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- Thank you for being part of Golden Gate Toastmasters for 2025!
Thank you for being part of Golden Gate Toastmasters for 2025!
GGTM Team
December 20, 2025
Hello Fellow Toastmaster!
It is when we capitulate with purpose that we learn that no matter what the year throws our way, thriving is still ours to take.
In this week’s newsletter:
Our Year in Review through post-its!
See Highlights of our final meeting of the year
Get to know two new members who officially joined GGTM this month
Our farewell (and gratitude!) for letting us share GGTM’s stories this term
Read time: ~10 minutes
🚨 Never miss an update!
Subscribe to GGTM Google CalendarKeep updated with all GGTM activities in and out of the club and Toastmasters! | Setup Access to GGTM DiscordEngage with us in (almost) real-time! Read the #welcome message to unlock all threads! | Ask/Share ANYTHINGWe love hearing about your experience with GGTM. Email us at: [email protected] |
📆 Club Announcements
Full list in the GGTM Calendar
Speech Contest Season is from February 2026
Members, refer to the email that Alex sent about the speech contest guidelines for 2026! Start thinking about your speech contest topic or join the District competition and share your Tall Tales! Pathways Level 2 required so start working on logging your Pathways if you’re interested to be a part of the contest.
ICYMI, meet our new GGTM Club Officers!
Here are our new set of club officers for January to June 2026! You will get to know them more in our year-opener newsletter (we’re still collecting bios 😄), but soft-introducing them through our last few newsletters of the year!
President: Shubham Saloni
Vice President of Education: Albert Yan
Co-VP of Education: Michelle Wen
Vice President of Membership: Blair Vorsatz
Secretary: Irene Suwarno
Vice President of Public Relations: Valeriy Vislobokov
Treasurer: Helen Fream (continuing her term!)
Sergeant-at-Arms: Gautam Nair
Co-Sergeant-at-Arms: Caitlin Brown
🎆 Meeting Highlights
🎤 Toastmaster of the Evening: Sheila Vida
Sheila kicked us off with the topic of “A Year in Review” for the final meeting of 2025. For our 2-minute special, she had the fun idea for us to all share about our year through colored post-it notes she left behind our agendas. See “what she did with the post-its” in the Beyond the Board Room section all the way at the end of this newsletter!
She read out loud a couple of them during the closing remarks and randomly (or is it? 😉) picked these words of wisdom to wrap-up the activity.
“The answers are always within you”
“You will be okay..”
“Don’t worry, be happy!”
Our final meeting for 2025!
Thank you to all the functionaries who stepped up to make our final meeting a success: Caitlin, Monika, Tanya, Sheila and Blair.
👥 Welcome to Our Guests!
We welcomed around 10 guests who wholeheartedly participated not just in our opening exercise but in our speaking spots as well! Appreciate you spending time with us in these busy holiday times. Shoutout to our guests Andres and Landon - fellow Toastmasters from San Diego - who visited San Francisco and added visiting our club to their itinerary! Thank you and hope you enjoyed your visit to our club and our city!
Prepared Speeches
🏆 Prepared Speech Winner: "More than just a year" by Omar Sinada
Omar told us about his journey to GGTM – starting off by being impressed and nervous when pitching to a Toastmaster, and then joining. He watched himself become more confident and become a better speaker, and share his learnings with his team to help elevate everyone. To Omar, 2025 was more than just a year – a year full of growth and one of the best years he’s ever had in his life.
Congratulations on your Best Speaker ribbon Omar as you shared how your 2025 went!
🌤️ Prepared Speech: "Cats, Dogs, and other Types of Weather" by Valeriy Vislobokov
Val spoke abound how “we should all appreciate the weather we have here because the extremes are terrible.” He told us about the brutal cold – “really freaking cold in Fahrenheit” – back in Ukraine, and the oppressive and blindingly bright sunshine and heat of Miami, and how California really just has the perfect balance.
Val does NOT like summer’s uber brightness!
🎙️ Prepared Speech: "How to Win at Table Topics" by Katie McCann
Katie argued that there are 3 main things you need to focus on duringTable Topics to win – and she’s used this 3-part blueprint to win 5 out of the last 8 Table Topics she’s been part of:: (1) understand the question you’re being asked; (2) understand how you can answer this and if you need to pivot instead (ie: answer a different question instead); and (3) emote with your audience (make sure they feel something along with you – connect with your audience – be sad or be funny).
Katie on Table Topics: “Be sad or be funny”
Table Topics: A Year in Review
Helen as Table Topics Master
Helen led our Table Topics session with a series of reflective questions centered around the theme, "A Year in Review." From stories about the challenges of moving to a new city to the importance of "showing up meaningfully," members shared how they’ve grown over the past twelve months.
Thank you to everyone who spoke impromptu to share how their year went: Blair, Tanya, Shubham, Monika, Gautam, Tavisan, Jeremy (guest), Robin (guest), Landon (guest), Florian (guest), Claudia(guest) and Grace(guest)!
Our Table Topics winner was Andres 🏆, a guest who captivated the room with his response to the prompt: “What was your biggest challenge this year and how did you overcome it?” Andres shared his journey as a non-native speaker, describing how he has worked to become more comfortable being himself while speaking a language he has only known for three years. While he jokingly admitted that he’s usually “funnier in Spanish,” his witty and heartfelt delivery proved he is just as hilarious in English! His story was a wonderful reminder that authenticity is the key to connecting with any audience.
