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Author Archive: Webmaster
A Message from the 2018-2019 District 1 Director
Greetings District 1!
I am honored and grateful to Speak, Lead, and Serve as your District 1 Director for the 2018-2019 program year. This year our theme is to Speak, Lead and Serve YOU as ONE TEAM. Our commitment to YOU is to uphold the values of Toastmasters International with Integrity, Respect, Service and Excellence!
Our focus this year is to stay committed to you, our members. Our leadership team will fulfill the mission of Toastmasters by expanding the network of clubs and sharing the good news of Toastmasters throughout the greater Los Angeles area. We will also work hard at building relationships with our existing clubs and helping each club reach their full potential by visiting your club meetings more often and hearing what we can do to make this experience one of encouragement, learning and transformation. Each one of you has an incredible story to share. We are here to support you in all of your endeavors.
As Mother Teresa stated, “I cannot do what you can do, and you cannot do what I can do…. together we can do something beautiful.” In the months and years ahead, you will shine and discover your greatness in your Toastmasters journey. As you build new relationships with your club members, you will discover your passions together as ONE team and encourage one another in this journey. As District 1 Director, I want to encourage you to illuminate your talents and gifts. Step into your courage with passion!
We hear you District 1! Our goal is to provide you with a variety of leadership opportunities to serve our members and our district as a volunteer.
We have considerable work ahead of us serving our members. In this year, it will more important to not only stay focused in the next 12 months but, to also focus on how we envision our district in the next few years. Visualize our district as the place to belong.
A place where members are open to embrace change in themselves as well as the way we train, lead, as we integrate Pathways into our clubs.
I challenge each of you to focus on your goals, to support, encourage, and mentor each other to achieve your individual and club goals. I challenge you to step outside of your comfort zone and stretch your capabilities. I challenge you to volunteer in the spirit of service. Expand your opportunities to grow as leaders. Lastly, I challenge you to work together across our district and serve each member of District 1 together as ONE TEAM.
Expand your horizons by volunteering on one of our district teams. If you are interested in serving on one of our district teams, I invite you to explore our website for more volunteer opportunities.
I am looking forward to supporting you in your speaking and leadership journey. I am confident that together, we will be able to embrace our new Pathways education program, achieve your goals and become a Presidents Distinguished District! Now, let’s hit the ground running, Speaking, Leading and Serving ONE TEAM!
Serving District 1 Proudly,
Evelyn Woolridge, DTM
District 1 Director 2018-2019
Today is the start of a new chapter in District 1! I’m excited to be part of a tradition of developing leaders to carry forward Toastmasters core values of Integrity, Respect, Service, and Excellence. These values will be the basis for how we build programs to support your success throughout the year. Starting with this Summer’s Toastmasters Leadership/Learning Institute (TLI), our dynamic trainers and facilitators will teach you how to lead your club as an officer, how to succeed using the Distinguished Club Program, how to build your club’s membership, how to use free web tools to collaborate more effectively, how to maximize your speaking potential, and much more. TLI is just one of many opportunities you will have to use your Toastmasters experience to learn and grow. In 2018, I, along with the leaders of District 1 commit to encouraging the leader within you to emerge and work with us to SPEAK, LEAD and SERVE as One Team.
Ken Starks
Program Quality Director
District 1, 2018-2019
The Club Growth Team begins a new year in District 1! Our two-fold vision is simple: 1) build new clubs; and 2) grow membership and member retention in existing clubs. Our District’s singular message is also simple: If we Speak, Lead and Serve as ONE TEAM, we will succeed.
Building new clubs is a team effort in District 1. New club ideas and leads come from the members, corporations, communities and our own research. We quickly move from an idea or inquiry, to planning, to a sample meeting, and then to a chartered club! Simple, eh? With new benefits and tools, like Pathways, and the advent of virtual clubs, only opportunity is before us.
The engaged member stays a member. If we focus on providing a supportive and positive learning experience, our club members will continue to grow and learn, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth. Another simple formula.
Lastly, success is not complete without fun, friendships and fabulous times. Simply stated, as ONE TEAM, we all win. Let’s do this!
Brad Stauffer
Club Growth Director
District 1, 2018-2019
We are ONE TEAM! Speak, Lead, Serve. Meet some of our new leaders!
