Toastmasters Conference
Tomorrow I'm going to be leaving work and heading to South Shore Harbour for a Toastmasters district conference. It's supposed to be a fun, casual atmosphere and the official dress code is Hawaiian shirts. Still, I feel a bit uncomfortable with that at a networking-type event, so I'm packing half of the clothes I own in the hopes that I can fit in somehow. I'll be dressing up the tropical getup with a cute khaki skirt that Ann Taylor was happy to sell me today.
Two of the people who are in town for the event are seriously important people to Toastmasters - the current International Director and past International President of the worldwide organization. I and my corporate TM club (of which, I've already told you, I'm the President) are hosting them for lunch at La Madeliene on Friday. I stand to learn a lot from these people, and although they're not celebrities, I can imagine I'll become quite the blubbering idiot in front of people who are so accomplished at public speaking. Also invited were a dozen managers from my company, in hopes that we could network a bit and show off the benefits of Toastmasters. It has been declined by almost every manager who was invited. The other two are Tentative, which means "I'm not coming, but I want to be polite." I'll probably end up personally paying for the Toastmasters folks' lunches, but it all evens out in the end. Doesn't it?
I wish I was taking the day off tomorrow and just had to worry about these two events. Don't rub it in if you are. I couldn't have imagined when I first got the wheels turning in starting a TM club at my office how much time it would consume. I don't think any of the other officers did, either, and it didn't help that the estimate I gave them was ignorantly low. It's getting better now that we're off the ground, it's still consuming. I stayed up past 1:00 a.m. on Monday night creating name tents. Don't get me wrong, I love doing this stuff, but I see now why we rotate officers every six months in one word: burnout.
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If you're wondering what I mean by Toastmasters, check out their web site.
Two of the people who are in town for the event are seriously important people to Toastmasters - the current International Director and past International President of the worldwide organization. I and my corporate TM club (of which, I've already told you, I'm the President) are hosting them for lunch at La Madeliene on Friday. I stand to learn a lot from these people, and although they're not celebrities, I can imagine I'll become quite the blubbering idiot in front of people who are so accomplished at public speaking. Also invited were a dozen managers from my company, in hopes that we could network a bit and show off the benefits of Toastmasters. It has been declined by almost every manager who was invited. The other two are Tentative, which means "I'm not coming, but I want to be polite." I'll probably end up personally paying for the Toastmasters folks' lunches, but it all evens out in the end. Doesn't it?
I wish I was taking the day off tomorrow and just had to worry about these two events. Don't rub it in if you are. I couldn't have imagined when I first got the wheels turning in starting a TM club at my office how much time it would consume. I don't think any of the other officers did, either, and it didn't help that the estimate I gave them was ignorantly low. It's getting better now that we're off the ground, it's still consuming. I stayed up past 1:00 a.m. on Monday night creating name tents. Don't get me wrong, I love doing this stuff, but I see now why we rotate officers every six months in one word: burnout.
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If you're wondering what I mean by Toastmasters, check out their web site.
posted by CyndyMW at
7:46 PM
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