Last night at our Greensburg Toastmasters meeting, I felt like I had a long awaited thing happen to me. I felt like I had a perfect meeting. I have finally made it to the last level of my path that I started in the Summer of 2020. I plan to finish the Dynamic Leadership path in September and have my speeches lined up over a three week period.
I talked about my experience serving as President of Greensburg Toastmasters last year. I also highlighted my Toastmasters history, going back in 2011. The Toastmaster of the meeting introduced me by saying that it wasn’t my first rodeo. I’ll highlight parts of my speech on this blog post.
What was special about tonight’s speech was that I sounded perfect on stage, and not relying on my notes. I really sounded like a seasoned Toastmaster up there last night. I put a lot of planning into that speech and the end result looked great. The same would go for Table Topics and I really like how we applied what we talked about at our officers’ meeting last month. We centered our Table Topics session around the Moments of Truth and I’m glad we’re continuing this at our next meeting.
My story took place early in the Spring of 2023. We just came out of our regular meeting and started planning for the new Toastmasters year. We had solid leadership from the Teagues the last four year and they guided our club through one of the most trying periods (that being COVID). They were very confident that I would continue leading the club to success as the next club President.
I had no problem building my team as most of my officers retained their roles for 2023-24. All I needed was a Secretary and Sergeant at Arms. In my speech, I stressed the importance of attending club officer training and where it fell in the Distinguished Club Program.
My club had its ups and downs, as guests and members came and went. Whether we had fifteen or five in attendance, we always made the most of our meetings. I always tried to set the best example, whether it was giving a speech or running a meeting that was fun, educational, and uplifting. Most importantly, I made sure my meetings ran on time.
The lockdowns during COVID meant meeting in person were no exception to the rule, either. We had to adjust and Zoom was going to be the wave of the future. I was going through the motions and dealing with my own issues but I came back around and learned to embrace the platform. That was around the time I accepted the nomination to serve as Club President.
In the NFL, a quarterback has a passer rating that highlights how he performed in a game. The number for achieving a perfect rating as a QB is 158.3. That’s how I felt Wednesday night at my meeting as I was firing on all cylinders. I even picked up pointers from Hillary’s evaluation. I even inspired one of our guests to come up and do a Table Topic question. Our speeches came from both ends of the Pathways spectrum as Hillary was working on her Level 1 and I was working on my Level 5. My speech evaluator Karen gave me excellent feedback on my speech as well.
Finally, I have a date set for when I’m going to sip my first Pumpkin Spice latte of the season. I’m looking at August 30, which is the Friday before Labor Day Weekend. Last year, I hinted at doing a Pumpkin Spice and Fall Coffee tour and unfortunately that fell through. I’m going to try my hand at it once more this year. I made it two weeks last year before things got busy but I made up for it with my Thanksgiving sandwich mini-tour in November.
Cutie’s is on my list. I’m tempted to try everything on their Fall menu, not just Pumpkin Spice. I’ll do my PSL and Fall Treat tour over a nine week period starting August 30 and going up to October 27. I want to include local cafes in Greensburg. Some road trips will be thrown in as well. The Pittsburgh suburbs, Cranberry, Butler, Kiski Valley, and Ligonier come to mind. I also sense an Oakmont Bakery trip to try some tasty Fall treats.
The Pumpkin Spice Latte and Fall Treats will begin as the Harry Potter reading tour comes to a conclusion.
Stylish 🍒 