Area A3 Director: Robin Boytos
Area D6 Director: Ken Saruwatari
Division A Director: Steve Evans
We are looking forward to meeting you all!
I Love Toastmasters!
by Victoria Reynolds
People ask me all the time why I’m still in Toastmasters, long after I joined it for learning public speaking. The truth is, Toastmasters is soooo much more than public speaking.
It is a self-improvident program that changes peoples lives and those who move up through leadership are some of the most heart-centered people I’ve had the pleasure to meet and do business with. They volunteer to lead because they want to serve and because it helps to make them better people in every walk of life.
I’ve seen people’s lives dramatically shift, just from learning how to be confident speaking their truth. Effective communication, whether on stage, in person, on social media, in conference calls, effects every person it touches. Great communicators become natural leaders. That’s what Toastmasters is really all about – and you get it all for less than $10 a month.
I don’t need Toastmasters anymore for being comfortable on stage or television. Toastmasters took care of that years ago! Now I stay because it is helping me to become a better leader and to empower others to lead.
What the world needs now, more than anything else, are heart-centered leaders. We need leaders who serve the greater good, rather than to feed their own egos and pocketbooks.
Toastmasters cultivates service leadership and that’s why I love Toastmasters.
Reverend Joseph “Joe” Lee Love, DTM
by Laura Blackwell, DTM
Oh, what a man! Everybody who knew Joe can vouch that he was a fun-loving, professional, dedicated, and all-around person. He was a teacher, a scholar, a preacher, a fitness buff and an exceptional person.
As a toastmaster, he served District One well as area and district governor (director), and district photographer. He also was the founder of two Toastmasters club, Dynamic 90s and Ethical Elite. Joe served in all roles in both clubs. He achieved the level of Distinguished Toastmaster and received the Roy D. Graham Award.
Joe and his late wife, Shirley moved to Texas in 2010. Once settled, Joe joined a Toastmasters club in the Dallas area. He also was active in the Dallas branch of the AARP.
Joe made his transition from this earth on July 14, 2017 in Grand Prairie, Texas. He will be remembered as:
- A friend to all he met.
- The club mentor and member of his toastmaster clubs, Dynamic 90s and Ethical Elite.
- A wise man who loved to quote scripture from his favorite biblical character, Solomon.
- A great communicator and leader in his toastmaster, private, and public life.
- He was a club founder; founder of Toastmasters club Dynamic 90s and Ethical Elite.
- He was a counselor. As an ordained minister, he offered free counseling to those experiencing the throes of life.
- He was a preacher. He, on occasion, delivered the message at the City of Angeles Science of Mind Center.
- He was an athlete. He ran track during his high school days. He was an avid roller skater, bike rider, weightlifter, and all around sports fanatic.
- He was an excellent storyteller. At any toastmaster meeting, he shared his life stories from his life as a foster kid, to his many jobs he held, to family, to being a teacher, to his time in the U.S. Air Force, and many more adventures he experienced.
- He was a dancer. Toastmaster Edith has a clear memory of him doing the “running man”. Wherever there was a dance floor, you could find Joe, teaching or leading.
- He was humorous. His jokes were dry; but, loaded with humor.
- He was a salesman and networker. Using the sales skills he learned as a used car salesman, he was good at renewing members 100% and as well as recruiting new members.
- He was an entertainer. We have fond memories of him performing as Ray Charles and a member of the Temptations Revue at our Toastmasters’ Christmas Party.
- He loved to travel; traveling nationally and internationally.
- He was well-dressed. Coming to our 8:00 a.m. Saturday meeting dressed in his suit and tie.
- He was ageless. He could outrun, out-perform the best of the best.
- He was family oriented. A dedicated husband to his wife, a father figure to his children, grandparent to his grandchildren, brother to his siblings, and friend to his relatives.
- He was dependable and trustworthy. Joe was a man of his words, who was always on time.
Joe has been so much for so many, I could write a book on him and continue singing his praises; but as with all things, it must end.
May you forever rest in peace, my friend and fellow Toastmaster.
Always a District 1 Member!
