Toast to Canada

Toastmasters meetings became part of my weekly routine and although I took two years to get my first designation, CTM (Competent Toastmaster), I was learning every week, getting more practice up in front of the room doing some role. And beginning to feel a little braver.

My mentor went on her maternity leave just months after my Ice Breaker and for some time, I had no official mentor. I remember co-founder Tony Nelson saying that even if our mentor was not available, we could ask another member of the club when we had a question. And that’s what I did. Eventually I asked for another mentor and kept in touch with Tammy, my first one.

It may have been my second year that I was invited to take an unofficial role on the executive and even mentor another new member. I could begin to share what I’d already learned.

One year I proposed a workshop for the district conference and was accepted, but that ended in a heap of flames and great disappointment only a few weeks prior to conference, because someone else deemed me not yet ready to do the task. I had proven to my club that I could do it because I’d presented the workshop to them. It could have been the end of speaking for me, but with the support of my references and fellow members and their belief in me, I stayed with the club and the program. I didn’t go to conference that season but waited at least another year before attending for the first time. And I remember that one of my references said he’d boycott all the workshops and speak up at the meeting, because of what happened. And he did just that.

As a first timer in 2009, I’d accepted the challenge of presenting the Toast to Canada at the banquet, because a member of my club had to back out of the role. That evening I sat with fellow Toastmasters from the Listowel area whom I’ve come to know quite well. At that same  banquet, Jane Stoltz invited me to be the test speaker for their Area Speech competition the next contest season. It was a year of firsts and expanding opportunities for me. Rather the options were there before, but I was not yet ready to accept them.

I enjoyed that first conference at Blue Mountain, sharing a room with a Toastmaster from the KW area. It became the first of many district conferences that I would attend and where I’d expand my network of fellow leaders and communicators and make new friends at the same time.

During those first years, I was building my writing skills too and being published in various publications, locally to internationally, that appreciated my voice. I was also an active member of The Word Guild during those years, and giving my first workshop at that conference in 2006. My editing business and experience was building as well.