Sterling, VA: Humor Farm Toastmasters

Sterling, VA
Meets 3 PM First and Third Sundays Eastern Time
Attendance: 11 (6 members, 5 guests)

If you enjoy improv or if you'd like to develop your improv skills, then this club may be of interest to you. Instead of Table Topics, or impromptu speaking, Humor Farm engages all attendees in improv exercises during the last half of the meeting. 

In this meeting, we engaged in four improv exercises. The first was "Yes, and..." Two participants viewed a cartoon on the screen and then improvised what was being said. When one person ended his part, the other started with the words "Yes, and..." and then continued the skit. In another exercise, one person displayed a common object (CD, Toastmasters trophy, headphones, etc.). Then a second person, speaking as if he or she were from 2120 and talking about an archaeological find, had to come up with a purpose for that object that had nothing to do with its actual use.

I really enjoyed doing the improv segment.

During the first half the meeting, we had one prepared speech and I had the opportunity to do that evaluation. I have found that I enjoy getting evaluations from people outside the club because that provides me with fresh and new feedback that I may not have heard before. What is interesting at Humor Farm is that all the other members provide feedback in round-robin evaluations before the official evaluator offers his comments. 

A couple of observations about the club:
  • The meeting did start 8 minutes late. To some that might not be a big deal, but I'm a stickler for starting on time and ending on time.
  • The club is down to eight members. Because of that, some members were serving in multiple roles during the meeting. That can be a drain on those members after a while. I believe it's OK to ask visiting Toastmasters to serve in meeting roles. And they did ask me to be a speech evaluator.

All in all, I really enjoyed this meeting and the members are very friendly.



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