City Speech finishes 2020-2021 Strong!

As we end the Toastmasters year today, it is hard not to reflect on the successes we have enjoyed this past year.

Let me count the ways we have done something good:

• We achieved President’s Distinguished status.
• We posted 15 level completions just in the span of two months: April & May! We won the 1st prize for that accomplishment. Throughout the year, we posted 26 level completions.
• We endured the 2021 Club Newsletter Contest that our district organized and secured 1st place in the contest. This lasted six months starting November 2020 and ended in April.
• In the year devastated by COVID-19 the world over, while many of the other clubs saw their membership numbers drop, we have seen phenomenal growth in our membership count. We went from the starting count of 23 to the final count of 32, a net addition of 9. This is the result of adding 21 members that offset our share of attrition.
• In the first year that District Bucks have been put in place, we earned a whopping $480 through awards and incentives and were one of the top earning clubs in the district. A glimpse at what earned us this success:

5/9/21: 1st Place Newsletter Contest
5/2/21: Gem Goal Award
4/13/21: Open House
4/27/21: Open House
3/2/2021: First 20 Clubs with 8 Member Renewal
2/11/21: 7 of 7 Officers Trained
11/10/20: Open House
9/22/20: Open House
8/10/20: First 40 Clubs with 8 Member Renewal
9/7/20: 7 of 7 Officers Trained
8/31/20: Mini Success Plan

• Two of the members, Praveena and Luz, earned their Triple Crowns for completing three Pathways levels that included a Level 5 completion.
• Two of the members, Praveena and Venkat, earned their OATM awards (Outstanding Achievement Toastmaster). This is Venkat’s fourth year of qualifying for this award.

In the history of City Speech, it seems that the stars and planets aligned to enable us to score this level of success this year. But the real story is the members coming alive in making the club vibrant and being motivated to accomplish much.

Take our President’s Distinguished status, for example. Members who contributed to making it happen are Pravesh Kumar, Abhishek Chaturvedi, Tony Zhang, Shue Xiong, Mary Perez, Darshana Suresh, Praveena Raman, Srinivas Koneru, and Amit Kamble. Out of these, Darshana contributed to DCP points 1 and 2. Everyone else contributed to just one of the points that got us there. This is a fabulous demonstration of all of us pulling together.

We have had an interesting history with our distinguished status. Chartered on June 30, 2014, exactly seven years ago today, we have had seven opportunities at this metric. Note that the criteria that determine this status use both DCP points and membership level. The following table captures our history where we have never been just Distinguished. Either we had no distinction or we have been Select or President’s Distinguished.

Year	DCP Points	Members	Status
2014-2015	1	9
2015-2016	8	21	Select Distinguished
2016-2017	9	23	President’s Distinguished
2017-2018	10	17
2018-2019	10	20	President’s Distinguished
2019-2020	10	23	President’s Distinguished
2020-2021	9	32	President’s Distinguished

City Speech Distinguished Club status over the years

As you can see, 2017-2018 was a heartbreaker because, in spite of maxing out with 10 out of 10 DCP points, we were left holding the bag with no distinction due to our closing membership count not making it to 20 on June 30, 2018. We are sensitive to that aspect of DCP and have tried to maintain the required membership count.

Each year has its own incentive mix. Many of the incentives may continue. Some may be lost, and new ones may appear. It is our goal to work with whatever is available and maximize our accomplishments and, in the end, our enjoyment.

The challenge is on for the upcoming year. We’ll give it our best shot!

Self Mentoring

By Darshana Suresh

So many of us at the end of the Day ponder on this question – Who am I? What is the purpose of this life? Am I seeing myself change each day? Am I living the best of my life? Am I contributing to the world around me?

Sometimes these thoughts give us a sense of insecurity about our lives so much so that we feel that void between where we are now and who we want to be. And to bridge this void we check out videos that inspire us, remind us about our qualities and how we can be better. Or we ask someone for help or to mentor us.

