The area contest season is winding down with the final contest on Saturday, and the best four contests will be starting next week. Friday night, I braved the snow covered roads on the mountain and made the drive to Johnstown for the area 21 contest. The best from Johnstown and Allegheny Mountains competed for a chance to go to the Division C contest on March 22 in Blairsville.
This is a new segment of my blog which will run on Monday and talk about Toastmasters. If it’s a membership drive, an announcement to pay club dues, or even to highlight a past meeting, I’ll be giving it a mention.
The first thing I’m highlighting this Toastmasters Monday is Talk Up Toastmasters. This membership drive is running now through March 31.
Toastmasters love to connect, so take advantage of it. The Talk Up Toastmasters membership program is the chance to encourage your members to invite guests to a special meeting where prospective members can learn about Toastmasters’ many benefits. Then add five new, dual or reinstated members with a join date between February 1 and March 31, and you’ll receive a special Talk up Toastmasters ribbon to display on your club’s banner.
Next, I’ll be talking about dues renewals. Toastmasters dues are due twice a year, on April 1 and October 1. The current international membership dues are $60 every six months. If your club does not have eight paid members, they are ineligible to send a member to compete in a speech contest. The deadline to pay for the April–September membership period is April 1. To maintain access to Base Camp, dues must be paid by March 31. But in our clubs, we’re getting the word out now about dues renewals.
To pay dues, log into Club Central and process dues. The Board of Directors increased dues to $60 to account for increased operational costs, including inflation and COVID-19.
Finally, I’ll be highlighting our past meeting of the Greensburg club from February 19. It was a cold night and we braved the elements to come out and have a good meeting. There were two speakers, myself and our Club President. I did a project in the Presentation Mastery path on the life of Kings Family Restaurant founder Hartley King.
Kings was a restaurant chain based out of Pittsburgh with locations north and east of the city, and a few south and west. In its heyday, Kings had 36 locations. When Hartley owned the company, he cared about his customers and employees. The chain was sold in the mid-2010’s and has gone downhill ever since. A YouTuber I follow who does videos of businesses that have closed has a few Kings visits in his archives. The most recent visit he did was in New Kensington, a location that closed in 2021 (but don’t quote me on that). At the back of the restaurant is the old Kings logo. It was a sign that reminded me of the old slogan, “We Have Time For You”.
The number of restaurants has dwindled down to four, with two of those locations being in Hempfield and Canonsburg. Like the one remaining Ponderosa which is in Butler, which will be the last Kings left? I would think it’s going to be one of these two.
I was evaluated on vocal variety. While I provided a lot of information, there were times I could have been more excited. Also, there were times I could been shown more discouragement while speaking. Despite a turnout of only six at our meeting, it still went well.
In next week’s Toastmasters blog, I’ll be highlighting the Laurel Highlands meeting and talking about some other topics related to Toastmasters and our meetings.
Stylish 🍒 