Dear Fellow Toastmaster!

Last week, with Sheila as our Toastmaster, the meeting started with the theme of balancing extremes. We then heard some amazing reflections from our members and guests. Happy Reading!

🙋‍♀️ Sign up for roles for our next meeting on May 21 🙋‍♀️

🙋 Please reflect your meeting RSVP 🙋‍♀️

🥳🥇 Awards and Celebrations

Don’t be shy, share your life wins, and let’s celebrate together!

Congratulations to,

• Mia Shen for getting the Best Prepared Speech

• Avash for getting the Best Evaluator

• Brandon for getting the Best Table Topic

 📣 📆 What’s up

Never want to miss out on GGTM social events, workshops and meetings? Click the button to subscribe to our club’s Google Calendar.

• GGTM OFFICER ELECTIONS:

  • Officer elections are just a month away. If you are interested in running for a position, we recommend talking to any of the current officers or reviewing the officer roles on the TMI website here. Stay tuned for more information.

• GGTM MAY BUSINESS MEETING:

  • The first meeting of each month will be one hour of speeches and one hour of business and social time. All members are invited to vote in new members, celebrate wins, and discuss proposals.

  • We had our first business meeting on May 7th. Thank you to all the members who participated in the discussion. Click the button to view the meeting slide deck.

    GGTM Business Meeting Slide Deck - May 2025

 📚️🏫 Toastmastering Together

Let’s get better by learning from each other and sharing resources. Bookmark these for your reference as you go through your GGTM journey!

• Golden Gate Toastmaster Resources (bit.ly/GGTM-resources)

• Toastmaster Meeting Roles One-Pager (bit.ly/GGTM-roles)

• Onboarding Checklist (bit.ly/GGTM-onboarding)

 🧚 🚗 🗣️ 14th May Club Meeting Highlights

Our Toastmaster Sheila opened the meeting with a strong theme of the balancing act, emphasizing the importance of moderating extremes. She expressed her aspiration to learn from everyone and encouraged us to step back with self-awareness to find our balance.

Thank you to those who took on roles to run our meeting: Hannah, Kyle, Brandon, Shubam, Monika, and Carnell.

During our meeting, we:

• 🧚 No Fudge Fairy — In her 2-minute special, Helen reflected on turning 40 and realized that the "fudge fairy" never appeared, but her presence was felt in life’s small, meaningful moments, shaping Helen’s inner self.

• 🗣️ How to Debate — Katie shared lessons on how to debate using several techniques, along with real-life examples, offering insights on how to argue effectively and respectfully.

• 💡 Ashes of Logic—Alex shared an emotional story about searching for a missing friend, connecting his personal pain with the theme of rationality versus emotion, relating it to Iron Man in Captain America: Civil War.

• 🚗 Test Drive — Mia shared her adventurous RV road trip with her partner, highlighting how small, messy moments like a noisy van and a broken toilet deepened their bond and turned romance into true partnership (🏆 Best Prepared Speech🏆)

• 🤗 For Bella — In her semi-impromptu speech, Sheila shared how she maintains a close relationship with her distant family through speech recordings, group chats, and a memorable trip to Japan

• ❤️ Brandon’s speech on enjoying life with the people you love (🏆Best Table Topic 🏆)

• Avash evaluated Sheila, giving valuable feedback on her speech (🏆Best Evaluator🏆) 

• Thanks to our other evaluators - Gene (evaluating Katie), Brandon (evaluating Alex), Kyle (evaluating Mia), and our general evaluator, Omar.

😎💡Member Spotlight

Send your member profile to [email protected] so we can feature you next. Share your adventures that we can highlight as well!

🫵🗣️ Your turn

We would like to hear YOUR stories, information and feedback to make this newsletter, our club and our Toastmastering better. Share it with us!