There is one single drawback that I can think of to being a ToastMaster. You become acutely aware of when a speaker could use some improvement. That may not sound so bad, but knowing that no one is going to evaluate the speaker and he/she may never improve can sometimes be frustrating. It’s exactly like when a professional chef eats someone else’s prepared food. They may not say anything but I can assure you they’re typically thinking about how it could be improved, assuming it needs improvement.

I was recently at a small seminar with about six different guest speakers. I appreciated the information each one of them had to give but the delivery ranged from excellent to “pleeeease join a Toastmasters club before you do this again.” If you’ve taken any training in public speaking you know what I mean. This is especially true if you are or were a Toastmaster. One of the rolls at every meeting is the ah and um counter. For some, being able to speak without any crutch words is the holy grail of public speaking. I think many people would agree that if they could improve just one and only one thing it would be to remove all traces of crutch words from their public speech. I would also hazard a guess that if you were to poll the audience, most would say that crutch words really get in the way of otherwise excellent messages.

I was recently speaking to a colleague and trying to invite him to join, or at least visit our club. This colleague regularly does some public speaking as part of his job. As far as he knew, I don’t usually do any public speaking, so he asked me why I’m a Toastmaster. Well, it was the very next day that I was at the seminar mentioned earlier. These weren’t regular public speakers, but here they were representing themselves and their organizations in front of a crowd. The ability to effectively communicate is always a valuable asset and you never know when it’s going to come in very handy. Better to dig your well before you’re thirsty.

Elections are next week. Are you up to the task? Please talk to TM Wang if you would like to be part of next year’s executive. Elections are May 9th. Even if you’re not in the election, I hope you’ll come out to support everyone that is.

Sons and daughters day is May 16th. Kids 17 and under eat for free. Please tell TM Kolankowski how many will be attending from your family ASAP.

TM Angelozzi is collecting dues now for next year. If you pay by our last meeting for the fiscal year, June 13th, you get the discounted rate of $125. Don’t wait.

June

Please tell Toastmaster Evenson-Wilczynska (VP Education) your availability for June as soon as possible. There are only two meetings so it should be easy.