Travel Talkers Toastmasters

The theme of our August 24th meeting was Crossing Borders and we had the opportunity to hear a speech from Stephen Andert, “Tales of Border Crossings,” about his experiences. Stephen has visited over 25 countries around the world and he shared some of his adventures with us. Recently, while on a business trip, he spent less that 24 hours in Peru. When he left the country after his meeting was over, the immigration officer at the airport was a little curious about Stephen’s travel. He asked Stephen if there was something wrong with his visit, did he not like Peru? It seems that a short in and out trip can raise a red flag for customs officers. On a trip to Australia, after traveling through several Southeast Asian countries such as South Korea and Thailand, the immigration officer commented that Stephen’s passport photo was “too orange.” Stephen was questioned by two immigration officers but finally allowed to enter Australia, even though his passport photo was suspicious. On a plane trip from Guyana to Nigeria that was delayed for several hours, Stephen finally arrived to a dark and deserted airport in Nigeria. Luckily, he had befriended some fellow passengers from Nigeria who helped him navigate the airport and offered to drive him to his hotel. He reminded us to stay calm and respectful during the immigration and customs interviews and to always be aware of our surroundings. Making friends with fellow passengers can also help us navigate the airport and the country.

Our Destination Master, Samantha Jamwal, gave us these clues about the mystery destination:

• Siamese cats are native to this country.
• It is constitutional Monarchy.
• 90% of its population are Buddhist.
• The national flower is the orchid.
• Every year about 6,000,000 tourists visit this country.
• The capital city holds 1/10 of the entire population and was named the world’s hottest city.

If you guessed Thailand, you are correct!

For the Travel Topics section of the meeting, members and guests were asked to complete this phrase, “Never have I ever. . . ,” and tell a travel related story. Kit told us about hearing a song from an unexpected singer in the Chicago O’Hare Airport; a 4-year old belting out the “I feel good” refrain from the James Brown song. Something she thought she would never ever hear. Judith shared that she never thought she would enjoy an escorted travel tour with her parents, but she was surprised to find that she did enjoy it and was able to do some exploring on her own. Cathy told us that she never ever had great pizza in Greece, when her traveling companions on an around the world cruise wanted to treat her for her birthday.

Join us for our next meeting on August 31 from 6:30pm to 7:30pm Pacific (-8 UTC). The meeting theme is “Travel Souvenirs.” If you would like to join the club, please contact Helen Josephine for an application form.

Register for the meeting: https://tinyurl.com/TravelTalkersZoomLink

RSVP on MeetUp to let us know you are coming to the meeting. Guests are always welcome!

Looking forward to hearing your Travel Stories!

Helen Josephine,

Travel Talkers Toastmasters

Our August 10 meeting gave us an opportunity to find out about city parks and peaceful walks. Travel Topics Master Samantha Jamwal asked us questions about our favorite park activities, our favorite city park fountains and if we had unlimited money, how would we design a city park.

Our Destination Master, Kit Myers, gave us these clues for a famous walk in Europe.

• This is a “peaceful walk” with a destination city.
• The walk is located on the Iberian Peninsula, mostly Northern Spain, Pyrenees, France, Portugal and Italy.
• The symbol of the walk is a scallop shell and walkers collect shells as proof of participation.
• The destination is the capital city of the region of Galicia Spain.
• It is the 3rd most popular religious pilgrimage. People of all faiths participate.
• If you complete at least the last 62 miles you will receive a certificate.

If you guessed El Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, a 500-mile journey through some of Europe’s most beautiful landscapes, you are correct!

Our speaker, Carlette Curry, delighted us with a speech about her first introduction to New York City; watching the movie “Maid in Manhattan” when she was in 9th grade. She immediately want to take a trip to New York to experience the city. She discovered that if she waited until her friends were ready to travel, the trip would never happen. It wasn’t a busy schedule that kept her from taking the trip, but her own fear of traveling by herself. She encouraged all of us to, “be brave, be bold, be courageous” and take that trip we always wanted to take. She ended her speech by singing the opening from the Frank Sinatra song New York, New York: “Start spreading the news, I’m leavin’ today. I want to be a part of it, New York, New York.” Brava, Carlette!

