A Hairy Hairy Night

This was one of those weird and hairy Club meetings. As usual, I felt some deep-seated anxiety before the meeting. I was ready an hour too early (I still haven't put my watch back like everyone else in the province... gives me a sense of 'being on time' although I sometimes forget, as I did tonight).

We got to the Center driving through the fog. One of my Clubmates breathlessly pulled me aside and told me that just right outside the Center, in a snowbank, she had observed a couple having sex. She was shocked but had wanted to make sure the woman involved was not being raped. It seemed that they were both highly inebriated (what kind of drug would make them so oblivious to cold snow and passersby? Alcohol?) So, she was a little traumatized, although she said she does spend four hours a week on the crisis line as a volunteer each week and has seen and heard just about everything.

Then, because we were sparsely populated tonight, I found myself filling the following roles: Timekeeper, Uhms and Ahs Counter, Secretary to the Business Meeting, Ballot Counter, Greeter, and I evaluated a speech. Next week I'm down to be Toastmaster. Yikes.

We had a guest speaker tonight from one of the other local clubs. He talked about how we don't use our voices to full benefit. Very interesting speech, with demonstrations of how we can change our breathing, etc., to make a difference to our delivery. He also brought cookies.

I emailed a friend in Ireland to tell her that I ran across a blog by a Toastmaster in a Club not far from where she lives. I suggested that since she is eloquent and enjoys having fun, she might be interested in joining Toastmasters. I told her that in our Club, for example, we have a city planner, an engineer, a teacher, an entrepreneur, a former hypnotherapist, a chiropractor, a ski rescue team member, a man with head injury, a philosopher, and who knows what else? We blend and we learn. It's cool.

But right before the evening starts, I get the usual performance anxiety... always.

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.