Hello Fellow Toastmaster!

Through thoughtful collaboration, the spirit of symbiosis continues to thrive within our Toastmasters community!

🚨 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 GGTM Calendar!

🏠 GGTM Public Speaking Open House on September 24

GGTM is hosting an Open House on 09/24! 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. Reach out to Sheila Vida or Nik Mdluli for any questions at [email protected]. GGTM Members - please help us run this meeting and sign-up for roles!

🎙️Nikko Nights Storytelling Event Back Soon

Following the success of City Lights and Secrets (You can reminisce here), we are again partnering with Hotel Nikko to host another storytelling event at the end of October. Our VPPR Nik Mdluli is leading this and will share more details soon. For now - start thinking about your Tall Tales about San Francisco. 🤥

📈 Sep 9&10 Joint Meeting Highlights

This week - we had not one but two highly engaging meetings thanks to Scott’s High Performance Leadership Pathways project! On September 9, Rhino Toastmasters hosted Golden Gate Toastmasters at their home, and the very next day, on September 10, Golden Gate Toastmasters returned the favor by welcoming Rhino Toastmasters at the Chamber of Commerce.

Both meetings followed the same format but were conducted in the style of the hosting clubs, who also provided the functionaries and evaluators. The visiting clubs contributed by supplying the Toastmaster of the Evening and the speakers. Instead of the usual Table Topics, each meeting featured a joint panel of members from both clubs, sharing how Toastmasters has impacted their lives and discussing the changes they hope to see in the organization

Thank you to the Toastmasters who helped run and made both meetings a huge success: Rajitha, Dipayan, Amadeo, Nithila, Tanya, Alex W., Albert and Caitlin!

For two days, we got to know about Golden Gate and Rhino Toastmasters a little bit more through stories and speeches.

Day 1 at Rhino:

• 🏄‍♀️ Angela warmed the first day up with sharing her adventures at a surf hostel in encouraging us to always make a friend in spaces we find ourselves in

• ☕️ Michelle shares how an insightful conversation with a gentleman in Ethiopia inspires her to keep growing her communication skills.

• 🌉 Alex W. brought the events of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to life with such vivid detail, it had our hearts skipping a beat

•  🤫 Sheila shared her secret of “hiding on stage” to tell stories that foster deeper connection instead of being anonymous and encouraged the audience to do the same. (🏆 Best Speaker 🏆)

Day 2 at GGTM:

• 🤖 Rajitha highlighted the parallels of AI with public speaking as she introduced the Darren Bishop Rhino Moment tradition to open the GGTM-hosted meeting

• ♣️ Rochelle shared professional advise on how to approach flops as a professional poker player who appears on TV!!

• ⛔️ Dipayan did an impromptu speech (unknowingly?) sharing the evolution of his communication style and encourages as to ask our Why when we speak

• 👻 Hannah shares her family ghost story straight from Arkansas complete with sound and light effects and superb storytelling (🏆 Best Speaker 🏆)

The hosting clubs provided the evaluators for each of the prepared speakers.

Larissa(Rhino) evaluating Alex W. and Gene(GGTM) evaluating Hannah got the (🏆 Best Evaluator 🏆) for their respective meetings - both giving kudos to the strong speech delivery of both their assigned speakers!

Thank you to our other four evaluators - Page, Rochelle, Kyle and Sheila.
Thank you to our General Evaluators - Connor and Helen.

In place of Table Topics, each meeting featured a panel of five members who shared their personal Toastmasters journeys. From overcoming fear to honing their speaking and active listening skills, they reflected on how these experiences have enriched both their professional growth and personal relationships. Their stories highlighted the many opportunities Toastmasters offers, and reminded us that we all have the power to shape and elevate the experience for ourselves, our clubs, and our wider community.

👁️ Through the eyes of the TMEs

Kyle was the Toastmaster of the Evening for the meeting hosted at Rhino’s home. Hear what the experience was for him!

A quick shoutout to Scott Brown for both coordinating two joint meetings with Rhino and for doing most of the legwork to fill the agendas! My job as TME was markedly easier this week than for most weeks thanks to Scott's work.

Being TME at a different club definitely raised my heart rate a bit. I was making a first impression with unfamiliar faces, which was a bit nerve-wracking. Of course, Rhino was still a part of Toastmasters, so nobody scoffed or rolled their eyes when I made a slight blunder.

For those comfortable with the TME role, I would highly recommend being a TME for a joint club meeting. (It sounds like we may be having more joint meetings in the future.) The new environment can shake things up a bit and get you in front of new faces.

Two words of advice:

1. Make sure you have the contact info for key parties (e.g. speakers, SaA) so that you can get speech titles, intros, etc in advance of the meeting.

2. Ensure you know how to pronounce the speakers' names! Find them before the meeting and double-check. Consider writing down a phonetic spelling on your notes to ensure you get their name as close to correct as possible.

Other than that, leading a joint meeting is the same as leading any regular GGTM meeting! If you've been a TME for one club, you can be a TME for another (and if you make a mistake, nobody will condemn you for it).

Happy TME-ing!

Page, a Toastmaster veteran led the GGTM-hosted meeting and imparted his wisdom on many aspects of being a Toastmaster!

As a long time member of Rhino, I remember the days before the pandemic with nostalgic fondness. Our large meeting room was routinely packed, with every seat at the table filled, additional seats lining every wall, and late comers casting about for a place to sit. 

Visiting GGTM last Wednesday conjured those memories once more. With members and guests filling every nook & cranny of the boardroom, the meeting fairly crackled with energy. As the guest Toastmaster for the evening, it was exhilarating to be the focus of a veritable sea of attentive faces. 

The agenda was certainly full, but everything proceeded with precision. While there were rather more functionary reports than I generally see, they didn’t bog the meeting down. It was particularly interesting to hear the evaluations from members who I wasn’t familiar with. It reminded me of the value of periodically venturing outside the cozy confines of your home club. 

All in all, it was an instructive and thoroughly entertaining evening. I commend GGTM for growing such a vibrant & thriving club, and I thank everyone for the warm welcome shown to us visiting Rhinos.

My only disappointment was that I’d hoped to join you afterwards for cocktails. Unfortunately, I got sidetracked by a conversation outside, missed the caravan headed there, and had no idea where to go. While the evening ended with a slight sad trombone, it in no way diminished my overall enjoyment of the meeting. Y’all are doing Toastmasters proud, keep up the good work! 

📚 Takeaways from Two Insightful Days📚

1. We are different but the same

   • Each club has different traditions/dynamics (ex: Rhino does a Darren Bishop tribute speech to honor a former member; GGTM has “high-tech” tools to do certain roles) but the goal is the same - to make sure that the stage is provided for folks to be able to hone their communication, leadership and community-building skills!

2. Let’s keep learning and teaching each other

   • From the variety of speeches and panel insights, to seeing how both clubs organize and run their meetings, to meeting personalities from both clubs and hear their motivation for being at Toastmasters and improving it, this event has given us a peek at how Toastmaster definitely goes beyond public speaking!

3. Explore more opportunities to build the community

   • I have heard this mentioned at least four times - and I could not echo it more - let’s seek future collaboration with Rhino, with other Toastmaster clubs and our community as this will further amplify the impact we can all bring!

🏝️ 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. Subscribe to the GGTM Calendar to learn more about our club events and beyond!

📸 Member Spotlight

🎉 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 and Sheila (here is how we look like 😛).