The word Mentor evolved to mean trusted advisor, friend, teacher, and wise person. History offers many examples of helpful mentoring relationships: Socrates and Plato, Haydn and Beethoven, Freud and Jung, Moses and Joshua, Krishna and Arjuna, Confucius and Lao Tzu and the list continues. However, when one is not able to find a mentor or a guide, they have a feeling that there is no way they can take the next step towards success. But the question we need to ask ourselves is: Who knows us better than ourselves? That belief is the step towards self-mentoring.

How can one self-mentor:

1. Reflection: We all have a unique story, and we have been connecting those dots which leads us to where we are now. When we step back and reflect it becomes easier for us to keep pace with our goals and ambitions and the way you can do this is

a) Take a sheet of paper and list down all the experiences coming from your failures which has shaped and molded you into a better person. Some experiences can be painful, but instead of questioning why it happened to you, just witness the event.

• The events which have taught you lessons, connect these events and reflect on how these have helped you and express gratitude that they happened and made you a better person.
• Next step is to draft all the good experiences you have had in two lines and as you recall rekindle that event happening right in front of your eyes
• Now put a smile in your face and feel proud of these accomplishments and express gratitude.
  c) Connect both these events and see what are those dots connecting to, it will help you understand yourself as a person, your behavioral type, a role you can be good at, some clarity on where you are progressing towards.
  d) If these makes you feel blank take a personality test and see in which quadrant, you fit in the best – https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

2. Dream Journaling: After you have your personality and the roles you can fit-in listed in, you can envision who you want to be, which role excites you the most, the roles you are passionate about and write down only 3 roles you envision yourself in. Ask this question – “What am I good at and what am I passionate about?” and devise your goals in a way that you encompass all the skills and the passion.

3) Inspiration: After you have your 3 roles ready, Visit the professional networking sites like LinkedIn or google and check out people who are working in those roles and understand what it takes to reach there. The certifications you can take or how you can level up your experience. Chat with them to better understand what it takes reach up to where they are right now.

To end with, Self-mentorship helps you understand yourself better and creates a path forward. Also, it gives you a sense of realization that we are driven by our own unique experiences, and how can
we keep getting better each day.

Aspiration Not Required, But Remember to Breathe: On Being An Area Director

By Jeffrey Young, ACB, ALB, Area I-33 Director (2020-2021)

I never wanted to be a leader.  Not in a million years, not for a million bucks.  The responsibility for /being in charge of things/ is a fear of mine greater than public speaking.  Mostly because when things go wrong, you’re the one they blame, and you aren’t just failing yourself, you’re failing the team.  I am also bad at delegating, and so I am the last person I thought you’d want as an Area Director.

Why did I do it, then?  Because there was nobody else.  Because I promised someone I would someday, and I make good on my promises.

Almost a year later, I can say that I greatly enjoyed the experience.  It’s both a lot of work and not work at the same time; I wanted to be better than some of the previous ADs we had for my club, and so I threw myself into it pretty hard.  The reward was making a bunch of new Toastmaster friends that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Of all the things that I can say that the benefits are for being an Area Director, there are three:

•  You get more out of it the more you put into it.

They say the minimum you need to do is visit each of your Area clubs once every six months to do the Club Visit report.   But I’ve been to my Area clubs multiple times, filled in roles when they needed help, and even gave a speech at a couple of them when their speaker canceled.  It’s not just about saying hello and disappearing, you need to get involved with the clubs themselves to understand how they work and who they are – because only then can you be effective at helping them.    Above the bare minimum visit, you need to try and be there for their Open Houses; your ‘job’ here is to say good things about the club because your position as a dignitary gives the club gravitas to guests.

You make friends.  Not just people you bump into at the contests, but people who you get to hear their stories and speeches and you get to know them as people.

I know, I know, ‘But that’s just so much time attending club meetings for multiple clubs…’   Yes, it is.  But I’m a convert and a believer.  Every single club in my Area welcomed me with open arms and always seemed happy to see me when I showed up.  (Either that, or they’re really good at faking.)                        