We are not meeting on Thursday, August 17. Join us for our next meeting on August 24 from 6:30pm to 7:30pm Pacific (-8 UTC). The meeting theme is “Crossing Borders.” If you would like to join the club, please contact Helen Josephine for an application form.

Register for the meeting: https://tinyurl.com/TravelTalkersZoomLink

Looking forward to hearing your Travel Stories!

Helen Josephine,

Travel Talkers Toastmasters

We explored new travel destinations at our meeting on August 3 with the theme of “Wide Open Spaces.” Our Destination Master, Samantha Jamwal, gave us these clues for her destination.

• This destination is a National Park of the United States of America.
• It covers 3.4 million acres.
• It has the highest recorded temperature in the world, 134 degrees Fahrenheit.
• It has the lowest point in the United States.
• Some of the Star Wars filming locations are here.
• It is the home of the mysterious wandering rocks.
• It is drier than the Sahara desert.
• It has 6 species of fish.

If you guessed Death Valley National Park, you are correct!

Kit Myers was our Travel Topics Master and she asked us questions about where and how we would like to travel to enjoy the many wide open spaces in the World. Would we prefer to travel to the Sahara desert or to the Transantarctic Mountains? Would we dare to take the Qinghai-Tibet Railway that climbs to 16,627 feet and requires oxygen for the passengers?

Would we prefer to take the Rocky Mountain Mountaineer train to travel across Canada or take the train through the Rocky Mountains from Moab, Utah to Denver, Colorado? To enjoy the expansive sky, would we prefer to watch the incoming storm clouds or the Perseids Meteor Shower?

Our speaker, Helen Josephine, shared four places she has visited that unexpectedly created a sense of serenity and tranquility in her during her visit. In her speech, “Experiencing Serenity,” she shared a personal story about each place, as well as photos and a quote from someone connected with each location.

Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, California

“And into the woods I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” -John Muir

Bahá’í Terraces and Shrine of the Bab, Haifa, Israel

“Turn all your thoughts toward bringing joy to hearts.”-The Promulgation of Universal Peace, Abdu’l-Bahá 

Memorial Church, Stanford University, Stanford, California

“While my whole heart is in in the University, my soul is in that church.”-Jane Stanford

The Ruth Bancroft Garden, Walnut Creek, California

“Well who cares if I am around or not. Someone will be around, and if I don’t plant it then nobody will get to see it.”-Ruth Bancroft

Join us for our next meeting on August 10 from 6:30pm to 7:30pm Pacific (-8 UTC). The meeting theme is “City Parks and Peaceful Parks.” If you would like to join the club, please contact Helen Josephine for an application form.

Register for the meeting: https://tinyurl.com/TravelTalkersZoomLink

Looking forward to hearing your Travel Stories!

Helen Josephine,

Travel Talkers Toastmasters

At our July 27 meeting we celebrated officially becoming a Toastmasters club. We added 6 new members and voted to become Travel Talkers Toastmasters, club number 04670726. We meet weekly on Thursdays from 6:30pm to 7:30pm Pacific time.   To celebrate this accomplishment, we took a trip to Hawaii.

Our Destination Master, Meghan Burns, provided these clues:

• This island is Hawaii’s oldest and fourth largest.
• In 1778, Waimea Bay, on this island’s Northwest shoreline, was the location of the first European contact with Hawaii, by Brisith explorer James Cook.
• It is sometimes called the “Garden Island.”
• Centuries of growth have formed tropical rainforests, forking rivers and cascading waterfalls.
• Many famous movies were shot on location here, including:
  • Blue Hawaii (1961)
  • Jurassic Park (1993)
  • The Descendants (2011)

If you guess Kauai, you are correct!

