🧹✊ Running for School Board Was Not on Her Bingo Card

🧹 New Faces. New Energy. Same Boardroom.

VP Education Albert Yan — wearing the Acting President hat tonight — opened the evening with a sweep of introductions. Spring cleaning, after all, starts with assessing what you’ve got.

And what we had was a room full of fresh energy. Two brand-new members making their official debut — Dennis Yavuz and Austin Harrison — plus a third new member, Noe Perez, was also in the room tonight. And guest Henok was here for the very first time, brought by a friend, and ready to organize “a lot of things — my clothes, my bed.”

Sergeant at Arms Caitlin Brown handled the logistics — restroom keys, snack table under the Bay Bridge painting, phones on silent — and then Albert handed the lectern to the Toastmaster. 🧹

🎤 Toastmaster of the Evening: Valeriy Vislobokov

Valeriy Vislobokov took the lectern and promptly spring-cleaned the agenda itself — correcting the General Evaluator assignment, fixing the speaker order, and updating Sheila’s speech title. A deep clean before the evening even started.

Then Val went somewhere unexpected. A hundred years ago, he said, most of us would have been living on farms. Winter was horrendous — limited candles, no electricity, dark and freezing. By the time spring arrived, you were alive. Literally. That was the triumph. The deep clean wasn’t optional — it was survival. Val’s grandparents in their villages talked about this season like it was glorious. And he tries to teach his kids the same lesson: get outside.

The Word of the Day, introduced by Grammarian Amber Dawn: sordid — dirty, unpleasant, or morally wrong. Perfect for a night of cleaning house. 🧹

🎤 Prepared Speeches

🧊 🚢 “Shine Yourself” — Henok (Guest)

Two Minute Special · First speech ever

Henok stepped up to the lectern for the very first time — at his very first Toastmasters meeting. From Ethiopia, with a background in mechanical engineering and marine work on ships, Henok was disarmingly honest: communication issues had cost him a job. He was here to fix that. No preparation, no script — just raw courage and a clear goal.

💬 “Even if you know a lot of things, if you don’t explain well, nobody understands — they make you feel inferior. You have to shine yourself.”

🧘 “You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks” — Ping Liao

Ping Liao returned from sabbatical with Australian treats and a Pilates story. After leaving her job at the beginning of the year, she traveled Taiwan with school friends, visited family in Australia, and — somewhere between the job hunt and the jet lag — discovered reformer Pilates.

Three keys to her success: finding the right gym (small, boutique, women smiling and making eye contact — not the sterile misery palace she tried first), the right instructor (kind, patient, knows when to push for one more rep), and the right introduction (foundational classes, not the deep end). Uncoordinated and inflexible by her own admission, Ping built something new from nothing — exactly the kind of spring cleaning that starts with clearing out old assumptions about what you can and can’t do.

💬 “Progress is better than perfection. There were times I could only do three out of four movements — and I had to be okay with that, or risk falling off the reformer.”

🏆 🏫 “She’s Got to Go” — Alexandra Williams Francesca

Alexandra Williams Francesca is a full-time math teacher, a bodybuilder, a doctoral student, and now — a 2026 District 6 Oakland Unified School District school board candidate. She didn’t plan this. She went to a civic empowerment meeting to help her students vote and ended up hearing three words that changed everything: “She’s got to go.”

The numbers are sordid. A hundred-million-dollar deficit. $65 million in budget cuts immediately undone by $65 million in raises. 22 years under county receivership. 78 schools for 35,000 students — while neighboring Fremont runs 46 schools with no deficit. Eighty percent of students graduate on time, but only 43% leave with a plan for college or career.

Alexandra’s spring cleaning is structural, systemic, and deeply personal. Fifteen years in schools, a vision for student-centered outcomes, and an unwillingness to accept that the bar is in hell.

💬 “One thing I’ve always been is a visionary, and one thing I’m always going to be is an advocate for people who can’t defend themselves.”

💻 “Tech Talk and Triumph: How Women Excel in Technical Customer-Facing Roles” — Sheila Vida

Sheila Vida was speaking at the Women in Tech conference the next day — tonight was her dress rehearsal. A Customer Solutions Engineer at Cisco Duo with 22 years in technical customer-facing roles across Manila, Japan, Boston, and San Francisco, Sheila had a message: this role is hard, sordid details and all — and women are naturally built for it.