You increase your visibility in the world.   Some people are happy in their clubs, but as Darren LeCroix said at the Spring Conference, nobody joined Toastmasters to be good at speaking at Toastmasters.  The whole point is to work on your leadership skills in a safer environment where you volunteer to help out, be helped, and the cost of messing up is very low

• You learn to ask for things and delegate.

The big to-do of an Area Director is arranging the Area contest.  If you’re lucky, you’ll have a Contest Chair and Toastmaster volunteering without being asked.   If you’re less lucky, you’ll need to do one or both jobs yourself.   But you can’t do the job alone.   You need judges, ballot counters, timers, a tech host if we’re still doing virtual contests, and so you need to ask for help.   If you’ve been going to the District Executive Committee Meetings (DECM), working with your Division Director, and going to your clubs enough, people are more willing to help you because you’re not just a stranger asking for stuff.  I got a lot better at asking people for help over the past year, and a part of it is giving back by volunteering to help – I was a judge and a target speaker for a couple of other contests, and got back people in trade.   

The hidden lesson: Since Toastmasters is a volunteer organization, you can’t order anyone to do anything. You have to ask.  You have to let things go and hope someone comes through for you when they say they will.   Those are lessons in leadership I couldn’t have learned any other way.

• The paperwork needs help, along with the training, but it helps you pay attention to details differently. 

There’s no nice way to say it –  the Club Report paperwork is a bit tedious.  The key thing to remember is the web form is due one month before the end of each half, so November 30 and May 31 – get your club visits done before then, and read the sheet beforehand to know what to look for.   Fortunately, you only have to do it for your Area Clubs twice a year, and if you have it open when you visit the clubs, you can fill most of it out right then and there.  There are questions about how the club greets guests, handles awards, whether they’re using Pathways, that sort of thing.  You are the eyes and ears of the District, so if there’s a problem, you’re in position to help, and the Club Report is the checklist.

Given the choice, knowing what I know now, would I have still said yes?   Definitely.  You wouldn’t be reading this article if I didn’t, because I didn’t have a reason to visit outside the club until I became an Area Director; I only ever got to see other Toastmasters at competitions and officer training. 

Do I recommend it to others?  Yes.  The year goes by quickly; I’ve helped my Area clubs in small ways and big ways, and though I wasn’t always successful, that fear of failure went away after the Area contest, not because of anything I did personally, but for the work of the people that helped it – and by extension, me – succeed.   

Just don’t forget to breathe.

My Experience as Chair of City Speech Open House

By Amit Kamble.

When it was announced that our club was going to have its first Open House for 2021, I was curious and excited to find out what it was all about. What would be the best way to know? I thought that the best way to find out would be to volunteer to coordinate the Open House would be to be part of it and I offered my interest to be a coordinator for the Open House. I am so grateful to City Speech President Luz Flores for generously accepting my offer even though I’m a new member.

As a Chair and coordinator for the Open House my job was to work with experienced members to create advertising material, make sure roles were assigned as per the Agenda and send reminders about the event. 

Thank you to Venkat Raman for guiding me through the process. He also drafted the Open House Agenda which made my job much easier as I had to just follow that format. Pooja Shah designed the flyer and Abhishek Chaturvedi emailed the flyer to past members and posted it on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Also a big thank you to Abhishek and Pooja for the wonderful job they did in helping with the promotion of the event.

How can I forget all the volunteers who responded to my follow-ups and took up the Roles of Table Topic Master, Speakers, Evaluators, Timer and Ah Counter. You did an awesome job in your roles.

I must mention that all the City Speech team members are so helpful and welcoming that it was easy for a new member like me to successfully coordinate the Open House.  

I would like to encourage other members to experience events such as the Open House by chairing an event or volunteering for available roles.

