On the Table – Topics for Toastmasters Season 1 episode 17

Sometimes eating words can be rich and tasty – like “Happy Birthday” in buttercreme icing on a cake.  In this case… not so much.  Today I’m talking about Advanced Clubs on the table.

INTRO

When I was working toward my DTM, I was a member of the Hall of Fame Advanced Club in the District 10 southern Division.  I was a member for about a year, but then I quit.  I quit two other clubs at the same time – being a member of 4 clubs was a bit more than I could handle – time-wise and financially.  I know there are plenty of Toastmasters out there who do it.

In my position as DTM Mentorship Chair, it’s my pleasure to go visit the advanced clubs – that’s where the Toastmasters who may be interested in achieving their DTM tend to be.  My job is to let them know about the resources, teams and mentoring programs we have for them to help them get to their goals.

I’ve been to the Eastside Advanced Toastmasters club once before – they canceled it due to the weather.  It’s a long haul from my southern division home up to Euclid, so when I heard that Eastside Advanced was planning an open house in Shaker Heights… Ok, so I  saved maybe 5 or 6 miles of driving.

But I went.

What a meeting!

Let me play you a clip from a recent interview I had with Area 23 Governor Janet Wasserman about that meeting.

Kim Krajci:  I visited Eastside Advanced recently for an open house.

Janet Wasserman:  Yes, you did.

KK:  I gotta tell you, I was amazed at how good the evaluations were for that club.  I have been saying, "I'm not going to join, I'm not going to join advanced clubs because they're not worth the value to me.   You guys convinced me otherwise that it worth the money of putting every six months to get that kind of quality evaluation.

JW:  Yes.  Thank you for coming to our open house.  I know I spoke with you there.  Thank you for appreciating the what we are doing in the advanced clubs.  I know that these are necessary clubs for our district because a lot of these Toastmasters have been in Toastmasters for many years, and they know the ability to give a quality evaluation, which is so necessary.  Eastside Advanced has revamped their intention.  We dropped Table Topics because we believe that everyone can get that out there in their home clubs.  We are focusing many on speeches and definitely evaluations.

KK:  They were top notch.  They were amazing.  The kind of evaluation that I as a speaker would want to have.

JW:  Yes.  Like you said, the value of belonging to an advanced club is deep.

KK:  I sure wish your club was a whole lot closer than 60 miles from my house.

JW:  Yes, I tell people it's not a big commitment because we meet once a month.  But the learning that will come away from just belonging to and  coming out to an advanced club meeting is great.

I mean no denigration of the other advanced clubs when I say that this was the ideal advanced club meeting.  What do I look for in an advanced club and why didn’t I want to join one?

First: Inspiration

When I went to the Eastside Advanced open house, I was treated to several well-prepared speakers.  None of them were just phoning in a presentation.  I could tell they’d all practiced.  They were taking their role as speaker seriously.

That was really inspiring to me.

Visiting Eastside Advanced put me in with a room full of Toastmasters I’d never heard speak before and they brought out their A game.

I’d forgotten this level of push to improve.