Time really flies, we are now in the New Year and off to a great start.

Our first meeting had excellent attendance in spite of some members not being able to make the meeting.

The meeting was a lot of fun and we had some great speeches.

The thought of the day by Tess Pierce was very thought provoking.

“It is not about later, when you get it all together and you’re this person you really respect. You may be the most violent person in the world—that’s a fine place to start. That’s a very rich place to start—juicy, smelly. You might be the most depressed person in the world, the most addicted person in the world, the most jealous person in the world. You might think that there are no others on the planet who hate themselves as much as you do. All of that is a good place to start. Just where you are—that’s the place to start.” —  From the book ‘Start where you are’

We have quite a few new members pending as we are attracting people who like how we are doing meetings in this time of the C-19.  Not to mention that it is really convenient to already be home at the end of the meetings.

We have rejigged our agenda so that we would have a smoother agenda. The warm up is shortened to just having everyone introduce themselves. It is important to practice these introductions as it is something we often have to do, out there in the real world. The warm up was taking up too much time, so we took the time savings and moved it having longer table topics time.

We are looking forward to the International Speech Contest this week.  So far, we have Jesse Roher, Colette Cauchi, Charles Hamilton and Dan White competing. Our Contest Chair is Joan Winter and our Chief Judge is Egon Pederson. This will be fun for all of us. The winner will move on the Area Contest.

Don’t forget the Free Path Deadline! Sign on and Get a Free Pathway— Toastmasters International showed special appreciation for members during these difficult times by awarding anyone who renewed their membership for the October renewal period by December 31, 2020 with a free Pathways path. For those who did this, remember to visit your Toastmasters profile, click the “Choose A Path” button, and follow the normal path selection process to redeem your free path before March 31, 2021.

Our club is making a point of helping our members upping their Pathways game, so it is really worth getting a free path. $20.00 USD is worth saving.

For those of you interested in creative backgrounds, they are getting easier and easier to find.

Zoom Stop Light Timer Backgrounds — Are you looking for virtual backgrounds to use when you’re the Timer at your next club meeting? These Zoom virtual backgrounds feature a green, yellow, or red stop light. Download and switch between these backgrounds to indicate how much time the speaker has remaining. Thank you to Geetha Boyani of 3652 Ci Yuan Toastmasters Club for the original idea and allowing us to share it.

https://www.toastmasters.org/resources/-/media/c98ba8332820427ab4def88ac4dfc487.ashx

Ice Breakers Offer Endless Opportunities — In the Pathways learning experience, members must complete the Ice Breaker project in all paths, whether it’s their first or 11th. The beauty of this is that the topic, content, and type of speech is at the discretion of the speaker. Learn how to get the greatest benefit out of giving an Ice Breaker again and again.

Because we all remember our first icebreaker, it is really cool that we get to do it again and again, we can just keep doing what Toastmasters do best and that is to learn, do and grow.

We now have a Coaches Corner, for members interested in learning more about Pathways, you will be hearing from the Coaches Corner Team. Sharon Cardie, Pamela Norbraten and Julie White.

We are looking forward to the New Year of 2021, a year where our club is a ray of sunshine in our lives.

We will be having the club elections in May, where we elect executives to look after the club’s interests.

We will also be looking for renewals around the same time. What we receive from Toastmasters International in value for only a small membership fee is really incredible value.

We get to make friends outside the club because as Toastmasters we all have a lot in common.

Personally, I am very grateful to have so many great and talented friends in our own club. We have become a family and it means a lot to all of us.

Sincerely

Dan White

VP Education

Toastmasters Whitby Pros