International Women’s Day Panel: Successful women sharing their stories

By Luz Flores

International Women’s Day (March 8) is celebrated globally to recognize the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. On Monday, March 8 this year, I had the privilege of taking part in these celebrations.

A week earlier, I got a call from a high school friend of mine, inviting me to participate in a virtual event organized for this occasion by the SUMA Inmobilarias Association in Mexico. I was to be on a panel of women.  The panel discussion would be in Spanish and would be shared live on Facebook and YouTube.

I was really nervous to participate, but said yes to my friend. Toastmasters gave me the confidence that I could do a good job. I needed to prepare my responses to questions that will be asked during the panel discussion. I received the questions Saturday evening, just two days prior to the live event. With very little time to practice, I reviewed my Pathways Level 5 project to prepare for it. That only helped me prepare for the introduction and conclusion well. The actual questions would be asked at random and needed to be answered on the spot. This is where the Table Topics practice during our Toastmasters meetings comes to the rescue.

When the event time arrived on Monday, I was nervous, but ready. I met the rest of the panelists as they were being introduced. We were 7 women: an architect, a public notary, a public accountant, a business administrator, a lawyer, a real estate agent, and me, an engineer. Impromptu speaking became the norm during the discussion. Some questions were modified and adjusted on the spot. Some conversations needed to be continued from panelist to panelist as continued comments. Table topics is so important. You always have to be ready to speak!

Some of the questions addressed: challenges as a woman in our careers; problems in our professional life; balancing our life as a mother, professional, wife, and daughter; status of women today; what it means to be successful; advice to other women; and our current and future professional projects.

I understood from my mom and my husband that I did do a good job. In typical Toastmasters style, I also learned of some areas of opportunities to improve. My high school friend was really happy with the event and my participation. I was happy and relieved after the event!

I felt the support of both City Speech Toastmasters and Word Warriors Club (my home club when I lived in Mexico) as I experienced the event. Thank you all for helping me by way of helping each other to improve and grow as communicators and leaders.

Speechcraft 202: Turning Resonate into Reso-Neat

By Jeffrey Young, ACB, ALB, Area I-33 Director

Disclaimer: I do not ever think I’m a perfect speaker. But I’ve had a lot of things to say over the years, and so I’m writing from personal experience rather than being an expert. We always have room to grow as speakers no matter if we’ve been doing it for one day or one thousand days.

It’s not often I completely flub a Table Topic, but it still happens – like at the meeting on March 9, where I took on the role of a sportscaster in my own life and managed to fall over my tongue while sticking my foot in my own mouth. Not my finest moment, for sure. I wanted something that would resonate with the audience, and instead I wound up with reso-naughts. So naturally, I’m going to write about it.

Writing a resonating speech is all about relating to the audience in a way that they relive an experience with you.

The /Memory Story/ is a powerful tool in speeches. If you can lay out your story in a way that connects to your audience, you create an emotional bond that can captivate an audience’s imagination and transport them in a tiny time machine of your own making to wherever you were at that time.

Following the Rule of Threes (‘put up three ideas’ for your article or speech), I’m going to relate the Three Requirements of Resonating Recollection:

1. Figure Out Your Flow First, Followed by First Looks

When I have a ton of ideas in my head all fighting to get out, each one of them wants to be first. Toastmasters teaches us to Organize Our Ideas before saying a word, and that was my first mistake. Today’s Table Topics Master gave us a gift – a format of opening and closing that we could follow, and all I needed to do was fit my story in the middle. If you don’t have that format, figure out a solid opening framing line that indicates that a story is in the works, even if it’s the tried and true ‘Once upon a time…’ which I’ve actually used in a speech before.

The Sportscaster persona I was using could have laid out the picture a little bit better – ‘an uneven 12 on 12, mano a mano knockdown dodgeball competition and battle of the sexes.’ Describing each team in greater detail, talking about the team Captains, that sort of thing. Maybe I could have explained briefly the rules of Dodgeball as well.

