could have praised, 1) Grace Carmody, her mother-in-law, 2) Her father, 3) The people that are going to Tyler Town, Mississippi, to help with the animals who were rescued from hurricane Katrina. Laura is planning to get her speech written so she can step in to give a speech when someone else cannot speak during their assigned time.

Laura asked Dave B: Phone solicitors annoy Laura when they assume that she’s in debt and can consolidate it. Laura only has a car loan How should she respond? (Response time: 1:40)
Dave has no patience with phone solicitors. The conversation typically goes something like, “Mr. B…..Ba….Baston? This is XYZ from so and so….” Dave doesn’t like being interrupted since solicitors always seem to call at a bad time. Some responses that Dave suggests would be more fun: “Oh, that would be great! I didn’t think anyone would give me loan money so soon after I filed bankruptcy!” or “This isn’t a good time, could you give me your home phone number so I can call you back when it’s convenient for me?”

Dave asked Eddie K: Tell us about a New Year’s resolution that failed dismally. How did you deal with it? (Response time: 1:44)
Eddie doesn’t make New Year’s resolutions, but he does give something up during lent. One year, he gave up hitting snooze in the morning. Before that, he’d always hit snooze twice, giving him 18 minutes more to sleep. Last year, he hit snooze one too many times and missed his bus, so had to drive to work. Eddie admits that he might make a New Year’s resolution this year. He would like to enter a tri-athalon, so has hired a swim coach. His resolution might be to save up and buy a bike for the race. Hopefully, he won’t fail as miserably as his attempted pronunciation of miserably because it would be an expensive failure since the bike will cost more than $1000.

Eddie asked Betsy S: Taming the bulge is a frequent New Year’s resolution. What would you like to tame? (Response time: 1:08)
Betsy confesses that taming the bulge doesn’t work for her, so she would like to tame her fear of public speaking. In order to do this, rather than declaring her resolution, she would like to be less committed and will try to finish her 10 CTM speeches this year. She’s scheduled to be the Toastmaster in January, so is also looking forward to that experience.

Betsy asked Gadder F: What is your favorite memory in 2005? (Response time: 1:30)
Gadder’s favorite memory in 2005 is the birth of his daughter. He enjoyed reliving the memory when Jerry Vang had his baby girl recently and told Gadder about it. Included in Gadder’s memory are a couple of moments that he almost passed out. He considers himself to be a strong man and not fearful, but had to fight every instinct in him to take on the anesthesiologist when he approached Gadder’s wife with a long needle. He also remembers the moment when his daughter’s head crowned and then popped out being especially difficult for him.

Gadder asked Lori Gy: What holiday in 2006 are you looking forward to the most and why? (Response time: 0:58)
Lori’s favorite holiday is Christmas. She loves taking out the decorations and how her kids want to help decorate. She and her mother take the kids and grandkids to Marshall Fields’ 8th floor holiday display every year. She also enjoys listening exclusively to Christmas music from Thanksgiving to Christmas every year. Finally, she enjoys watching the kids shake their packages in anticipation of opening them.

Lori asked Marian J: Do you have any vacations planned in 2006? If so, where will you be going and what will you be doing? If not, where sould you like to go? (Response time: 1:23)
Marian is taking a vacation next week! She has never been to Mexico, so she and her husband are going to Playa del Carmen, which wasn’t severely damaged during the 2005 hurricanes. Generally, Marian knows more about the destinations to which she’ll be traveling, but her husband planned this trip so all she knows is that they’ll be visiting some ruins because she doesn’t like to bask on the beach. Other travels in 2006 will be out of necessity because Marian has family all over the world.

Marian asked Laura G: I know that you’re a mom with kids. What is the greatest lesson that your kids have taught you or what has been the most difficult year? (Response time: 2:00)
The toughest year for Laura was the first year after she quit work. She thought that she would have more free time, but that doesn’t happen with the kids. Now, her daily job has so many tasks that they don’t get done and her clients are less reasonable than the ones that she used to work with. Laura’s mom is a terrible perfectionist, so during the first week of her stay, she was so busy getting ready for Christmas that she didn’t visit with anyone or play with any of her grandkids. Laura has had to overcome this tendency to make the things that will really matter the most important. She’s been reading books to her daughter and playing games with her son, rather than always worrying about cleaning up after “Christmas puked all over her house.”

Laura asked Dan B: Why should we or shouldn’t we make New Year’s resolutions? (Response time: 2:12)
Dan doesn’t make New Year’s resolutions, because they never pan out. The last time he made one, he resolved to roll over his 401K money—it took him 2 ½ years to complete it. He was told to talk to someone in HR for help. Dan’s in HR and couldn’t find any help! He determined that no one wanted his money. He can’t resolve to lose weight because he doesn’t really need to. He doesn’t smoke, but would like to figure out how some people can speak without their cigarette falling out of their mouth. He would resolve to drink less, but figured out in his 20s not to drink too much. Dan’s advice is just to try to live your life ok.

Dan asked Kathy J: What is something really bad that you want to do next year? (Response time: 1:02)
If Kathy could come back to her regular life without any impact, she would like to run away for a month, visiting all of the luxurious spas in the world like her favorite soap opera character. She would return all refreshed and relaxed.


Dave B was our Inspiration/Humorist. (Speech time: 3:05)
Dave refuses to make New Year’s resolutions. He doesn’t think that we should only decide to make changes once per year. When Dave began working at Minnesota Life, he weighed 260 lbs. He, too, has heard that it takes 21 days to form a habit, so applied that to his weight loss strategy. First, he changed his diet for six-seven weeks (because he calls himself a slow learner), then he built in exercise. Dave believes that if he’d tried to make all of the changes at once, that he would have been done with his diet in three weeks, just like everyone else at the gym in early January. Since then, Dave has integrated his weight loss strategy into his every day life. Every two months, Dave thinks of something that he wants to change. For example, he decided that he should be spending more time with Josh, his eldest son, after their second child was born. For the next couple of months, Dave made sure that he played with Josh three days/week after dinner. Dave recommends working on something until it’s a habit, then working on something else.

Our General Evaluator was Gadder F. He thought that the meeting flowed well overall and enjoyed the format of the table topics, especially watching people shift from answering a question to asking a question. Gadder commended Lori on her natural presence in front of the room and suggested that leading the clapping was difficult in this format. He noted a lot of wringing of the hands throughout the meeting and some trailing off at the end of sentences. Gadder especially liked the phrases, “fall off the resolution”, “Hannukah light”, “kids as clients”. He commended Eddie on the way that he twisted the question so that he could answer it and Kathy’s keeping the potentially dirty question appropriate for the audience.

Spirit Award: