Tale of Two Toastmasters Meetings!

This week saw me playing a Toastmasters Doubleheader. Why do I say that? Because of the way that the calendar fell, my Toastmasters clubs would meet back to back. However, I did not attend Greensburg’s meeting as I planned to make a special trip. It was a long-awaited visit to another club that met on the same night as Greensburg. 

On Tuesday, I arrived in Connellsville for my Laurel Highlands meeting around 5:30pm. I walked in the door and made that trip down the long hallway to our meeting room. Thinking nothing of it, I went to the door and it was locked. At first, I assumed that our President was running late and so I went back outside to wait for him. Nick, our other member who was meeting in person, arrived around the start of our meeting. He saw me out there and we walked in together. We go to the meeting room and I realize that I went to the wrong door. I made a faux pas and committed one of the biggest brain farts of my life. 

We’ve only been meeting here for four years. How in the hell did I get this one wrong? I brushed this one off soon enough as I had some other things on my mind. 

Preparing a speech that I was giving at tomorrow’s meeting, and lamenting the loss of another team member who quit. 

Our theme for the meeting was “Stay Happy, Stay Healthy”. Our president addressed the importance of a healthy Toastmasters club. We want to be at 20 to qualify for President’s Distinguished, have three project speeches at every meeting, and encourage our members to get the word out. 

We run our meetings well and we work on our projects. However we need to work on our membership.

Both our President and Program Quality Director gave excellent speeches on Mentoring and the importance of Gratitude, respectively. I took many points from both speakers. Table Topics stayed with the Happy/Healthy theme. Our Table Topics Master brought some amazing questions to the table, even including one about fruits. Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables is most definitely, a healthy way to live. 

We wrapped up the meeting on time, and are trying to agree on a time to meet up on WhatsApp to discuss some key topics. Our next two meetings are April 28 and May 12. The conference follows soon after that second meeting on May 15 and 16.

Now, let’s go to Beaver where Stylish made a special visit to their Toastmasters club.

Wednesday night, I made that long awaited trip to Beaver to visit the Beaver Toastmasters Club #85. The club chartered on October 1, 1996, and meets at the Beaver County Courthouse. All four of the speakers gave projects of the 5-7 or 4-6 minute variety. Two were ice breakers, one helped us connect with our audience, and another was an introduction to mentoring. Tenacity was the word of the day, but I think improvise could also be worthy of that title. In Toastmasters, sometimes we have to double or triple up the roles if we need to fill positions. We’re always happy to help where needed. 

I arrived a little bit after 6:00pm, checked in at security, and was greeted warmly by Bob and Kristin. Other members and guests made their way in before the meeting began at 6:45pm. At the beginning of the meeting, guests and members shared with us, “Why they’re here at Beaver Toastmasters.” Beaver is not a hybrid club and, thus, is 100% in person. The meetings are videotaped so that members in attendance can listen to themselves and see how they did on their projects. 

Just like at Laurel Highlands where our contestant was taking on evaluator roles to practice for the divisional round, Sarah did the same visiting the Beaver club. She evaluated two of the speeches, including mine. She is competing at the District Level on May 16 and every little bit helps. Tamika held a small round robin evaluation for Sarah where three of the members gave their feedback as well. 

The guests all gave their feedback at the end, and we had a group picture taken in front of the banner. This is a weekly tradition at the club and every picture I see on Facebook shows that this club knows how to have fun. One thing I learned from Bob is that the club plans meetings three months in advance. With a bigger club, that’s not a bad idea to schedule roles like that. For example, the end of November is the perfect time to ask for roles going through the winter months. That also gives people an opportunity to talk about what they’re going to bring to the Christmas Party. In May, you’ll definitely want to look ahead in order to plan around vacations that take place in the summer months.