Hello from Lompoc Valley of Flowers Toastmasters
With Toastmasters new program and Pathways, I recently had to give a brand new icebreaker for my first Pathways Project.
It brought back many memories, especially how and why I started my journey in Toastmasters, where I’ve been, the clubs I’ve belonged to, but especially the friends I made in District One. Although I like living in Lompoc and I belong to a very good club here (Lompoc Valley of Flowers), I still miss my friends in D1.
In my icebreaker I related how I had joined my first TM club in El Cajon CA, but my Toastmaster memories really begin from when I joined Toastmasters in D1. That was where I began my journey as Area Governor, Division Governor, working with the District team as SAA, chairing contests, achieving my DTM, and especially when I helped charter and become a member of Professional Women Toastmasters.
I related how Laura Bayne Jarnat and I became known as the “B” team when we paired up to chair many area, division and district contests; how I had enjoyed the time I was on the committee with Lydia Boyd, Pat Allison and Michael Levinrad, chairing one of the last regional conferences held; but uppermost, the many friends I have made in District One.
This is a letter of thanks to Toastmasters, to all my friends in D1, and especially to the members of Professional Women Toastmasters, for their help, their friendship, for giving me the courage to say “I can do that.”
District One will always be my ‘Toastmaster home.’
Looking forward to seeing you when I visit Los Angeles, and perhaps even seeing some of you up here in wine country.
CDU Enhanced Post Baccalaureate Program and District 1 Launch Speechcraft
Tina Tomiyama
Margaret Mitchell addressing scholars
“Post Bacc Program seeking Speechcraft. Let’s start a relationship!” No one knew just what to expect when District 1 Toastmasters and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science’s (CDU) Enhanced Post Baccalaureate (EPB) Program joined forces to provide communication training to 15 scholars. Would the stars align?
Dr. Ngozi Chukwu, Director of the EPB Program, was searching for a way to enrich the communication skills of her pre-medical students and had heard good things about Toastmasters. Moreover, her former program assistant, Taynay Cameron, had previously participated in a Youth Leadership Program. In the spring of 2017, Taynay connected Dr. Chukwu with several Toastmasters, including the eminent Margaret Mitchell, veteran of four Speechcrafts; District 1’s 2016-2017 Speechcraft Chair Janet Cormier; and Karen Persip, who had chaired a Speechcraft at St Francis Medical Center.
Natalie Torres-Haddad works with two scholars on their Icebreaker
The planners met over the spring and summer to tailor the best possible experience for the 15 scholars for their Fall 2017 semester in the EPB Program. As Chair, Margaret enlisted her mentee Natalie Torres-Haddad as Co-Chair and signed up more than a dozen enthusiastic Toastmasters from seven clubs in District 1 to help.
With 15 scholar-participants, it was clear that not every scholar could give a prepared speech at every one of the 8 Speechcraft sessions. Margaret and Dr. Chukwu carefully worked out a syllabus to maximize the communication training that was possible. At each two-hour session, Speechcraft team members offer educational and demonstration speeches addressing one of the first eight projects in the Competent Communicator manual. Meanwhile, half the scholars give a prepared speech at each meeting while the other half practices Table Topics™. And not just any Table Topics™ — these topics are carefully aligned with the scholars’ curriculum.
The Speechcraft team includes Co-Chairs Margaret Mitchell and Natalie Torres-Haddad, Advisors Karen Persip, Martha Pickett-Patterson, Jessica Allen and Tina Tomiyama, and additional team members Daniel Andrade, Laura Brown, Richard Carbajal, Janet Cormier, Mello Desire, Shron and Alvin Hall, Diane Markham, Lydia Martinez, and Alonzo Williams.
Sponsoring and represented clubs are Compton Elite Communicators, Century City Toastmasters, C.I.T.I.E.S. Club, Ethical Elite, Mission Control, Praisemasters, and StoryMasters.
Did the stars align? How is the relationship coming along?
“I don’t know when I’ve been so impressed!” whispered Karen Persip as we listened to an hour of enthralling Icebreaker speeches. “These students are incredible!”
“Speechcraft really works in a college setting,” said Margaret Mitchell. “It dovetails with a semester or trimester system and provides a fine introduction to the Toastmasters program.”
