XLTM Meeting Minutes for November 12, 2006 (by Minghui)

The following members attended the meeting: Len, Liqun, Eric, Jin, Ning, Irene, Sherry, Jenny, Stan, Robin, Cindy, Brick, Cunlin, Elena, Joby and Minghui. We had four returning guests, Charlie, Hong, Xiaoyan, and Anil. Welcome, Guests!

Eric was the Toastmaster for the 2^nd time. He arrived early for preparations, and started the meeting at 12:48 with the topic of eating crabs during his China trip. Eric handled the meeting with such skill and confidence this time that we could not help wondering how could he made such big progress in such a short time. The best guess was that he had either been hosting a lot of meetings in China , or he had been eating a lot of crabs.

Cindy had a friend who was complaining about something, and having difficult times. Cindy took lessons from her friend, and decided that she would do things differently, and live a happy life. The first thing started was to say NO to her boss. When her manager tried to assign her a task, she refused it, saying that she was already fully occupied with her current task and had to work overtime. To make your life happier, one of the things you need to learn is to say NO to your boss. Cindy did mention that she made sure she was irreplaceable in the company before she did it, and that she said NO with supporting facts.

Sherry taught us a new word, “incognito”, which means “disguised”. Only two people used this word at the meeting, probably because the word was quite difficult. Joby used it before he gave the grammar feedback, saying that he would rather do it incognito. Minghui was the second one to use it, claiming that that he wished he could give the evaluation incognito, so that he could say whatever he wanted.

Cunlin told a joke about talk show host Sean Hannity asking one of his guest if he knew Nancy Pelosi, the democrat leader who became the first female house speaker after the middle term election. The guest’s answer was no. Sean had then asked if the guest knew Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney, and the guest still did not get it. To make it easier, Sean changed the question to, “Who is the president?” Looking at the confused face of the guest, Sean had to give him a hint, saying “George”. But it was not until he gave a further hint, “W”, that the guest seemed finally got the answer with confidence: “George Washington”.

Jin delivered his #8 speech. He talked about sleep a few weeks ago, and he made a strong comeback attacking the same topic this time, with much more supporting data, facts, and video aids. Jin re-emphasized the theory that one-third of a person’s life is spent on sleeping, and that the comfort level of the sleep that someone gets further affects the other two-thirds. He then provided some fundamental facts to explain it: 1) Biological sleep clock, 2) Wake meters, 3) Body temperature, and 4) Sleep wake mechanism. Jin finally tried to apply it to real life, and concluded the speech with a video clip. Here, we actually saw Jin’s other side as a scientific researcher overlapping with the fluent Toastmaster Jin.

Brick talked about “How to live a happy life” in his #5 speech. He first quoted a Chinese professor’s study about the important factors to happiness: a stable job (it does not always mean a lot of money), a proper-sized house (a bigger house does not lead to more happiness, Cunlin!), etc. He then quoted that “The best time for couples is from one year before up to four years after the marriage”. According to Brick, when you are young, you should enjoy the ups and downs, enjoying the peaks of achievement, and when you are at a low, you should firstly enjoy life, and secondly spend time with your kids. Brick used to be our VP education, but has been very quiet recently. We now understand that he might be at his low right now, and he may be just “enjoying life”.

Since we had only two speakers at the meting, Eric made a flexible change by asking the guests to introduce themselves using the 3^rd speaker time slot. Hong, Haiyan, Charlie, and Anil introduced themselves. Charlie was very “angry” because no one told him how to join the club. It was the kind of anger we really want to see.

Stan hosted the table topic session, and he gave several interesting but challenging questions. Stan seemed, personally, to like the last question best, because he concluded the session by saying “satisfaction makes happiness”

1) Which party did you vote for, and why (Ning)

2) Impact of election result to stock market (Len)

3) Your unforgettable Thanksgivings (Irene)

4) Your plan for future Thanksgivings (Joby)

5) Are you really over-worked and overloaded (Cindy)

6) How do you encourage your kids to do Chinese homework (Brick)

7) Why do you still enjoy coming to the club (Cunlin)

8) Criteria of happiness (Elena)

Minghui led the general evaluation session. Cunlin and Jenny did an excellent job in evaluating the speeches of Jin and Brick. Jenny impressed us by sharing exactly the same criteria of HAPPINESS as her husband, Stan. Joby, for the first time, gave the grammar report, which was in so rich in detail that he did not have enough time to finish it. Great job though. Irene, as always, delivered a very efficient time report. The meeting was like a theme meeting of “sleep well and live a happy life”, with interesting topics and impressive guests.

There are still chances for us to do a better job in the following areas: 1) The Toastmaster and the speakers could communicate better before the meeting to avoid SURPRISE. 2) Speakers should pay more attention to the amount of time they can use and pay more attention to the red flag. 3) The meeting should be started on time.

Liqun led the club business session. He asked Len to give a quick overview of the fall conference. Thanks to Len for representing our club at the conference, and for participating in the club banner parade.

Eric concluded the meeting at 2:30 pm.