2. And then… Action
   Once you’ve taken your audience to the place where your adventure happened, it’s time to describe the events that made it memorable as more than just a place you went. What happened to you that you want to share? What emotions did you feel? Were you alone? Or were you helped or hindered by your traveling companions?

In my case, I could have talked about how the boys were acting all superior and how their first few throws sent the girls scattering into the corners. But then, the girls’ champions started turning the tables with that first catch of the dodgeball…

3. Engage Everyone’s Emotions
   This is the tough part. The emotional value – that intangible thing that makes or breaks an inspirational speech. The ability to use vocal variety and words and emotes to get everyone to –feel- a –feeling- you want them to feel, be it hopeful, angry, sad, frightened… How do you add it? The easy answer is to re-live the moment in your words and actions.

“It’s a massacre, folks! The boys are suffering a massive upset and man, they are upset as they walk off the court with their heads down. The girls are fighting mad and oh! There goes the last guy who could throw down with the girls, because he threw it right into the clutches of the girl’s team captain, Cathy Sivio! The boys have one player left, and he’s absolutely tiny, and he looks utterly terrified! It’s the Girl Goliaths versus David! He’s so small they can’t hit him as he throws himself across the room, heedless of his own safety! I think his name is Jeff, and he puts the Dodge in Dodgeball! Look at him go! Cathy throws at him and misses by a county mile! His problem is he can’t throw worth anything because the ball is bigger than his head…. Who will win?” “Oh, the ref is stopping the match! He’s not going to give the kid a fighting chance… someone throw a flag on the ref or something, because that scrappy kid sure looked like he wanted to go down fighting… such a disappointment…”

That was the Table Topics answer I would have delivered if I’d had the chance to slow down and think about it further, but hey, hindsight is everything.

When it comes to a speech, all it really takes is to expand out this format into something longer, and with a life lesson to go with it, and maybe a joke or two, and you’ll have a winner eight times out of ten. The other two times, you’ll get upstaged by a better story, or you’ll forget half your story in the middle. I’ve been there, too….

Pathways

By Praveena Raman

In the 2020-2021 Toastmasters year the following three presentations were presented at our club.  All these presentations (video and slides) can be accessed on City Speech TM website under Member Resources (log in required).

• Pathways to your Goal: an introduction to the Pathways program (article).  Presented on October 27, 2020.
• Pathways: Ready! Set! Go! (Pathways Lightning Talk series): builds on the introduction and covers logging into Base Camp and selecting a path
• Pathways: Beginning the Climb! (Pathways Lightning Talk series): covered the levels of a path, the projects from start to finish and tips for the climb towards your goal.

I would like to invite you to participate in the Pathways Lightning Talk series and share your experience with projects on your path (at any level), which projects were attractive to you, did you tie your projects to your path and lessons learned. 

Michael Gwinner has shared with us a graph (current as of February 16, 2021) showing the number of members you have either started or planning to start on a given path.  The graph also shows which paths (of the 11 paths) have been chosen and how many members are on a given path.

 

As you can see Presentation Mastery is very popular among City Speech Members.  With nine members who have chosen this path, all of you can have path buddies and/or mentors to help you reach your goal.  You can brainstorm together as to how to tie your speeches specifically to your path and maximize your learning as you reach your goal.  As a bonus here is an article about the path The Path to Presentation Mastery: Educational projects help you become an accomplished speaker published in the March 2019 issue of Toastmaster.

Icebreaker Ceremony at the Word Warriors Toastmaster Club in Toluca, Mexico

By

By Luz Flores,
President, City Speech TM

The ice breaker ceremony and speech were an important experience for all the members at the Word Warriors Toastmaster club in Mexico. Ice breakers started your path and your Toastmaster journey. I was a member of the Word Warriors before moving to California.

Meetings at Word Warriors had the prepared speeches section at the beginning and always started with the Ice breakers. After the break, we would have the ice breaker ceremony, speech evaluations, followed by table topics and general evaluation. The icebreaker ceremony was led by the Club President. During the ceremony the ice was broken literally by the new members and not just verbally. After the ice was broken, the President of the club would give some encouraging words to the member or members who presented the ice breakers.

