Saturday morning was the annual Summer TLI event at Westmoreland County Community College at Youngwood. The theme was “Rise and Shine” and a wonderful program loomed ahead.
The best parts of the event on Saturday included a skit by the South Hills Toastmasters players. This followed a song played by one of Greensburg’s own which he performed on his keyboard. A couple of Toastmasters from other clubs helped out with the skit. It was reminiscent of Toastmasters Got Talent from Winter TLI in December 2023. The theme was Creating Club Quality and was a tale of two meetings, one that wasn’t organized and another that was well-prepared. Which one do you think has the best impact on club quality? Overall, the song and skit were a great way to begin the training.
Our training session for Vice President Public Relations was informative. Our facilitators Stephanie Scott and Autumn Jose tag teamed the session and did a great job. Autumn used her VPPR experience at Western Maryland to make the presentation a success. She and Laurel Highlands/Western Maryland VPE Gary Imes added some helpful PR/Pathways materials into the program. I remember that education guide from Gary’s speech just a month ago. Autumn also passed around some material like the end of year newsletter that covered Western Maryland’s first year. They will be having a celebration on Thursday at the Comfort Inn & Suites in LaVale, MD. I’ve attended a couple of online meetings and enjoy the setup. One of these days I’ll attend in person. There may be interest in starting up a club in neighboring Garrett County, MD, as well.
I’ll return to my TLI recap in just a few minutes, but I’ve got some exciting news to share. The Laurel Highlands Toastmasters club recently achieved President’s Distinguished honors. They were one of the first clubs in Toastmasters to charter as a hybrid club (in 2021), making history. They’ll do so again with this high honor. We’re confident that they will achieve Smedley Distinguished in 2025-26. I’ll explain that momentarily. I like the connections they are now making with West Virginia University, as we have two members in the club who are new officers beginning on July 1.
In its first year of existence, Western Maryland Toastmasters has also achieved President’s Distinguished. Sharon will be passing the torch to Ryan Jacobs at Laurel Highlands, and Autumn Jose at Western Maryland. I know that both presiding officers will lead their clubs to ten goals and Smedley Distinguished.
So what is Smedley Distinguished? It’s a new distinction beginning in the 2025-26 Toastmasters year. The requirements for a club to be Smedley Distinguished are: they must have 25 members. Select and Presidents’ Distinguished will change as well. Select must have 20 or a net growth of five, and Presidents’ will require clubs to have 20 members. Also, to qualify for Distinguished, club success plans must be submitted to Club Central by September 30th. Above all, clubs must also be in good standing.
Country Roads Toastmasters, a club that held a demo meeting back on July 6, is going to charter as they have their 20 members. Congratulations to the District and Cosmas (who is trying to get a club started again in West Virginia). West Virginia had four clubs at one time, from Morgantown on down to Clarksburg and Bridgeport. A new Toastmaster that attended our most recent Laurel Highlands Toastmasters meeting as a guest, will serve as Country Roads’ first president. Maybe West Virginia University can provide a meeting room at some point, when the meeting room at Panera gets too crowded.
Back to TLI. Lunch was served. After a delicious plate of chicken parmigiana and scalloped potatoes with a slice of peach pie, I went back into the main room, the Student Achievement Center, for the afternoon sessions. Incoming Division A Director Dawn Carnegie led a session on “Building A Healthy Team” and talked about emotional intelligence. She gave us words and asked us what came to mind when we heard them. I picked up a lot of good information. I met Dawn at Winter TLI and she complimented me for my cheetah sweater. This time I wore a striped sweater and a pink top (which I got a compliment for too).
We’d wrap up the afternoon with a session with our Division Director. My division will be led by Carly, from Area 22. A lot of changes are coming, including a totally revamped Area 23 that includes Laurel Highlands and Western Maryland. ESL and Ambassadors are going to Division D, and Arconic comes to our area in Division C. Country Roads may end up in Area 23, or maybe Area 3 with Pittsburgh, and South Hills.
Winter TLI in December saw me with a much improved attitude from that Summer workshop as my mental health took a huge hit in Spring and early into Summer. Though getting compliments helped even if I wasn’t expecting it. I love getting attention for my journey on social media and when I don’t get it, I feel discouraged. I curbed my social media use and plan to do that more as the week goes on. That’ll get my mind off of the craziness going on the world too. Everything that happened last summer was self-created drama.
Following that lackluster start to the summer, I began the process of wrapping up the path that I began during COVID and thus, began my magnificent speaking streak. In one of my speeches, I talked about the growing season. In another, I recalled the things I learned at Summer TLI including the Club Success Plan and incorporated all of that into my speech. Doing the Moments of Truth as part of Table Topics helped too. At the end of the Toastmasters year, I have three levels complete and I’m going into 2025-26 very confident in my Toastmasters journey
Stylish 🍒 