The role means expert understanding of complex systems, optimal configuration on live environments, and — the part nobody warns you about — managing complex human systems. Imposter syndrome that never fully leaves. Someone louder in every room. Priorities that shift overnight. But three things help you thrive: curiosity, emotional intelligence, and effective communication — including hearing what isn’t being said.

Sheila’s five practical tips for the road: define the problem first. Share ownership of problem-solving. Say “I don’t know” — then follow up. Communicate kindly but clearly. And find a configuration that works for everyone, including you.

💬 “It’s okay to say I don’t know — but find out and follow up. One customer told me: ‘You always come back an hour later with this fully researched thing. I appreciate you for that.’”

💬 Table Topics: Mental Spring Cleaning

Table Topics Master Jay Yamamoto kept the theme alive. Spring cleaning isn’t just relegated to physical objects, he argued — Ping had just shown us that a sabbatical could be its own kind of deep clean. Jay called on members without speaking roles, asking them to sweep the cobwebs from their minds.

☕ Michelle Wen — “Tell us about a mental sabbatical you’ve taken.”
Michelle did nothing for a year and it was exactly right. After burning out from pouring everything into a job she loved, she ate every croissant she’d denied herself, skipped the gym, and slept all day. Now, full-time again, she’s ready to restart the routine — clean slate, clean start. 🧹

🏆 🌿 Kathleen Hurtubise — “What is it like managing screen time now that we live in a different world?”
Kat didn’t have a sordid tale — she had a trick. Backroads, a Bay Area travel company, takes her boys to Switzerland, Montana, and Japan for biking, hiking, and kayaking. No electronics policy required. By the end of every trip, her kids say “Thank you, Mom” without prompting. 🧹

🏋️ Austin Harrison — “How do you deal with your sordid feelings?”
Fresh out of college, Austin left behind “a little too much fun” on 13th Street and picked up a triathlon. Swimming, biking, running — the spring cleaning of an unhealthy chapter. It lowers his stress, sharpens his interviews, and gets him exploring San Francisco by bike. 🧹

🧹 Ella Rochelle-Lawton — “What comes to mind when you hear ‘spring cleaning’?”
Easter basket grass. Two long-haired cats. A friend who owns a cleaning company and starts sweeping unprompted every time she visits. And the game changer: a Swiffer. “That Swiffer has made me a much cleaner person.” 🧹

🧠 Derick Le — “The Minimalists quit corporate life — good remedy or full of it?”
“A dirty room is a dirty mind,” Derick’s mom used to say. He aspires to minimalism — his mom carries nothing but a lanyard with her phone — but his aunt carries a basket everywhere and says she’ll become a minimalist “when I turn 60.” Derick? He likes clothes too much. 🧹

🌱 Alexander Wu — “Expectations vs. reality when it comes to spring cleaning?”
Alex keeps plants that are “as easy to take care of as possible” — then his mom visits and buys ones he hasn’t vetted with ChatGPT. The trimming reminder comes every few months. The follow-through? Never. But sometimes he picks up the trimmer for five minutes and the whole afternoon vanishes. 🧹

🗣️ Dennis Yavuz — “What gap would you like to spring-clean between now and the future?”
Dennis kept it real: he has always avoided public speaking. Excuses for every presentation, sickness on every speech day. Toastmasters is his spring cleaning — clearing out the avoidance, one table topic at a time. 🧹

✨ Vedant Bothikar — “Marie Kondo says keep only what sparks joy — tell us about something you can’t throw away.”
Vedant is already a minimalist — a friend recently visited and asked, “You just have a table, a chair, and a bed?” Everything he owns is useful or interesting, and that’s all he needs. Nothing to throw away. Nothing that doesn’t spark joy. The spring cleaning was already done. 🧹

🎯 Evaluations

🧭 General Evaluator — Kathleen Hurtubise

Kathleen Hurtubise wrapped the evening by calling it “dignified and sincere — not sordid.” She was inspired by the bravery of new faces — Henok stepping up at his first meeting, Dennis and Austin taking prominent roles on their debut night. The theme was woven throughout, the meeting crisp, and the audience engaged. One note: the agenda had gaps that Val filled live — a reminder to cross t’s and dot i’s before showtime.

🧘 Juan Basulto — Ping

Juan Basulto praised Ping’s opening hook — “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” captured everyone instantly — her vulnerability about job-hunting, and the solid balance between slides and narrative. Juan’s one push: the transition from sabbatical overview to Pilates felt abrupt. One sentence bridging the two would have swept us along rather than dropping us into the gym mid-sentence.