Will CDU continue to include a Speechcraft in the EPB program in future? “I would love to incorporate Speechcraft into the program every year,” said Dr. Chukwu, smiling warmly, “In fact, the reviews thus far have been so positive, we have already begun to discuss ways of introducing it to the faculty and staff.”
Enjoy these 6 pictures of the first session, and stay tuned for the wrap-up in December.
Advisors Tina Tomiyama, Karen Persip, Martha Pickett-Patterson and Laura Brown.
Scholars discuss Icebreaker topics while Dr Chukwu (standing in doorway) takes pictures
Scholars stand and introduce themselves to the Speechcraft team
Scholars work in pairs on their first assignment
Where will Pathways take you?
Continue your journey of personal and professional development through Pathways, Toastmasters’ new education program! As the foundation of your Toastmasters experience, Pathways is designed to help you build the competencies you need to communicate and lead.
Click here for Pathway Resources
Why is the education program changing?
In the 2010 strategic plan, the Toastmasters Board of Directors called for the education program to be revitalized. The Board stressed the need to modernize the communication track as well as renew the focus on leadership learning in the leadership track.
The current education program has served Toastmasters for many years. However, much of the communication track hasn’t been updated since the 1970s. The Toastmasters Pathways learning experience is not a departure from the current program, because it builds on the established educational foundation. Pathways is a modernized learning experience suited to our changing global society. It offers you more benefits and more opportunities to learn, grow and meet personal and professional goals. You now have the opportunity to develop additional skills you can use not just in your club, but at your job or in your community as well.
The many benefits to members will include:
- A learning experience tailored to your personal and professional goals
- The opportunity to develop many skills relevant to an evolving global marketplace
- Recognition of educational achievements that will come earlier and more frequently
- New technological resources to improve speeches and support meeting roles
- Online access to educational materials
- Videos that model the skills you are learning
Click here for Pathway Resources
Contact:
- Pathways Chief Ambassador, Joyce Howard, DTM, PDD
joyceatla@aol.com
323-680-3600 - 2017-2018 Program Quality Director, Evelyn Woolridge, DTM
ToastmastersRISE.ew@gmail.com
310-387-3807
District One Toastmasters Tristan de Montebello heading to the semifinalist round in the world’s largest speech contest
On May 20, 2017 Tristan de Montebello won the District One International Speech Contest and will be advancing to the Toastmaster International semifinal rounds of the contest, vying for one of 10 spots in the World Championship of Public Speaking® to be held at the Toastmasters International Convention Friday, August 25, 2017 in Vancouver, Canada.
Tristan, a member of Del Rey Toastmasters in Marina Del Rey, California, surpassed fierce competition to win over the judges with his speech, “Pull Up Your Pants.” The speech touched on the importance of courage to live a life true to one’s self. “I knew from the beginning that I wanted to speak about courage,” explains Tristan, “but it took me 3 months and 30 drafts to discover a message that I felt was worth sharing. The journey from a single idea to a final draft was an incredible learning experience.”
In preparation for the competition, Tristan worked with Public Speaking Coach Michael Gendler, who initially agreed to mentor him for his first 3 speeches. But after one week, Tristan had given 5 speeches at 5 clubs, and Gendler quickly realized that Tristan wasn’t a typical mentee. “I had never met anyone with a work ethic like Tristan’s,” says Gendler. “He would brainstorm new ideas in the morning, deliver them to a new club in the afternoon, and then study the video footage in the evening. Then he would wake up and do it all over again.”
Tristan’s work ethic stems from a larger passion for ultra-learning, a form of self-education focused on learning hard things in less time. In 2015, he founded AboutTheStart.com to help people get more from life by learning new skills as fast as possible. “I believe learning a new skill is incredible for our overall long-term happiness. The faster we can learn it, the less likely we are to quit and the more fun and fulfillment we experience.”
Tristan’s ultra-learning journey will continue as he sets out to compete against 101 other semifinalists from districts around the world. To learn more about the Toastmasters International Convention or to register, go to https://www.toastmasters.org/events/2017-international-convention. You can also watch his semifinal speech on August 24th on-demand through the Toastmasters International website and follow @Toastmasters on Twitter to track his progress.