A word from President Dan

We continue to have great meetings and are looking forward to many more. Our members are now on board with Pathways, for instance, Julie White, Dan White, Mitchell Notarangelo and Pam Norbraten have now completed their level 1 in Pathways. Dan is working on two paths and has completed two level ones and one Level 2. We have lots of members working on their levels 1 and 2.

We are looking forward to our winter social at Dan and Julie’ this coming Saturday. Please let Pamela Norbraten know if you are coming and what you will bring.
It is time to plan your humorous speech for our March 4th Contest and let Dan White know if you are planning on participating. The more, the merrier. We already have a few signups and would like more members to get on board.

Our Area 45 International Speech contest is on February 24th. It is being hosted by the Whitby Intrepid club. I am sure our Area Director, Jennifer Magee will be there, it is always nice to see her. Attending will be fun and it will give you an idea of what an area contest is like. If you are interested in attending, please let Dan White know.
Last week’s meeting started on time but finished a bit late. We all agreed to extend the meeting for an opportunity for members to share their feelings about Toastmasters, why they joined and why they stay on. The bonding experience was well worth the extra time taken.

Charles Hamilton was Chair, Florian was Toastmaster, Dan White was Table topics with 11 participants, and Nick Iliopoulos was Table Topics Evaluator. Speakers were Praneetha Mulpuri and Nick Iliopoulos.

Pamela Norbraten evaluated Praneetha Mulpuri and Sharon Cardie evaluated Nick Iliopoulos.

Mitchell Notarangelo was General Evaluator.
We did not have a business session due to too many members being away, out of the country and off on job assignments. Not having a minimum of 14 members at a meeting prevents us from conducting a business session. Without a quorum, business cannot be conducted.

Pamela Norbraten will cover this subject at our next meeting in our Educational Session. Then in the following meeting we will make a motion to have this change in the cub bylaws.

As per Toastmasters International; what is a quorum.

Quorum: Section 1

A majority of the active individual membership shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of all business of this club.
Upon review of and according to the approved Roberts Rules of Order a club has the right to take corrective measures if a situation puts the club in a position of not being able to conduct business.

Due to our club having a large number of people who go south for the winter and others that take frequent business trips, we need to take a corrective measure.
The solution is to see that there is a TI’s definition of an Active Member. We now need to create a club definition for an “Active Member.”

According to TI an Active Member is an individual who is a paid member in good standing with Toastmasters International. Active members attend club meetings, have voting privileges, may be elected as an officer of the club, shall be counted towards a quorum of the club membership, may participate in speech contests if they fulfill the other eligibility criteria, and may have a place on the regular speaker’s program.

Based on TI’s definition of an active member, they attend club meetings. In my mind, if they don’t attend meetings that makes them “Inactive.”
In other word, we can assume that not attending club meetings is logically “inactive” at the club level.

Therefore, we consider a paid-up member who does not participate in meetings, to be inactive at the club level. If they are not in attendance at a particular club meeting, they will not be counted in terms of establishing a quorum.

We consider a member who misses more than 50% of the meetings or puts us on notice of being away, as “inactive” until they resume coming to meetings.

A member who notifies the club that they will be away for an extended period, only makes them inactive at the club level for the period of their absence. As soon as they return to meetings they are automatically reactivated and their absence is not counted against their average attendance.

We cannot do proxy voting because, according to TI Constitution we cannot have votes by proxy or absentee ballot.

I am looking forward to another great meeting of Toastmasters Whitby Pros.

Here is the agenda that as always is subject to last minute changes. We all should have a speech ready so we can step in if a speaker can not make their spot.

Subject to last minute updates here is the tentative schedule of roles for the January 29th meeting are as follows; (Subject to last minute changes)
Please everyone; confirm your attendance.

Dan
dan.white@taxauditsolutions.com