Dear Fellow Toastmaster!

SO.MANY. EXCITING.THINGS this week - thus the late release of our newsletter (excuses, excuses 🙃). From the long-awaited Embarcadero Bricks event, to another full meeting, to participation in the Toastmasters Leadership Institute, GGTM is painting the town red!

 🥳🥇 Awards and Celebrations

Share your life wins and let’s celebrate together!

• 🎓️ Pathways Completion

  • Helen completed Presentation Mastery Level 5 and Anagha her Presentation Mastery Level 2 representing GGTM on Hall of Fame awards in the Toastmasters Leadership Institute!

  • Scott completed Innovative Planning Level 4 this week with his Best Speaker speech about his PG&E Press Conference

  • Sheila completed Presentation Mastery Level 1 this week with her evaluation of the impromptu speech of our visiting friends from Europe

  • Log your speeches (even retroactively) in Pathways so we keep track of each other’s progress!

• 🥳 Katka represented our club as one of three panelist in the “Building a Vibrant Community Within a Club” education session during the Toastmaster Leadership Institute, sharing how we keep our club thriving. You were amazing, Katka!

• 🏫 Alex, Lisa, Katka and Sheila attended the Toastmasters Leadership Institute on 08/24 for officer training, learning sessions and Hall of Fame awards on site in the Genentech campus.

 📣 📆 Announcements

• On Wednesday, 08/21 GGTM took “Baby Steps" to expanding our club presence outside of our fabulous CoC venue, into the wider space of the community via the Embarcadero Bricks event! Navigating the curve balls of this new setup, Gene, Katka and Helen, organized a condensed version of a club meeting. Helen delivered her ever powerful speech about the realities of Fast Fashion and participants (including friends from Toastbusters) tackled Table Topics on this new stage. Next session is on 09/22, let us know if you’re interested to participate!

• Dues are due! You should’ve received an email from our Treasurer Scott Brown about this. Kindly process them before 09/30/2024.

• World Speaking Champion 3rd placer Angeli Fitch joins our 08/28 club meeting to share her International Speech Contest journey

• This Fall: Sustainability Special (collaboration w/ Chamber of Commerce) if you care about a sustainability-related topic and you would like to contribute with a speech, please indicate your interest here. 

📚️🏫 Toastmastering Together

Let’s get better by learning from each other and sharing resources!

On Wednesday, we met three District 95 leaders - Csaba (District Director), Tim (Program Quality Director) and Peter Blaskoda (Area Director) - who did a pitstop to San Francisco from their Toastmasters International Convention trip in Anaheim.

They shared history and information about their district and we learned about their “Everybody speaks.” strategy. This is to give ALL attendees (members and guests alike) a chance to ALWAYS speak in a club meeting whether they signed up for a speaking part or not. We are evaluating how we can apply this brilliant approach so all voices are heard during meetings. 🗣️🧠 

Our new friends received the ⭐️ GGTM Maverick Award ⭐️ given to those who sign-up to fill an empty prepared speaking slot before the meeting starts.

Thank you for visiting us and for sharing your best practices Csaba, Tim and Peter!

🤝 ♣️ July 10 Club Meeting Highlights

Inspired by his Invisalign, our long-time Toastmaster, first-time GGTM TME Prat, reminded us that taking Baby Steps (theme of the night!) is key to get better at anything. All the prepared speeches went over the 7:30 time limit but it demonstrated how our speakers assiduous (word of the day!) pursuit of things they’re passionate about make for informational and inspirational speeches.

Thank you to our 10 guests who spent their Wednesday evening with us! 🙏 

Great job to our members who ran today’s meeting: Prat, Lauren, Katka, Carnell (guest!), Tavisan, Sunita, Juan, Gene and Sheila

🙋‍♀️ Help run our Aug 28 meeting by signing up for roles! 🙋

This Wednesday, we:

• 🏃 Heard about Torran sharing about how focusing on the “the next 5 kilometers” at a time, make his marathon (or any!) goal less daunting.

• ⚡️ Learned from Scott the tragic passing of mother and daughter Alaina and Feyla McLeod in the Zogg Fire highlighting why we should explore alternate energy providers. He completed his Level 4 Pathways and demonstrated how stories makes us more effective to get our message across (🏆 Best Prepared Speech 🏆).

• 🍣 Nick talked about the history, science and art of sushi with tons of research and effective visual aids - clearly demonstrating his passion for a hobby he found during the pandemic

• 🇩🇪 We learned about how our friends from District 95 run their clubs and learned a thing or two on history and best practices

• 🙋‍♀️ Heard about Alexandra’s body building (guest!) and Shilpa’s solo travels - different stories demonstrating two different types of strength giving them a tied (🏆 Best Table Topic 🏆).

  • Thanks to those who shared stories about the small (and big!) steps they’ve taken - Iskander (guest), Palistha (guest), Gene, Lauren, Juan, Derrick(guest), Mike and Monica. Thank you Vipul for leading Table Topics!

• 🫡 Heard Grace’s high praise for Scott weaving facts into compelling storytelling (🏆 Best Evaluator 🏆)

  • Thanks to all our evaluators Harris (evaluating Nick) and Sheila (evaluating Csaba, Tim and Peter). Thanks Harris for leading this section as General Evaluator!

😎💡Member News

Doing anything fun? Share your adventures that we can highlight!

• Alex W. and Sheila are going to a Drop-In class with Endgames Improv on 08/31 from 12-2PM. Get your tickets from the link if you want to join and let [email protected] know!

• As a preview of his Ice Breaker on Wednesday, let us get to know Torran, one of our newer GGTM members, but long-time Toastmaster!

🫵🗣️ 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!