Hi My Fellow Toastmasters,

Being that this email is large, consider it the first of the Toastmasters Whitby Pros Newsletters.

Coming from you in the salty marsh area of the State of Main, USA. Julie and my vacation has actually begun.

Regarding this Wednesday Toastmasters meeting; It was suggested that instead of me planning the meeting, beyond the Educational Presentation by Jason Chessar, I should just turn it over to the club to get it organized.

So being that we have such an awesome club, I realized that is the right thing to do. I have every confidence that that is the right thing to do.

Therefore, I officially turn over this weeks meeting to our awesome club to handle on their own.

We have two club mentors, Karin Czyruk and Joan Winter, who can help. We are very fortunate to have these ladies. They exemplify the values our club holds dear. They will be with us for a minimum of 6 months from when we receive our Charter. They are not counted in the 20 members needed to Charter. I am sure you can turn to them for anything while Julie and i are away.

After much paperwork, (It is as extensive a task as properly setting up a Business Corporation. ) the Charter application was send in. I have my fingers crossed, that we will have the charter back from TI for the meeting of Wednesday Sept 5.

We qualify for Distinguished Cub by having 4 of our new executive trained by our Charter Date and we have the requisite minimum 20 members. You may ask, why is it important to qualify for distinguished club? It is a good question. It is a question that I asked before I took my President’s training (It took the training twice once for the old club and once for our new club.) The answer to why it is important is pretty simple actually. It fits in with our plans to build a club that we can all be proud of. Toastmasters has been around for a long time and they have worked a lot of things out and the Distinguished Club program is an example of that, in that it is a program of accountability. Simply stated if we as a club hold ourselves to being accountable to do the things that will benefit our members the most, we will automatically be Distinguished.

I think we have good reason to be proud of ourselves. We came together because we all want to learn, grow and have fun. We all want to feel that this is the best club ever! We have done a lot of things right and will continue to do so.

We technically and by charter application, are a Corporate Club that is open to members at large. What does that mean? In the broad scheme of things, not a lot. It is just that it is what we are. company Tax Audit Solutions, has sponsored the startup expenses , of which there were quite a bit, and we are providing the no charge use of our boardroom and facilities. We are also providing the use of our equipment, supplies, copiers, overhead projector, Computer monitor, and a hot of the press Samsung 55 inch Electronic Flip board, which is awesome for presentations. Check it
out! You should plan on using it in some of your future presentations.

We have the best of the old and of the new. Sometimes one wants to use an old transparency overhead projector, and Mitchell Notarangelo has generously donated that. Thank you Mitchell! Therefore we are as a club fully ready to create all kinds of professional presentations.

Speaking of presentations; Jason Chessar (Professional Business Consultant and Professional Magician,) will be doing an educational presentation this Wednesday on how to write a contest winning speech. I have seen his presentation before and you do not want to miss it. It will include a video of an International Speech contest winner. I expect he will use the new 55 inch 4K Flip board. Being that our club members will have the opportunity to participate in all the speech contests, this is an excellent sessions for both new and experienced Toastmasters.

Getting back to club updates. We actually have 21 members and a few more pending. So for now we are stopping active marketing for new members. 16 members at a meeting means that everyone gets a chance to participate. A membership of 20 to 25 members will mean that about 12 to 20 will show up. I expect our club will have a higher than that due to the level of enthusiasm we
have. In terms of inviting guests, do so if you are very sure that they will make great members, and let them know there will likely soon be a cap on the number of members. We will then add new members by attrition. (if someone leaves we will replace them from the waiting list).

At the moment, we now have to focus on getting the work on the club done. The executive will meet next week on Thursday, Sept 5 at 7PM at our regular meeting place.

We need to get the membership surveys out. We have to plan our social events, our contests and what fine tuning we need to do for the meetings.

We need to look at the TI Moments of Truth program. It outlines the things that contribute to Quality Meetings.We need to schedule our Pathways training. I think Tony Nelson is going to do this for us. Tony just received Toastmasters International recognition for his contribution to Toastmasters. See Facebook Division E Toastmasters – District 60.

While Toastmasters provides us with cub officer training, there still needs to be active on hands training for our executive. We have ample knowhow and skills within our club to accomplish this.

We are building our own Web page (see http://toastmasterswhitbypros.org/ ) This is in addition to the TI (Toastmasters International) website they provide for when a club charters. Note that we have followed TI guidelines regarding TI branding.

We have our Toastmasters Whitby Pros Facebook Group see https://www.facebook.com/groups/796042920838284/ Be sure to log on and join the group. All our members should join this group. It is strictly for our members.

If all members will consider being on a committee, working with the Club executive, what will be great.

I look forward to working with all of you in out path towards being known as a TI Flagship Club.

I am really looking forward to seeing you all next week. In the meantime, I will return to vacationing. Having the time to write a newsletter is a lot easier when one is on vacation. I enjoyed this.

Dan