Hello Fellow Toastmaster!

Inspiration was replenished by stories of courage, honesty, preparation, self-love and asking for help.

🚨 Never miss an update!

📣 GGTM Club Announcements

📅 Members - Renew Your GGTM Membership

Refer to the email from our Club Treasurer Helen Fream on details to renew your membership with updated flexible payment options!

📆 Upcoming Events

Full list in the GGTM Calendar!

🏠 GGTM Public Speaking Open House on September 24

GGTM is hosting an Open House this Wednesday! Socialization starts at 5:30 so come early and spend time with other public speaking enthusiasts - Toastmasters or not (yet! 😄). Details on this Luma event and in the D4TM Meetup page. Reach out to Sheila Vida or Nik Mdluli for any questions at [email protected].

GGTM Members - sign-up for roles and come early to help with prep! 🙏 

🎙️Tall Tales of San San Francisco (and Beyond) on October 25

Celebrate the art of storytelling — where truth is the seed, but exaggeration is the fertilizer! Tell your (or listen to) real (or imagined) Tall Tales of San Francisco and Beyond. Join us in another magical evening at Hotel Nikko on October 25 (Saturday) from 7:00 to 10:00PM.

Get your tickets here through Eventbrite. Reach out to our VP PR Nikilitha Mdluli ([email protected]) for any questions about this event!

📈 Sep 17 Meeting Highlights

Nick Teodori, a longtime GGTM member, led a themeless meeting that allowed the speeches to shine, creating space for them to deeply connect with and reflect the lived experiences of our speakers.

The evening started with Sheila (Club Secretary) welcoming everyone including our 10 guests to share anything interesting about themselves. Two of them just moved to San Francisco in the past couple of weeks and they instantly went to a Toastmasters meeting! 🤯

Thank you to the Toastmasters who helped run the meeting: Mia, Tanya, Agasthian, Michelle, Amber and Caitlin.

• 🙏 Jason warmed us up with a Two-Minute special reminding us of two things when we’re not at our best - it always gets better and always ask for help!

• 🗣️ Jack delivered his (🧊 Ice Breaker Speech 🧊) and encouraged us to speak up and show up to blow up!

• 🤥 Juan took Mark Twain’s honesty quote further and emphasized that if we’re honest with ourselves, we won’t lose our way! (🏆 Best Speaker 🏆)

• 🏋️‍♀️ Ian insightfully shared that when we don’t rise to the occasion, we fall to the level of our preparation. He encouraged us to ask ourselves what systems we can build to keep ourselves from failing.

• 📽️ Sheila challenged the demo gods and showed how to operate our new recording tool end-to-end. We instantly got a role sign-up for Videographer next week!

Mia evaluated Ian and encouraged him to infuse emotion to his already profound speeches to make it more powerful and got (🏆 Best Evaluator 🏆). Thank you Amadeo, Harris, and Karishma for giving helpful feedback to our other prepared speakers. Thank you Jack for signing up as General Evaluator last minute!

📚 Evaluation Tidbits

1. Strive to not get lost in the details.  Bring stronger closing points to tie the speech together.

2. Take your time, and allow time for jokes to land.

3. Let some more emotion through to connect with the audience more.

4.  Summarize or use repetition to help the audience engage and remember what you said.

In true Table Topics fashion and in line with the anything goes theme, our Table Topics Master, Jay, drew inspiration from the evening's stories and delivered an impromptu session, something he does often when he signs up for the role!🫡

We heard stories about ideal weddings, ecstatic dancing, over(and under) preparation, lying to not let other people worry, parenthood pushing growth, self-care and relationship lessons. Our TME Nick got the (🏆 Best Table Topic 🏆) as he expressively described his indulgent treat to an alien - a blueberry muffin with a crispy top!

Thank you Caitlin, Agasthian, Kevin, Karishma, Amber, Michelle, Mia, and Sebastien for speaking impromptu!

💖 Quotable Quotes

“Toastmasters has given me a sense of confidence.  A chance to speak up. Keep talking!”
- Jack

“Remember to be honest with what you want, be honest with what you’re capable of, and be honest with what you want to change.”
- Juan

“Hesitation isn’t the problem, lack of preparation is.”
- Ian

“Never pass up an opportunity to speak!”
- Sheila

Through the eyes of the TME 👁️

Our OG GGTM Veteran (yes - double superlatives!) Nick Teodori led our meeting as Toastmaster for the Evening. See how the experience was for him having done this role multiple times for the club!

This week was the first time I’ve run a meeting in likely over a year with all the changes going on in my life. I was excited to be back up at the front of the room after so long. I was grateful that the people filled in most of the roles over the weekend before and after sending a couple of personalized emails so I only had to fill one or two roles during the meeting.

People will almost always step up, so I knew this would work out (it did!). I really enjoyed using all the new(er) guides for the Toastmaster role - it made it super easy to get everything together. The meeting went great, and I really enjoyed hearing what everybody shared this week! 

See you again soon!

GGTM Beyond the Board Room 🏝️

Get to know our Golden Gate Toastmasters outside of our weekly Wednesday club meetings at the Chamber of Commerce Board Room.

📸 Member Spotlight

Amber helped us write the newsletter as this week’s Note Taker! We learned that she is a returning GGTM Member. Thank you for the detailed notes, for sharing the Fizz-ics joke from your kid - and welcome back!

🎉 Be part of the GGTM Newsletter! 🎉

Want to write a future issue or have something that you want featured with the club? Send a message to the #newsletter channel in Discord, email [email protected] or approach Omar or Sheila (here is how we look like 😛).