🏆 🏫 Blair Vorsatz — Alexandra

Blair Vorsatz was so moved he’s visiting the school on Friday. He praised Alexandra’s emotional connection — “she’s got to go” was so salient, so resonant — and the raw drive that could carry any speech on any topic. Blair’s one push: broaden the call to action beyond “vote for me” to “we can all be heroes in our community” — walk through the budget math more carefully so the numbers land, and tell us your plan, not just their failure.

💻 Alexander Wu — Sheila

Alexander Wu led with the most important feedback: use the Oxford comma in the title. (The room agreed.) Beyond that, Alex praised the clean structure, clear signposting, and concrete examples throughout. Alex’s one push: open with a joke to re-engage a post-lunch virtual audience, explain earlier why this talk is specifically about women, and ground the abstract tips (curiosity, emotional intelligence) in more specific anecdotes from her 22 years.

🧹 Sordid Swept Through the Room

Grammarian Amber Dawn returned after six months and was delighted. The last time she was here, the club was struggling to integrate the Word of the Day. Tonight? “Sordid” was everywhere — Val, Sheila (twice), Austin, Alexandra, and more. The club has spring-cleaned its WoD habits.

Amber’s language highlights:

💬 “The grass that goes in an Easter basket.” — Ella
💬 “A dirty room is a dirty mind.” — Derick, quoting his mom

Ah Counter Dennis Yavuz — one of our newest members, diving straight into a functionary role — counted 107 filler words across the evening and delivered the tally with impressive specificity.

Timer Albert Yan kept the trains running on schedule all evening.

🧠 Pop Quiz Highlights

Pop Quiz Master Vedant Bothikar tested the room’s attention:

• 🌍 Where is Henok from? → Ethiopia (East Africa)

• 💼 What role is Ping looking for? → Project management

• 🏋️ How many rooms does Ping’s gym have? → Three

• 📝 Name Ping’s three lessons → Start small, progress over perfection, keep showing up

• 🏫 How many schools do Oakland and Fremont have? → 78 and 46

• ⏱️ How long has Sheila been in customer success? → 22 years

⭐ And the Votes Are In...

• 🏆 Best Prepared Speech: Alexandra Williams Francesca

• 🏆 Best Table Topics: Kathleen Hurtubise

• 🏆 Best Evaluator: Blair Vorsatz

📢 Club Business: New Tools, New Terms

Blair reminded the room of GGTM’s code of ethics — a spring refresher as the club grows. The officer team’s highest priority: fostering a safe, friendly, vulnerable-positive space. Hard to grow if you’re not comfortable on stage.

Albert announced that officer elections are coming. The current term ends in June, and nominations are open for two more weeks. Submit your nominations here — you can nominate as many people for as many roles as you want.

And then — the big reveal: Albert has been building a new experimental GGTM website. Mobile-optimized, meant to consolidate the club’s scattered resources into one place. Features so far: an agenda uploader, a pathways speech logger (easier than Base Camp), and a mentorship matching system where members create profiles as mentor, mentee, or both — complete with availability and preferred meeting cadence.

🌟 New Member Spotlight

Two new members joined the GGTM family this month — and both jumped straight into the action on night one.

Welcome to GGTM, Dennis! 👋

Noe Perez

Welcome to GGTM, Noe! 👋

📣 What’s Next at GGTM

📅 Wednesday, May 20, 2026 | 6:00–8:00 PM
📍 San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, 235 Montgomery St, 7th Floor

Officer nominations close in two weeks — think about who you want leading the club into July. And if you haven’t signed up for the new website yet, find Albert after the next meeting. He’ll be there until the lights go off. 🧹

💛 Thank You

To Val for toastmastering through an imperfect agenda with grace and village wisdom. To Jay for table topics that made us confess our messiest habits. To Albert for holding down president, timer, and club business all at once. To Caitlin for keeping the room running.

To our speakers — Henok, Ping, Alexandra, Sheila — for showing us that spring cleaning comes in many forms: a first speech, a new hobby, a political awakening, a conference stage. To our evaluators — Juan, Blair, Alex — for cleaning each speech down to its essential strengths. To Kat for general-evaluating and winning Table Topics, because why not both.

To Amber, Dennis, Albert, Vedant, Ping, and Sheila for juggling functionary roles — some of you took on two. And to every member and guest who showed up to sweep out the cobwebs of another Wednesday.

The room is cleaner for having you in it. 🧹

🍺 The After-Sweep

The brooms came out. The pints went in.

Questions? Feedback? Email us at [email protected] — we’d love to hear from you!