It’s been a while since I wrote. Besides my usual club meetings, I’ve been working with the “carry-over” International Director, Michael Smith, on the district visit schedule for the coming year. Also, I’ve been working on handouts for the District Governors at the international convention in a few weeks. I think I’ve come up with something quite unique and very valuable for them — and for their entire DEC. I’ll be posting the results on the web site here soon, look for them on the “Reports” page for each district.

Today I was doing the club president training for a downtown Chicago division, with 16 people attending. This sort of thing reminds me of just how great the people in Toastmasters are, and how fun it is to talk to a motivated audience. Everyone was excited about being a club president and had big plans for Distinguished. I was able to share a lot of useful ideas, and also heard some great ones from the group as well.

One of the most interesting bits was that on the evaluation forms, where the people who attended my session were asked to name two things that they would take away and use, is that practically everyone selected something different! Usually there’s a handful of things, 3-4 items, which everyone focuses on, but in this case, out of 16 people, there must’ve been 20 or more different “take-aways”. I think it’s a sign that everyone found something unique and specific to their situation, and that’s great.