A Best Table Topic ribbon to take back home to San Diego, Andres! 🙂
Evaluation and Feedback
Incoming Madame President as General Evaluator
⭐ Best Evaluator: Blair Vorsatz
Congratulations Blair!
Blair won Best Evaluator 🏆for his evaluation of Val’s speech. He noted the three dimensions that made the speech a success: Val’s commanding stage presence, his detailed and engaging storytelling, and a fantastic conclusion that tied the entire narrative together.
Thank you also to Landon (guest) who is a seasoned Toastmaster from San Diego for evaluating Katie’s speech and reminding us how intentional body language can help us embrace being uncomfortable. Thank you Tavisan for evaluating Omar and celebrating his incredible growth as a storyteller.
Finally, thank you to Shubham for serving as General Evaluator and sharing insights on how we can continue to refine our meeting experience.
Thank you everyone for 2025! This is the last meeting of the year. We’ll be back the first Wednesday in January (the 7th!)
Happy Holidays from the Chamber of Commerce!
Enjoy the Holiday Season however way you’re celebrating it!
Even Irish Bank is all dressed up for the holidays! 😄
📸 Member Spotlight
Every month, we hold our Club Business Meeting where we vote in new members. Today, meet two of our newest members for December.
Dan has been a long-time Toastmaster drawn to GGTM’s in-person meetings!
 Welcome back to Toastmasters, Dan! | What made you interested in joining Golden Gate Toastmasters? II’d like to improve on my public speaking and leadership skills in a supportive environment. The location and time of the meetings are both convenient for my schedule as I live and work in SF, and I like the in person format. I’ve attended one meeting so far (11/5/25) and enjoyed it. I’m an experienced Toastmaster (though my original group, San Francisco Downtown) still meets only online and I prefer in person. The size of the club also appeals to me. What will your speech topics be? |
Frankie is joining us to better equip her for a new role at work!
 Welcome to GGTM, Frankie! | What made you interested in joining Golden Gate Toastmasters? Firstly, I’m big on self development. In addition to that I recently started a new job with L’Oréal Professionel as an educator that will be going into different salon spaces educating new to me groups about the color line and I don’t feel confident (well practiced) in the formula of presenting, keeping audience attention, and staying on track. What will your speech topics be? I’ve been a hair dresser for 10 years, I’ll be 31 in December, making me a fiery Sagittarius, and I am a 5th generation San Franciscan! |
We also want to welcome Mohammed who also joined GGTM this month and aims to grow his public speaking as he steps into a leadership role.
Welcome everyone officially, to GGTM and looking forward to your Ice Breakers!
🏝️ 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.
🥂 Our Year in Review 📈
Hello, this is Sheila your Toastmaster for the Evening on 12/17! While technically “inside the Board Room” the memories captured and memorialized via our post-it activity definitely were not. For my intro spiel bleeding into the time for our two-minute special, I thought of doing an exercise with everyone in attendance so we can collectively review our year (and sell the theme 😛 ).
With three post-its attached at the back of the agenda, I requested everyone to share three things then post it on a make shift three-fold card (the extent of my creativity 🫠) to bring it all together.
On the Hot Pink post-it: Something that made you happy and fulfilled
On the Subdued Blue post-it: Something that sucked or made you sad
On the Fabulous Purple post-it: Words of wisdom to share with everyone (or your future self) for the year to come
Thank you for sharing your wins, heartaches and words for wisdom!
And everyone delivered! 😭 Post-it after post-it, our attendees shared accomplishments and moments which were highlights of their year, along with challenges that they had to face. We all wrapped it up with words of wisdom to share not just with others but to our future selves as we close out this year and face the new year ahead.
Thank you so much for all your participation. As I read all of the post-its one by one I am reminded of the power of community and how the impact of celebration, commiseration and wisdom is exponentially magnified when shared with others.
ALL of the anonymous post-its submitted are in this Kudoboard (best viewed on a laptop so you’ll see the three different categories!). I bleeped information that might be self-identifying to protect everyone’s privacy.
If you were not in the meeting and would like to share your 2025 memories, add them to the board via this link (or clicking Editor view on the link above)
👁️ Through the eyes of your Jul-Dec 2025 Secretaries
Serving as your club secretaries this term has been an absolute honor. We wanted to make the most of the opportunity to represent our club to over 382 active subscribers, so we aimed to keep the newsletter engaging for our growing and dynamic community. From highlighting upcoming events and meeting milestones to welcoming new members, your stories have been the key to our success this year, and we thank you! 🙏
It meant the world to us that you took a few minutes out of your week to stay connected, and we know so many of you did! Please continue to support our incoming Secretary, Irene, as she continues to share the club’s voice while putting her own unique spin on it.
We’ve truly enjoyed writing the newsletter and serving as your Secretaries this term. Huge thank you to everyone for allowing us to share your stories and making this such a rewarding experience! ❤️.
See you on the other side!
Omar Sinada and Sheila Vida signing off. 🥹
Ending the year with a win! 😉
🎉 Be part of the GGTM Newsletter! 🎉
Continue supporting our newsletter as we hand it over to our new Secretary Irene! She co-wrote the newsletter we sent out last week! Send a message to the #newsletter channel in Discord, email [email protected] or talk to her directly! 🙂