What was the main ingredient of the icebreaker ceremony? Ice! The member would have a big piece of ice in front of them which they would break with the gavel. All the members cheered and clapped for the new members. After breaking the ice each new member would recite the Toastmasters promise (given below)

As a member of Toastmasters International and my club, I promise:

• To attend club meetings regularly
• To prepare all of my projects to the best of my ability, basing them on the Toastmasters education program
• To prepare for and fulfill meeting assignments
• To provide fellow members with helpful, constructive evaluations
• To help the club maintain the positive, friendly environment necessary for all members to learn and grow
• To serve my club as an officer when called upon to do so
• To treat my fellow club members and our guests with respect and courtesy
• To bring guests to club meetings so they can see the benefits Toastmaster’s membership offers
• To adhere to the guidelines and rules for all Toastmasters education and recognition programs
• To act within Toastmasters’ core values of integrity, respect, service and excellence during the conduct of all Toastmasters activities

Woo your Audience and Build Relationships

by Praveena Raman

With the celebration of St. Valentine’s Day, the month of February has been associated with love and relationships.  In our journey as a Toastmaster we continually strive to build relationships with our speeches, from the very first icebreaker to the professional speeches.  In his article, A Speech is a Love Affair (Toastmaster. February 2015; p14) Toastmaster Jack Vincent mentions that a great speech is like a love affair as we focus on our audience, touch their emotions and also their minds creating an attraction and a connection.  He talks about how to seduce, engage and win the hearts of our audience.  Jack mentions that simplicity sparks emotion and attraction is a strong emotion; so with a simple but attention grabbing opening we can start seducing our audience.  We then nail the seduction with a well-paced speech delivered with genuine confidence.  Jack next discusses how to engage the audience with a well-developed content assuring them of a wonderful journey they will be taking with us and then winning their heart by delivering the content with passion and love.

Let us try and put into practice these recommendations from Jack Vincent and see if we can have a number of love affairs this year.  As you all know to develop a great speech, apart from a powerful topic we need words to help us convey our enthusiasm, our passion, our love so that we can woo our audience properly. To help us in this effort, below is a 7 verse Jingle written in the 1930s by Elizabeth Scott Stam.  It is available on Google, however the below verses are from a submission to The Toastmaster, June 1938;V4(n2):p22.

Once we have wooed and won our audience, let us keep building our relationship, strengthening and maintaining through our Toastmasters journey. In his February 2021 ViewPoint column in the Toastmaster, International President, Richard E. Peck, asks us if we are the String, the Bow or Both in Cupid’s bow? In his view Cupid’s bow can be used to describe relationships and he explains that just as there needs to be a balance between the tautness of the string and the bend of the bow for the perfect release of the arrow, in the same way we need to have the right balance between building and maintaining relationships.

Let’s continue to woo our audience and build our relationships not just this month but this year and more as coming together gives us a sense of belonging and learning and growing together gives us a sense of purpose.

Reflections on a Decade of Toastmasters

By Jeff Young, ACB, ALB, Area I-33 Director

Back in 2010, I was told I couldn’t communicate clearly.  By my manager.  “You tend to stumble over your words.  You speak way too fast for me to follow.  You’re disorganized and I can’t tell where one of your points starts and where it ends, and I think you overshare information.”   While I was a great technical writer, I wasn’t her go-to person when it came to presenting. 

She told me about this club that she was a member of called Toastmasters, and the local chapter was right in my company.   It turned out she was the President of the club.   Most of the members were employees of the company, with a few outside guests.

