Good Excuse

We heard three great speeches at the Area 4 Contest. Topics ranged from Rick Hays’ speech about his life and family (his Dad was a lawyer for U.S. Steel) to Jack Burt’s speech on how he found “A New View” on a certain class of people.

Viba Ranganathan of the Pittsburgh Toastmasters 144 gave the best speech, “Good Excuse”. In her speech, Viba talked about how fear is the biggest thing keeping us from doing what we want to do. For me, I struggle with fear more than anything.

My friend Sara and her mother Paula have given me the confidence to be me. I don’t need to apologize for me being me anymore. Sara has instilled in me “to be proud of being unapologetically ME” and to not be embarrassed of my fashion sense. If no one agrees with me, I’m grateful that the girls have accepted me for being myself. I’m so blessed that they have also adopted me (unofficially) into their family.

Maybe that’s why I enjoyed Jack’s speech as well. He was able to gain a new understanding of how people who are gay live their lives. Over the years, he has really come to accept the lifestyle. It’s prevalent in his family as well. Both Jack and Viba’s speeches tied into the contest winning that North Hills member Dawn Fratto gave last Saturday at the Area 12 contest.

🙌Congratulations to South Hills President, Area 4 Director, and Speech Contest Chair Dominic Gray for conducting a wonderful Speech Contest Event. It was a fun speech showdown between Pittsburgh Toastmasters and South Hills Toastmasters!

This was a great team effort! Thank you to the members, volunteers, contestants, and guests!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻. I had a great time at the ending chatting with Marci and Dominic, and introducing myself to Area 2 Director Julia Wick of Moon Toastmasters.

Corliss and Jack will advance to the Division Awesome Table Topics contest on March 14. Jack and Viba will advance to the Division Awesome International Speech contest held on the same day. Here’s a photo of our contestants. All of them did a great job today.

I’m looking into attending Area 2’s contest on February 24. It will be a joint contest with Area 33 in Division D.

It’s been a great early start to contest season and there’s more to come.

Bye District 13 Toastmasters Family. ❤️ you.