David Cay Johnston

2010 CAA Recipient

At the June 23, 2010 Annual Awards Banquet, Postprandial Toastmasters awarded the prestigious Communication Achievement Award to local author David Cay Johnston.

This award is presented annually, “To a member of the Rochester community who has distinguished himself or herself as a leader or spokesperson for a worthy cause, who through, word and deed, epitomizes exceptional accomplishment within his or her field of endeavor.”

Johnston is an investigative journalist with the New York Times who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting in 2001, “For his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code, which was instrumental in bringing about reforms.”

He retired from The Times in April 2008 after 13 years there and has continued his career as an author, lecturer and commentator about issues relating to equity in the tax code.

His latest book in print is Free Lunch, a national bestseller exposing massive transfers of wealth from the poor, middle class and affluent to the super rich.  He is also the author of Perfectly Legal, a national best seller on our tax system that won the 2004 Investigative Book of the Year award.  His first book was Temples of Chance, an expose of the casino industry.

His nomination for this award stated that, “Whether or not you are interested in the subject matter that Johnston writes about or agree with his point of view, it’s clear that he embodies the spirit of the Communication Achievement Award by effectively communicating his message to a variety of audiences through print, broadcast media and public speaking.  He is locally and nationally known for his work, lives in our community and would be a positive addition to our distinguished list of award recipients.”

Past recipients of this award have included Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy, Businessman Thomas Golisano, Non-Profit Executive Jean Howard and the late Andrew Langston, Owner and Chairman of WDKX radio.

Johnston’s remarks at the banquet were focused on effective communication and delivery of a person’s intended message to his or her audience. He was well received by the Postprandial audience with several members hoping for a longer speech.  As many of us know, leaving your audience asking for more is significantly better than having them wish you will stop!  Congratulations to David Cay Johnston on his award this year.

We had an exciting time at our first meeting in 2010. The theme was “New Beginnings,” which led Toastmaster Mark Emblidge to undertake a brief discourse on the “Department of Redundancy Department.”

The meeting was held in the upstairs room at Sanibel Cottage, which is a little tight for our group, but, as one would expect, the close confines didn’t prevent members and guests from enjoying a fast-paced meeting with great speeches and evaluations.

A special shout-out must go to our newest member, Dara Greiger, who walked away with the top prize for her Icebreaker speech. Way to go, Dara! Love it!

Here are all the results of the evening’s contests:

Table Topics

• Runner-Up: Al Turof
• Winner: Bill Self

Evaluator

• Runner-Up: Mark Frisk
• Winner: Al Turof

Speaker

• Runner-Up: Kelly Roland
• Winner: Dara Greiger

The 2008-2009 Postprandial year will end on June 30th and new officers will brainstorm to initiate goals and objectives for the 2009-2010 year beginning July 1st.  My reflection of this year brings with it a great pride of how the executive team came together early on and began a great year planning and bringing forth a slew of goals to re-energize the club for it’s members. Some of the goals that were accomplished include: The Website having a fresh look and allowing more applications available all the time, the induction of 12 new members into our ranks, shaking up our meetings with new and interesting themes and formats, and bringing back our traditional family picnic and brunch. Early on we were able to achieve the Toastmasters President’s Distinguished Club honor; the first in District 65 this year.   Congratulations to the members that will carry on the Postprandial torch next year: President-elect, Dave Pope; V.P. Education-elect, Ed Oberhofer; V.P. Membership-elect, Glenn Burdett; V.P. Public Relations-elect, Mark Frisk; Treasurer-elect, Sudipta Das; Secretary-elect, Allison Moreland; and Sergeant-at-Arms-elect, Allen Cantoni.  Enjoy the leadership opportunity it has afforded those who came before you.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

5:30pm – 6:30pm

Mr. Mike’s Sports Bar And Grill

(formerly Napa Gino’s)

2200 Penfield Road

Penfield, NY

585-750-6234

RSVP: Dave Pope dspope@thepdaschool.com