Networking with Toastmasters

I guess that it is not news to anyone that Toastmasters is one of the best 'networking' opportunities afforded to you 'out there'.

Toastmasters self-select to improve themselves... you don't have to be invited to join a Toastmasters Club. The standards are high for language and deportment, and people come in from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Our Club, for example, has people from the trades and the retired, working professionals and a young chap with a brain injury.

I grudgingly went to a training session last Sunday. I thought, resentfully, "There are so many other things I need to be doing," and I REALLY did an internal grumble when I saw that none of my fellow Club executives had turned up to catch the ferry with me.

I went out on deck on the way across and took some pictures of white capped mountains and let the fresh breeze "blow the stink off me" as my late mother would have put it.

By the time we got to the mainland, I was cheery and ready to rock. The training was informative and the folks hosting the event were gracious and friendly. In the afternoon I met a lovely, very interesting woman who is in a similar line of business to what I am. We chatted and traded cards and I'm pretty sure that we will 'do business' and become friends. I also had some good laughs and conversation with the woman who sat beside me at the table. She suggested that women our age are just "coming into our power."

So, if you want to network-- join Toastmasters!

Proper Elocution

I blog quite a bit. Recently I have begun a sort of amateur attempt at video blogging... For some odd reason, when I suggested that I had a Blogger account, they sent the videos here. So you can see them on July 23 and 24... fairly unrelated to ToastMasters, except that I am holding forth and I certainly seem to be calling for some evaluation of my speaking skills!

Last night I went with a friend to the summer session of ToastMasters in our community-- two clubs amalgamated to form one of sufficient numbers to hold a meeting. My friend had an opportunity to observe quite a bit of fraternal "networking" take place. One chap asked her what sort of work she was in and when she said she was a pharmacist he told her that the manager at the Safeway was looking for someone, etc. We got a business card from a massage therapist for a friend of ours who is experiencing pain (she is a pharmacist also, with a counter that is too high for her petite self). One of our members has just launched a foundation so we are all going in to look at her new website. And the chap who knows the head honcho at Safeway also arranges yachting expeditions, so I gave him my husband's name and phone number. And lots of laughs as well, of course. ToastMasters is great.. if you haven't thought about it seriously, you might want to.