Oprah does an annual show about her favorite (material) things. She rhapsodizes and then furnishes each of her audience members (e.g. diamond earrings, iPods, books, etc.) with her new “favorite things.” In a way I’ve been feeling a bit like Oprah lately since I have a new “favorite thing”: the Parker Toastmasters! If I could I would give a Toastmaster’s membership to each of my friends. Why?

The group is cordially professional. I confess that its official nature has been a bit challenging for me since I’ve been “home with the kids” for four years, but it provides a refreshing sense of momentum that can’t be manufactured by reading a self-help book. I am grateful for the structure and see it as perfect for helping me meet my personal goals in joining the group. I find myself feeling humbled by my lack of refinement–and I haven’t even given a speech yet! But I’m embracing the the chisel of maturation. Ouch!

The Toastmasters of Parker are a diverse group and although I’m usually a front-row dweller, here I like to sit in the middle since I have much to learn about being a club member. I’ve noticed the diversity in age, gender, and career types. It’s like being given an opportunity for personal growth on a silver platter, quality folks with the same desire to grow, willing to take the stumbles to get there. This is clearly the type of group from which to learn.

It’s also evident that this group has a cohesiveness borne from time and experience together. Yet as I read through the manuals (which I got in the mail after a little over two weeks from the date of joining) I see an air-tight system. It’s impressive. Not only do the manuals outline the speeches required to achieve various levels of accomplishment but they also delineate the roles and mores in Toastmasters. My experience with groups that attempt to define a manner in which to bond is that they feel contrived. This group does not. I don’t know what else to say about that except that, as an educator, the curriculum looks consummate and thorough; I find myself wondering why I don’t know more people in Toastmasters. It seems like the best-kept secret in town!

What an excellent meeting tonight, with excellent turnout!

Bruce Ekins, Nina Minary, Paul Johnson, Jodi Horner, Samantha Tino, Michele O’Brien-Rose, Kaitlyn Wolf, Kellen Stephens, Michelle DeVore, Eric Dunham, Joanna Knott, Debbie Hall and Bill Morgan participated in tonight’s meeting.

Let’s all welcome new members Debbie Hall, Bruce Ekins, Samantha Tino, Kaitlyn Wolf and Kellen Stephens! It’s great to have you here.

Eric Dunham and Joanna Knott were our speakers tonight, with Sandy Marthaler and Bruce Ekins as their evalators.

Michele O’Brien-Rose was our Table Topics Master. We all enjoyed Michele’s use of randomly selected Beatles songs as a great way to evoke wonderful memories. Samantha Tino gave the best Table Topic while Kaitlyn Wolf earned an Honorable Mention.

Debbie Hall was our timer, Paul Johnson was our grammarian/ah-counter, and Kellen Stephens was our Vote Counter. Michelle DeVore did a great job as our General Evaluator.

We are looking forward to promoting our club at the upcoming Parker Days this weekend as we share a booth with the Lunch Out Loud and Spirited Speakers clubs!

Finally, it was an auspicious occasion as the club officially welcomed incoming President Joanna Knott. The club is in great hands for 2011-12!

When this website went through reconceptualization  and redesign, there were many unknowns and uncertainties.

Thankfully, the worst unknowns were about abandoning a familiar website and taking a leap of faith into the foggy void of installing and using WordPress. Now that we’re up and running for nearly three months now, we’re losing our training wheels and embarking on an interesting journey with lots of twists and turns.

Now our problems are more complex ones to address. Questions such as:

• Can we translate the enthusiasm and esprit de corps felt after every meeting into our writing about it?
• How do we reach a larger audience?
• How do we make this website relevant and useful to our members and the Toastmasters community at large?

With Social Media such a buzzword these days, I wanted to take advantage of WordPress’ more advanced plugins to push our postings to the world at large – where our Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and LinkedIn contacts can see what we’re about and where we are headed. Let’s not forget that WordPress includes comments with every post, a common feature of blogging platforms these days.

It was a scattershot experiment at best and so far here is what is interesting.

From where do we get most comments and responses?

Not Facebook. Not Twitter. Not comments within our blog.

LinkedIn. Specifically LinkedIn groups:

• Toastmasters International — District 26
• Toastmasters International
• The Official Toastmasters International Members Group
• Parker Toastmasters

It’s all so obvious, don’t you see. We have a captive audience to share our posts with those groups. Experienced Toastmasters with a breadth of personal and professional experience have weighed in on many of our posts to provide insight and new thoughts.

That’s not the entire story.

Did you know that a member of District 26 is a Brand Ambassador with the Toastmasters’ International rebranding coming later this summer? Meet Brenda Smull, DTM. A member of the District 26 group, and an active member of Toastmasters in the Denver area.

Want to follow threads involving technology and website advice? Meet Matthew Kleinosky, a Toastmaster from Toronto Canada. You will find him on the The Official Toastmasters International Members Group.

We all have a lot to learn in our journey as Toastmasters. What is amazing to me is that in just a few months of getting these posts out, that I’ve discovered there is an active and engaged online community working on important and relevant topics that can help you in your role as a Member or Officer. I strongly encourage you to join them to enhance your Toastmasters experience.

After you sign in to www.linkedin.com, be sure to search for the following groups, and then join them.

• Toastmasters International — District 26
• Toastmasters International
• The Official Toastmasters International Members Group
• Parker Toastmasters

You’ll be glad you did!

It was a very good meeting, with Sandy Marthaler as our Toastmaster for the first time! Sandy gave us a great theme with “New Beginnings”. Sandy is a substitute teacher, and her talk about how this time of year and her students provides us time to reflect upon both the past and future was well-received by an appreciative group.

We had lots of guests tonight! Thanks to Debbie Hall, Michelle DeVore, Samantha Tino, Jodi Horner, Kaitlyn Wolf and Kellen Stephens for visiting us, as well as letting us learn a little more about themselves.

We had three speeches tonight. Joanna Knott helped us know more about CRM software with a strong presentation called CRM Software Selection . Bill Morgan gave us a glimpse into what traffic cops really want us to do in Late One Night. And Sandy Marthaler helped us to understand more about why it is important to Apologize.

Bruce Ekins did a great job as our Grammarian/Ah-Counter and his Word of the Day was “Transitions”.

Joanna Knott finished up the meeting as our General Evaluator and finished up with club business.

Our best speech evaluator tonight was Michelle DeVore, and our best speaker was Bill Morgan.

Let’s celebrate as we have four new members! We are proud to say that Samantha Tino, Kellen Stephens, Jodi Horner and Kaitlyn Wolf are now members of Parker Toastmasters!

Sandy Marthaler is our Toastmaster this Thursday!

Please let her know what speech your are giving, or what Role you would like to have.

Open roles include:

Table Topics Master
Grammarian/Ah-Counter/Word of the Day
Speech Evaluator
Timer
General Evaluator

Don’t forget to bring your Competent Leadership manual! Any role you fulfill during a meeting helps you get credit towards a project in the manual.