At the end of March, due to the pandemic, we continued the Toastmasters meetings in our club online. At first I was afraid because the online platform was new for me, and I did not have proper equipment. In the month to follow I upgraded: I bought a new web camera. I practiced by taking roles as a Toastmaster, a speaker, and a Table Topics Master. I participated in several online events outside our club, too. By June I had experience in the online world, so I was not afraid anymore, I just enjoyed the events. June was the month still full of various online events, with the offline events coming back, too. It was a special month for me. I continued to develop my skills and continued to step out of my comfort zone.
At the beginning of June, after two month of part-time home office, I wondered: “Will this month be full of wonders and with less restrictions?”
For writing this article to all of you, first I had to turn to my memory, so I asked myself: “What happened in June? I remember it was a Storytellers’ Sunday event. What else?” I had to check my notes from that month. “Oh, it was an online Sopron Toastmasters meeting, and an online officer training too.” At last I checked my calendar: I saw that the club officer election in our club was in June too, and on 18th we had an offline coffee drinking with the other club members. How many events! That is why I thought this month was full!
So here I present you the joyful rhetorical events of my June, for which I needed practice and needed to muster up my courage.
On the 4th of June I joined an online meeting of Sopron Toastmasters as a secret general evaluator. The Sopron Toastmasters is in its forming phase, they are not officially registered. They had some guests, Ádám Horváth presented his great Division contest winning speech, which was evaluated by Pedro Benedek. I made some notes for myself about all the role takers. They did not know everything about the roles, but they were enthusiastic. I hope the role takers could learn from my general evaluation and from the supportive comments Ádám made in the chat.
We held our club officer election on the 11th of June via Zoom. Each nominee had a short speech about the applied role and what he/she can add to the role. I was elected to be Vice President Education. Even though I am a founder member of my club, and before I was the Secretary, this new role is and will be a challenge for me. I am mostly well-informed about rules in Toastmasters and the Pathways system, but now I have to share my knowledge and help others moving forward in the projects.
After the election we started organising our first offline meeting after the first wave of the pandemic. We went to a restaurant, where we sat outside, at a big table. It was good to finally see the other club members in person.
On the 27th of June I joined the online officer training, first time as a VPE. I finally learned what Moments of truth and PowerPoint karaoke is. First, we discussed the elements of Moments of truth in small groups, and set three goals for our club, in which we wanted to do better than earlier. After that we discussed some frequently asked questions. At the end, the more adventurous members could try the PowerPoint karaoke, as a type of table topics.
And now I will tell you about my most exciting experience in June. I started joining the Storytellers’ Sunday online events in March, organised by Lukas Liebich, our Immediate Past District Director. The structure of the events was the following: first some prepared speeches from experienced storytellers, then some questions or voting, and then the open-mic section, where anybody could share his/her story related to the theme. I did not join all events, but some, and they were really interesting.
On one of the Storytellers’ Sunday events Lukas asked me: “Eva, you often join this event, when will you apply for the open-mic section?” I do not remember my answer, but it could be the following: “I don’t know, I will think about it.” Later I thought: “Why not try it?” The truth is, I never told a speech in English before, but I wanted to try.
The theme of the next meeting was Just different. Ideas started popping in my head about my future speech. I started writing my speech based on an article I wrote about my journey in Toastmasters to Hello Toasties. I extended the content from my experiences in Toastmasters to my experiences in everyday life. I collected my main events and turnings of my life, and created a short draft, which I expanded later. I practiced my speech in front of a mirror, recorded it on video, and watched the result. I even searched for a text reader program to improve my English pronunciation. Luckily, I found a relatively good one, the machine voice Sharon really acquitted herself well.
Finally, the end of June arrived. At 7 p.m. on the 28th the event started. It was a night with variety and true confessions. We heard stories about caring strangers, death, a strange validation, autism, LSD. After the speeches of the three experienced storytellers, I begin the open-mic section. I was nervous before and during my speech, but I told everything I wanted to share. Looking back at the video, I was satisfied, it was a good speech.
Later it turned out it was my last chance for a long time participating in open-mic, because after that event in June, Storytellers’ Sunday went to a hibernating phase, and nobody knows when it will come back to life. I am happy that I did not miss the opportunity.
At the end of June, I finally could answer my own question: Yes, this June was full of wonders, honesty, learning, growing, diversity. I harvested the fruit of my work: I became more confident in online role taking and Hungarian/English speaking. Thank you, fellow Toastmasters, for making that month so good!
