Looking for an opportunity to become a leader? Consider joining a Toastmasters Club. Toastmasters is an International Organization that helps members become better communicators and leaders. To be honest, I believe Toastmasters is the best kept secret for anyone who is determined to improve themselves, willing to work and not afraid to leave their comfort zone.
I joined Toastmasters because I was deathly afraid of speaking in public and it was something I had to do more of as a Director of an Admissions Office in a level one trauma center. I will discuss my accomplishments in Toastmasters in a future posts. But I do want to talk to you about leadership. In a Toastmasters club there are 7 leadership positions (Club Officers) and it is their job to help the club member reach their goals.
The individual member goals help the club become a distinguished club. There are several levels of being distinguished, from distinguished to select distinguished and president distinguished. I am currently an Area Governor in my Toastmaster District and responsible for 5 clubs. I work with the club officers to help them become distinguished. If a club meets all 10 goals they will be president distinguished.
Last year I presented a workshop which focused on Toastmaster Club development at the Spring Conference in both New York and New Jersey. Below is an excerpt from that presentation which focuses on the Distinguished Club Program (DCP). There are a number of acronyms in Toastmasters.
So many times the idea of club development is a boring topic to present in a workshop so I decided to spice it up by being a Michael Jackson Impersonator (This was before Michael’s untimely death). I preformed a different Michael Jackson song parity for each segment of my club development workshop. Humor is one of my talents and I love to make people smile. I hope you liked the video and if you are not a member of Toastmasters consider joining a club near you.
I almost expected to see Diana Ross and Nipsey Russel pop in for a visit LOL
This is a very good way to engage the audience. I know people do this a lot with children, but it’s a wonderful way to work with adults as well!
Good stuff, Kevin. Tell me do you have a closet full of costumes? LOL
Gwen
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Hi Gwen,
I let my imagination run wild and develop a presentation that is specific to the audience it allows me to connect immediately. The best thing is that years later I will have people tell me how much they enjoyed the presentation and the message.
Making the message memorable is my goal when I present. My humor and characters are tools that I take from my tool box to use depending on the audience and topic.
Thank you so much for your comment and you should see my closet. LOL
Kevin