At first, I thought my mission was to get through the Competent Communicator Manual.  Ten speeches, no sweat, how hard could it be?  Did I really need this course?   Surely I wasn’t that bad of a speaker…

…but then I learned by the feedback and the evaluations that I got that how I saw myself was not the truth.   I got a lot of people telling me to slow down.  To make sure that my points were well outlined.  To provide ‘just enough’ information rather than too much.   I learned that there were tricks to using PowerPoint slides, and how to use them effectively.  I learned that props could be distracting even if they were cool, and how to deal with the dreaded Silence when you ask, ‘Are there any questions?’ 

I started off being afraid of getting up behind that podium.   And somewhere in there, between the speeches and workshops and frequently being Toastmaster, I learned to enjoy it.   I’d still get feedback like, ‘Um, I don’t understand what you’re asking’,  and ‘Can you repeat that again, slower?’ when it came to workshops or running Table Topics (for all you Table Topics Masters… remember to try and keep it simple!)

I learned to love Mondays.   How many people can say that?  My South Bay Toastmasters co-conspirators do!

At two years, three months in, my 10^th speech was about expanding my horizons.  It was a little long, at 13 minutes, and from there, I had the choice to quit, or take the free Advanced Communicator manuals that were the surprise for finishing.    I picked Technical Presentations and Humorously Speaking, because I wanted to actually focus my speeches on the why I joined Toastmasters in the first place, and to learn to be funnier.   And so I kept going.   Ten more speeches.  Three more years. And then after that, I got inspired by someone at the District level who had done –ten- CCs, and so I started another one.   And then I was a beta tester for Pathways.    I’ve given three distinctly different Icebreaker speeches, and each one was better than the last. 

Like so many things in life, we get better with practice.   We get rusty when we don’t practice.   Toastmasters is like that too.  (I love the fact that City Speech managed to get three speakers in when I visited this month.)

I’ve mentored people many times over the years, too.   I always go with the same advice;  ‘there’s nothing to be afraid of except yourself – we’re here to support you, word ‘warts’ and all.’   My teaching style is all about inspiration and improvisation – and teaching helps me slow down in order to be understood. 

I was also active in the Area – volunteering as a judge, target speaker for contests, and when nobody else wanted to step up, I represented my club at the Area Contest.   And I was up against some amazing speakers – and came in dead last.   Mostly because I was scared all over again.  I realized I was comfy speaking in front of my own club, but at the Area level?  That was a whole new ballgame.  Especially when the timer started by showing me the red card first… that threw me off my game right off the bat!

But instead of letting that stop me, I got contact information from the other contestants – and learned from them.  That’s the thing about competitions – your ‘opponents’ are Toastmasters, too.  And we’re all out to help each other be better speakers and leaders.   And that didn’t stop me from going up again, either.  (I came in second that time….out of two.) 

Ten years later, my club is now 90% outside guests, 10% company employees.   People from all walks of life have come through our doors, and we are richer for the experiences.  I’ve learned so many things from so many people – even an Icebreaker can be eye-opening.    We had a brief hiatus when we went on what looked like a temporary lockdown, and like the rest of the Toastmasters universe, we had to adjust to the notion of virtual meetings.   But the fact of the matter is that we’re still showing up even after almost a year of this, and we find reasons to speak every week. 

It’s taken me ten years to step up and volunteer to be an Area Director.  Mostly because I never saw myself as a leader, but leading is not just about ordering people around, it’s learning to connect with strangers and be a resource rather than a manager.   It’s not at all what I expected – it’s mainly a reason to visit new clubs and to get out in front of a new group of people and … to just be me.  Practicing public speaking in front of a crowd of strangers who would become friends with a shared passion.

A statistic I keep hearing year after year is that the majority of new Toastmasters never make it to Project 5 – or past Level 2.   But yet I’ve seen so many Toastmasters at the clubs I visit, at Area contests, and at TLIs who keep coming back, year after year.   If you stick with it, you not only get a lifetime of learning, but a legion of friends who remember who you are.  It’s our own way of being ‘famous’, because when you get a chance to speak, you get a chance to shine.

Will you be the next person to step up and speak?   The future is yours, and the sky is the limit.