Dear Fellow Toastmaster!

It was all hands on deck this week, and thanks to our collective energy, teamwork, and maverick spirit, we pulled off yet another successful meeting at the historic Russ Building. Your engagement and enthusiasm made a real difference, proving that when we come together, great things happen.

Every role, every contribution, and every presence at our meetings helps build a thriving, dynamic community. Sign up for a role, confirm your attendance, and let’s continue to make an impact—one meeting at a time.

 🙋‍♀️ Sign up for roles at our next meeting on April 30th 🙋‍♀️

🙋 Please reflect your meeting RSVP 🙋‍♀️

🥳🥇 Awards and Celebrations

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

• Let’s take a moment to congratulate 🏅🥳 🙌 

  • Grace for having her Ice Breaker

  • Alex. W and Shubam for getting Best Evaluator

  • Chris (Guest!) for winning 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.

• 🚶‍♀️ 🌳 ⛰️☀️PICNIC SOCIAL EVENT FOR GGTM

  The Sun is out, and Summer is here. We're kicking things off with a sunny day adventure—a short hike at Buena Vista, followed by a chill picnic at Alamo Square. So grab your sunscreen, lace up your hiking shoes, and hang with us!

  • When: Sunday, April 27th at 10:00 am

  • Where: Buena Vista Park → Alamo Square

    Click Here to RSPV

• 🏆️ THE DISTRICT 4 SPEECH CONTEST AND SPRING CONFERENCE

  This is a great chance to meet other Toastmasters and learn more about what it takes to be a great public speaker. This is also where the District 4 speech contests will happen-- and a reminder that our very own Helen Fream won the Area and Division contests and will be competing here at the District level! Let's all get out and support her!

  • When: Saturday, May 3rd, 8:30 am to 5:30 pm

  • Where: Gilead Sciences, 333 Lakeside Drive. Foster City, 94403.

    Click Here to Register

• 💼 MONTHLY CLUB BUSINESS MEETING

  Starting in May, 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.

  Changes to the membership acceptance process starting April 24th, 2025.

  • We are resuming the pre-pandemic Toastmasters protocol: All new members will be voted in by a simple majority at the next Business Meeting.

  • Guests interested in joining will be added to the ballot for the following month.

  • If you're not voted in, you're welcome to apply again!

  • If you started the enrollment process before April 24th, you’re automatically in — no vote needed.

  • When: Wednesday, May 7th at 6:00 pm

  • Where: San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, 235 Montgomery St, 7th floor, San Francisco, CA 94104

    Click Here to Register

 📚️🏫 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)

 🧶 💿️ 🖥️ 23rd April Club Meeting Highlights

Thank you, Monika, for being the Toastmaster of the Evening and helping establish the Safe Space  (theme of the evening!)  that we all need as we work on improving our communication skills.

Eight guests joined us this evening, and almost the entire room had the chance to speak in one way or another! Thank you all for your participation, and hopefully, the GGTM weekly meetings will become a future sanctuary (word of the day!) for you.

Thank you to the functionaries who made the meeting possible, including a number who stepped up at the last minute: Helen, Justin, Michelle (guest!), Sheila, and Carnell.

During our meeting we:

• 💡 Learned from Shubham’s two-minute special that not all AI are created equal and that the right one for you is the one that considers “your data” as part of its training process.

• ⭐️ Marvelled at yet another beautiful storytelling from Gene as he shared additional “3 CDs” from his collection. He highlighted:

  • A favorite animated movie with charming, hand-drawn images (Castle in the Sky);

  • The musical that helped him get to know other GGTM members more personally (Come from Away);

  • His belief that music has to be recorded in a way that respects an artist (Let’s Talk About Love) 

• 🧶 We were with Grace as she weaves the yarn in and out to create multiple blankets of stories from different points of her life, with her truly engaging delivery and storytelling as she introduced herself to the club (🏆️ Ice Breaker 🏆️).

• 🧠 Did a Words of Affirmation meditation practice led by Carnell, as we said out loud (with eyes closed and being in the moment), how awesome we are!

• 🙋 Warmed up (and opened up!) to the safe space as we heard and shared personal stories based on a random object. Thanks, Sheila, for sharing your learnings to make improvised speaking less scary.

  • Chris (guest!) shared his interaction with Buster Posey, offering him Essential Oils, and got the ribbon for 🏆️ Best Table Topic.

• 💭Had a tie (🏆️Best Evaluator🏆️) win for Shubham and Alex. W as they evaluate Gene and Grace’s speech, respectively, commenting on both their beautiful storytelling and delivery while giving recommendations to use bigger actions as they resonate differently when on stage.

😎💡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!