This past weekend I went to an area contest with toastmasters. It was a great experience and the speeches that were given were the inspirational type.
It is amazing how many people join Toastmasters after they have retired from their first job. Its an amazing organization when you actively get involved. The first set of speeches we had were what's called table topics.
Table topics is where you're speaking for one to two minutes and you're not told what topic you're to talk about until you walk up on the stage and they present you with the question. It's a fun competition we had seven people participating in it and the topic for the contest today was what is your secret skill.
And we got responses from speaking, or being optimistic, another person had a skill of storytelling he was teaching entertaining his children and his neighbors children with stories of space travel.
We had a break for about 10 minutes to give an advertisement for the district conference. Our program director got up and was starting to talk and then invited me up to talk and it was like being given a Table topic question.
I was not prepared for this it's more terrifying than doing a table topic. Next time I will be prepared! We then moved on to the international speeches and they're called international speeches because they can be given anywhere in the world.
We had one speech that was about the her job and another on the trials and tribulations of Internet dating. We had another speech where a gentleman talked about a hiking trip he took from Buffalo to Key West FL.
Than another person talked about the marriage of the waters. He was promoting the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal connecting Lake Erie and the New York harbor. Of course, he was from the Lockport AM club promoting the party this year.
We had one about pursuing your dreams which was really interesting, and I thoroughly enjoyed. They had the usual giving out of awards for third, second and first place and then pictures afterwards, it was a fun way to spend a Saturday morning.
These are people that I will be working with for our district conference. I wanted to show them support for the area contest and to get myself out there. The question is what are your passions pursue are you pursuing them?
Toastmasters is a fun organization I think you would find interesting and fun. Do you have something else that you are passionate about?
If you have struggled with this question and others then go to Patterson2Y2R,com/blog should be a place you should visit to share your stories and challenges.
I have an ear that would love to hear your stories. Let’s taste the real meaning of life. I am still working on my course with the goal of launching a starter course, and I will keep you abreast as to how the process goes.
If you want to participate in this process and join my first class please send me an email to bobchuckpatterson@yahoo.com
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