The theme of our September 12th meeting was "Planning for Success" which our Vice President of Education and Toastmaster-of-the-Day, Sally, sneakily managed to relate to The Pathways education program. As part of the meeting opening, Sally shared the following quote from Harvey Mackay with us:

She related the message of this quote to the success striven for and achieved by Houston native Ramona Smith, the 2018 World Champion of Public Speaking, emphasizing the safety and support that Toastmasters provides to members who want to take a risk and try something new.

Joann graciously stepped in as Table Topics Master at the last minute, using a creative variation where each volunteer picked up a copy of one of the Toastmasters monthly magazines, opened it to a random page, and spoke about the an idea therein.

• Loni talked about having investigated what it takes to deliver a TED talk, sharing that -- while she considered this type of speaking to be outside of her wheelhouse -- she's still determined to (eventually) take it for a spin.
• Maxine spoke about her appreciation of the emphasis upon goal-setting within Toastmasters and how that's made a difference to her.
• Sally spoke about failure as a learning tool, not just for oneself but potentially for others, if you're brave enough to share the lessons learned from your setbacks.
• Joann gave a short speech about saying cheers around the world.

Thanks to everyone in attendance last week! We hope you can join us this Thursday for our weekly meeting, the theme of which will be "Accepting Appreciation Gracefully." Loni will serve as Toastmaster-of-the-Day, and you can help out by signing up for a role here.