The time has come. It’s Fall Symposium weekend in District 13 Toastmasters. For those of you who signed up, I hope you have a great time Saturday morning. I hope the Tech team does it magic and posts portions of the event to the District 13 Toastmasters YouTube channel. I won’t be in attendance as I will be en route to Slippery Rock University for their annual homecoming. More on why I’m attending that in tomorrow’s blog post.
Registration is now open and is $15 for Toastmasters and $25 for non-Toastmasters. There will be an awards and recognition ceremony during the event. The District will celebrate the 2020-2021 achievements and accomplishments of our Toastmasters family and friends. If you missed last year’s ceremony, it was posted a few days later to the District YouTube channel. I enjoyed playing back how I won the Spirit of Toastmasters award and showing off my DTM medal and Spirit of Toastmasters award.
Featured speakers will include Jackie L. Gartner-Schmidt, Ph.D., and Karen Issacs, DTM. Dr. Gartner-Schmidt is co-director of both the University of Pittsburgh Voice Center and the Upper Airway Exercise Breathing Center. Ms. Isaacs serves as the Region 6 Advisor.
Isaacs is a Business Consultant with over 30 years ofexperience at a major health insurance company. Karen holds a B.S. in BusinessAdministration from Duquesne University and a Certificate of Paralegal Studies from College of Mount St. Joseph College (Cincinnati, Ohio). As a Professor of Otolaryngology, and Director of Speech-Language Pathology-Voice Division at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Jackie’s clinical and research focus specializes on care of the professional speaking voice, as well as clinical effectiveness of voice therapy and respiratory retraining.
Karen joined Toastmasters in 2004 to improve her communication skills and found copious opportunities to utilize and develop her leadership skills. Jackie is a frequent presenter at national and international conferences and has also presented a TEDx Talk on voice and perception.
It’s a joy to have both ladies presenting at the upcoming Fall Symposium.
Monday night saw another excellent meeting at PROMasters!
Past International Director and Distinguished Toastmaster Russell L Drake started the meeting off with his speech “How to Make Quicker and Better Decisions”. This presentation was full of tips and tricks that people can use for making any decision, big or small, short-term or long-term.
Next was past District 13 Humorous Speech contest winner Sally Chopping who entertained everyone with her speech entitled “British is a Foreign Language”. I would have loved to have heard that speech.
Table Topics Master extraordinaire Elizabeth Burnette challenged the club to answer questions that people ask (but probably shouldn’t). All the participants were so gracious, and turned what could have been a disastrous conversation into a positive and uplifting one. Thanks for giving me inspo for a future Table Topics session perhaps.
Toastmaster Jackey Collier, Timer Catherine McCarron and President Stephanie Scott ran the meeting. That’s quality District Leadership there.
The next meeting will be via ZOOM on Monday, October 25th!
Finally, a big shoutout to the Bayview Toastmasters Club for achieving nine of the ten annual performance goals in just 90 days! That’s a lot of awards and new members!
When asked how they did it, club president Siva Devarapalli said: “Teamwork. We knew it would be very challenging, but we agreed to try it. A special shoutout to Fred Vornbrock and Mike Bloeser; their experiences helped define our strategy and execute it flawlessly. We frequently met to discuss progress, found solutions to our barriers, and we did it. It was hard work, but we had fun!” Bloeser is a past District Governor.
Charter member and immediate past president, Mike Bloeser, added: “As a club, we’ve achieved President’s Distinguished before, but we’ve never earned nine goals in the first quarter. As a Past District Governor (Director) Mike notes: This is historic.”
Chartered in 1991, Bayview just celebrated their 30th Anniversary this past May. The club was formed as a community club, hosted by Hamot Hospital (what is now UPMC-Hamot). Bayview has produced several District 13 leaders over the past 25 years. Club membership had waned recently, and due to the pandemic, meetings are only held virtually. Special recognition goes to former club coaches Chad Adams and current Area 15 Director Bandana Raj, as well as most their recent coach, Fred Vornbrock!
Congratulations to everyone on their recent achievements! Your fellow Toastmasters look forward to helping you celebrate your success during the Hall of Fame at the 2021 District 13 Fall Leadership Symposium on Saturday, October 16, 2021.
The District 13 Leadership Team looks forward to celebrating with its members. Keep up the great work!
Stylish 🍒 