December 8th was the only Warner Center Toastmaster's meeting in December and the final meeting for the 2005 year.  New and old members of the group gathered for the meeting in order to reminisce about the the past and look forward to the new year.  The night's theme, "The Future," fit well with the mood of the evening.

The Table Topics session kept in line with the introspective mood of the evening.  Stuart Juggler spoke about making resolutions every month that don't end up lasting, Tricia Greaves admitted that she would only want to see the future if she had the ability to change it, and Alan Reveles explained how he would like to be better able to communicate with people.  With his emotional Table Topic, Don West won the round by telling the audience how he was raising his 4-year old granddaughter and resolved to be a great parent to her.

Donna Stewart began the speech portion of her evening with her talk entitled, "How Slang is Slung."  Donna's speak utilized slang from the past and present to illustrate how "slang is one-fifth of the words we use."  She also explained that slang is not limited to any one culture, but that each culture has its own slang.  For example, "true dat" is the same as "right on."  Donna pointed out that "slang is a powerful stimulant that keeps language alive and growing."  Her humorous speech, which included slang from many different eras, kept the audience laughing and won her best speech for the evening.

The second speech of the evening, entitled, "One World, One Environment, One Hot Topic," was given by Vlada Dmytrenko.  In her speech, Vlada spoke about the global warming epidemic that is costing the world economy fifty billion dollars a year.  She also informed the audience that global warming causes the melting of the polar ice caps, which in turn causes three other problems: 1) rising oceans that could flood costal cities, 2) the destructions of the current water cycles, and 3) the destruction of current agricultural conditions.  Vlada also offered suggestions to slow global warming, including the planting of more forests and the use of more nuclear energy or other sources of renewable power.

Dan Marzec, in a speech entitled, "Hard Work is a Blessing," had the audience laughing almost to the point of tears.  His speech was filled with clever quips including, "Whoever said the customer is always right was probably a customer and probably wasn't right."  His talk, which focused mainly on working life, also included other funny one-liners such as, "Computers are stupid because they do what we tell them to do."  Overall, Dan's humorous speech kept the audience entertained and interested by offering the type of humor that everyone could relate to.

The fourth speech of the evening, given by Marc Cohn, was entitled, "Managed Health Care Alternatives."  As an Actuary for an Insurance company, Marc was able to bring an insider perspective to his speech on Managed Care.  He pointed out that Managed Care does cut costs, but many people believe that it worsens health care.  He also explained that the amount of competition within the health care industry does keep costs more reasonable for consumers.  Moreover, he explained how by cutting costs, Managed Care is able to pass those savings on to the consumer.  Finally, Marc pointed out that the use of Managed Care and a primary care physician can help reduce fraud and produce higher value to the patient.

Chick Saffell gave the final speech of the evening, a talk entitled "Let's Dance."  In his speech, Chick described how he "couldn't keep up with [his] new dancing wife,." so, she signed him up for dance lessons at the Arthur Murray dance school.  When Chick showed up, he found out that the dance studio was located within a sleazy looking 2-story building.  During his dancing lessons Chick fell in love with dancing and ending up passing the dance test that his instructor had given him.  Still, Chick admits, he "didn't end up learning how to dance well."   

Awards for December 8, 2005

Trophy Master: Tony Summers

Best Table Topics

Don West

Best Speech

Donna Stewart

Best Evaluator

Rose Lane