Kit Myers was our Travel Topic Master. She provided pictures of the volcanic activity, food, travel, and dances that you might find on the Hawaiian Islands. We each took turns giving our responses based on the images and her questions. We learned about the origin of the surfboard and that surfing was originally reserved for Hawaiian royalty. The first written document about surfing in Hawaii was found in the diary of Capt. James Cook, the first European to ever set foot on the island of Hawaii. She also asked us about our favorite recipes for Spam, which is a staple in Hawaiian cooking. Residents of Hawaii eat 7 million cans of Spam per year, making it the state with the highest number of consumers of Spam per capita in the US. We also learned about the Hula, Kona Coffee and the luxurious Pan Am Clipper, a flying boat that took 17 hours and 44 minutes to travel from San Francisco to Honolulu in 1935.

Join us for our next meeting on August 3 from 6:30pm to 7:30pm Pacific (-8 UTC). The meeting theme is “Wide Open Spaces.” If you would like to join the club, please contact Helen Josephine for an application form.

Register for the meeting: https://tinyurl.com/TravelTalkersZoomLink

Looking forward to hearing your Travel Stories!

Helen Josephine,

Travel Talkers Toastmasters

Our July 20th meeting commemorated the day that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Armstrong walked on the Moon 54 years ago on July 20, 1969. A moonshot is defined by Merriam Webster as  a monumental effort and a lofty goal—in other words, a “giant leap.” While most of us will never set foot on the moon, we do have our own personal moonshots and lofty but achievable goals. Perhaps your moonshot is finishing a Pathway level in Toastmasters, giving a speech at a friend’s wedding, or organizing a panel discussion at a major conference. My moonshot is launching this Toastmasters club to provide a community for members to share our love of travel in our prepared speeches and impromptu responses and become better speakers in the process.

Stephen Andert was our speaker this week and he gave us some great tips in his speech, “Networking for Introverts.” He dispelled the myth that we should memorize an elevator pitch all about ourselves as the best networking strategy. Instead he suggested that we need to learn about the other person in the conversation to determine areas of common interest and perhaps niche “uncommon” interests that we both enjoy. This will lead to long lasting relationships and friendships. He recommend that we use a tool to manage our list of new contacts with the goal of following up with them on a regular basis. He also recommend the book “The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World,” by Dorie Clark. This book gave him ideas for how to do small things over time to achieve his goals. He encouraged us to build relationships, meet new people, practice talking to strangers, and to create our own personal networking goals. He reminded us that networking is the act of making connections for the purpose of expanding our ability to do good by building relationships.

Our second speaker was Deanna Mcinroy. Deanna presented an Ice Breaker speech about her work as a volunteer secretary at Participation House Project in Durham, Ontario, a center for youth and adults with physical and developmental disabilities. She shared the recognition she received from her colleagues and her desire to continue serving in this volunteer role. Deanna is from Canada and joins our meeting to participate in travel topics and frequently takes the role of Ah Counter.

Kit Myers was the Destination Master. The facts and food-related clues for the mystery country were:

• This country is one of the 27 schengen countries in the Northern Hemisphere (one of the largest visa-free zones).
• The current Prime Minister is a woman.
• Roma is a cultural group, a type of tomato, and the name of a city.
• One famous city is known for Neapolitan dessert.
• Prosciutto, salt cured ham, is from San Daniele.
• The capital city is known as “The Eternal City” and has seven hills.
• The steak dish, Bistecca alla Fiorentina, is named for a famous city.

If you guessed Italy, you are correct!

The Travel Topics session was lead by Vernitta Brown. Everyone participated in the questions about our memories of the moon landing, television shows about astronauts, and our personal impressions of the moon. The word of the day was monumental. A great adjective to use while discussing moonshots.

Join us for our next meeting on July 27 from 6:30pm to 7:30pm Pacific (-8 UTC). The meeting theme is “Hawaiian Adventures.” We will also be welcoming 5 new members into the club and conducting club business. If you would like to join the club, please contact Helen Josephine for an application form.

Register for the meeting: https://tinyurl.com/TravelTalkersZoomLink

Looking forward to hearing your Travel Stories!

Helen Josephine,

Travel Talkers Toastmasters