Quick Update

Congrats to Annette and Carin for completing another Competent Leader award! Those two awards put us up to two points towards the 9* we need for the Distinguished Club Program.

We may have had one point already, but the final speech given for that award was on June 30th, so technically it was earned during the last Toastmaster year. Since the Toastmasters Dashboard isn't charting the current year yet I am going with the more conservative accounting for DCP.

For a brief head's up to anyone that doesn't already know, our Summer Pot-Luck Party and Vandye Forrester's house up in Garden Valley is this weekend. We'll start things off at 1 PM and the so-called "official" meal time is 3 PM, but we'll have food through-out and we'd rather see you come for a visit and have to leave early than not at all.


*We only need 5 points for Distinguished, but that has never been Boise Club 61's Goal.

The Beginning of the 2015-2016 Toastmasters Year at Boise Club 61

Tonight is Boise Club 61's 1st meeting of the new Toastmaster Year and we will be inducting most of our new officers tonight. Last week we had several officers unable to attend and tonight we will be short one officer, so we chose the induction for tonight to get the most attendees possible.

I have a few goals, tweaks, and changes in mind for the club this year, but since this is our club the most I'll be doing is gathering some ideas from the executive team and the club members, adding a few of my own, and see what we want to work on collectively as a group.

Some really minor things I feel I can easily accomplish without needing permission, like keeping the club informed about our progress in the Distinguished Club Program (DCP) and making some posts here on our blog. We do also have a Facebook page, which I recommend checking out, but I doubt I'll make many posts there.

Our Boise Club 61 Officers for the 2015-2016 year are:
President      Christopher Stogdill
VP Education      Phill Vansickle
VP Membership      Robert Corbin
VP Public Relations   Annette Krause
Secretary      Carolyn Stogdill
Sergeant at Arms      Rob Lucas

The main way for folks to keep informed about the Club's DCP progress has been the Toastmaster's Dashboard, which is an open site for all to view. You don't need a login (I verified this myself by using an incognito browser) and you can check out any club in the entire organization.

Odds are, for the average member, this is a bit much so I'll be keeping folks updated using a "simple" graphic I made and used as this post's lead-in graphic. There are 10 DPC points that can be earned and fully half of them have multiple parts to each point. Without listing every point I think you can guess which points have multiple parts to them....

We need 5 points to get "Distinguished Club", 7 points for "Select Distinguished" and 9 for "President's Distinguished". As you can see by the info on the right side of this page Boise Club 61 has been President's Distinguished for the last eight years running. I'm hoping we'll make it nine years before I finish up my term of office.

On a couple levels I don't really care for if Boise Club 61 makes Distinguished, much less President's Distinguished, but the fact of the matter is that these 10 points that make up the DCP program correlate strongly with healthy clubs. If you participate in the DCP program and earn these awards, you most likely will have a strong & healthy club.....so for that reason I'm all for the DCP program.

The dashboard is still trying to finalize things for last year so it doesn't yet show our progress, but I was able to look up a few things and get my new tracker updated.

I hope you are able to attend the meeting tonight and welcome our new officers!

Toastmasters Networking

September 30 2014

I am uploading this picture taken tonight during our break to show the world how great toastmaster meetings can be. Everyone is involved in a conversation, the room is lively, and people are smiling!!!! Love, love, love it. What can I say.... Another great meeting

Pirates

September 23, 2014      

Tonight we had the pirates theme.... All because on Sept 19th is national pirates day.    Not only do we get to practice out speeches but we learn about all kinds of stuff....  For example National Pirates Day.... Who knew?? Thanks to Google, we get to have many types of themes that allow time for a bit of education during our meetings. For example....we get to learn new words like "scupper". Scupper is a drain or spout that allows water to drain overboard or can be used to describe a ruin or wreck....

We all got to talk like pirates tonight.... A Matey, ahoy mates, come here my beauty, you remind me of a sea urchin, you land lobber, scurvy dog, walk the plank... and many more...

Tonight we had two great speeches and each had a bit of personal advice..

From Casey in his icebreaker speech --> Do not let people, who have given up on their dreams, tell you can not achieve yours!!!!!

From Paul in his 4th speech --> Moderation, eat your greens variety, and drink your wine!!!!!

Both speeches rocked tonight and yea! Another great meeting.

FEAR

I joined Boise Club 61 in October 2013 because like others, I wanted to improve my speaking skills in front of others.  I personally wanted to gain confidence and become comfortable speaking to and with large groups of people.    I needed this uncontrollable fear to dissipate so I could think on my feet and be able to communicate with an interactive group.   

A couple of weeks ago, our meeting theme was FEAR.   I found this interesting because I took time to reflect back on the last year and a half and my own personal improvement.  Did I still have fear?   Yes.... But I feel I am able to control IT instead of IT controlling me.    

Carolyn, our President, was toastmaster for this meeting and shared personal situations of fear and speaking.   She had some thought proving scenarios and offered solutions.    This was a great combination for the topic of fear.

Another great meeting!

After Elections

Our new officers from left to right.... Note the new president is holding the gavel!!

Jamie Parker .... Exiting President reading our duties and responsibilities to us.

Sergeant at Arms Phil Vansickle

Treasurer Luke Gallegos

Secretary Annette Krause

Vice President of Public Relations Lynda Clark

Vice President of Membership Tim Hastings

Vice President of Education Steven Hurst

New President Carolyn Stogdill

Everyone accepted the duties and now we are ready for a new Toastmaster year.

Congrats to Boise Club 61's New Officers!

Last night Boise Club 61 held its elections for the 2014-2015 Toastmaster year.

Serving 6 months in a club officer role is a requirement towards earning the Advanced Leader Bronze (ALB) award as part of the Leadership Track for Toastmasters International.

This group of people will lead the club to another year of earning President's Distinguished for the 2014-2015 year. Before announcing the newly-elected officers, now would be a great time to thank the previous slate of officers serving out the next two weeks as "lame ducks":

President Jamie Parker
Vice President of Education Annette Krause
Vice President of Membership Michael Pluto
Vice President of Public Relations David Coney
Secretary Carin Pluto
Treasurer Keiko Knudson
Sergeant at Arms Lynda Clark

You guys did a great job leading us to a good 2013-2014 year where we once again met all of the goals in the Distinguished Club Program for another year of President's Distinguished standing.

These folks will have some big shoes to fill, but like always the rest of the club is there to support you as much as you support us.

Boise Club 61's slate of officers for the 2014-2015 Toastmaster year are:

President Carolyn Stogdill
Vice President of Education Steven Hurst
Vice President of Membership Tim Hastings
Vice President of Public Relations Lynda Clark
Secretary Annette Krause
Treasurer Luke Gallegos
Sergeant at Arms Phil Vansickle

Hopefully we will get some posts from these folks to the Club 61 Blog.