On occasion she me the interview will come flying up onto the desk Just like okay , that was my cat , can I ? All right , you , oh and yeah , if you or I , if we get tongue tied or want to start again , just you know . Obviously I can edit anything out , so that's not a problem , just let me know and I'm going to start that again . I do that fair bit .
So all righty . Well , I'll start in make sure I'm recording . Great , okay . Welcome , ladies and gentlemen , to episode 23 of the Talkative Toastmaster podcast . This week I'm speaking with my guest and fellow toastmaster , sue Pinker .
Sue has been in Toastmasters for 25 years and is currently a member of two clubs Mercury's Motivators and Weblech , which is an online club . She's also held numerous area division and district leadership roles and is currently the district 69 historian .
I had no idea we even had a district historian , and when Sue reached out to me earlier in the year to request some information about my club , she happened to mention this role . I got curious and I just had to delve more into this unique role . So , Sue , it's a pleasure to have you on the show .
It's lovely to be here , Melanie . Thank you for inviting me oh well , I can't . You're not the only one that doesn't know about the district .
Oh well , well , hopefully , hopefully , more people will after we talk about it and give people a talking point . So I can't wait to hear more about this role , particularly in this 100 year anniversary of Toastmasters . Yes , a very important year it is . It is , but perhaps can we start by you telling us why did you originally decide to join Toastmasters ?
Well , I joined because I was extremely shy and extremely paranoid about public speaking , and this was as an adult Now . I was always a very shy young child . It's quite cute when you're a child and you're shy . Everybody thinks it's cute and lovely .
When you get to be a grown woman , it's not cute anymore and it was holding me back from doing things I wanted to do , not being able to speak up when I wanted to or join in conversations . So I debated about it for a long , long time . So took years to get there , but I finally walked in the door of a Toastmasters meeting 25 years ago .
And here I am .
And what was it that sent you over the edge to walk into the club ? Because I've been talking with quite a few people recently about I want to do it , but I'm really nervous . So what ? What tipped you over the edge ?
Okay , there was probably like a couple of catalysts I wanted to be in some groups and clubs and things and be involved with it , but , as I said , too nervous to be stand up and speak at the clubs . But probably the main catalyst was I'm a cake decorator .
So it was 30 years ago I started cake decorating and joined a club , actually helped start a club and in the cake decorating world there's lots of clubs in Queensland , australia and you have guest demonstrators come to demonstrate at your club and I loved watching them and I wanted to do it as I got a bit better at cake decorating .
I was being asked to demonstrate and I was too nervous to do it . I had the skills but I didn't have the verbal skills , the presentation skills to do it . So I thought I've just got to do something about this and walked into that meeting Absolutely terrified .
But you did it and here you are .
And I paid off because I've since demonstrated a lot and I've demonstrated now and it hasn't just been in cake decorating , it's been in other things . That has benefited me a lot .
That's awesome . It's so nice hearing how Toastmasters can help in other hobbies and in other areas of your life , and a lot of people will often associate it helping with work , but it's great to hear that it's helping with your hobby and it's allowing you to expand that hobby .
Definitely , and even at 57 years of age . I applied for a new job and I hadn't previously had a job interview for about 30 weeks before that and I just felt so relaxed . It was like doing table topics I was throwing at me and I really did well , which I know I wouldn't have done before . Toastmasters .
Yeah , it's powerful training and I think it's only when you're in those situations for the first time , or the first time in a long time , that you think oh , I've got this , I actually know how to answer it and structure a sentence Excellent . So what do you most enjoy being about a Toastmaster ? Has that changed over the years ?
Yeah , it has changed a little bit . I suppose I initially enjoyed the challenge of becoming confident enough to stand up and do it . So what's changed now is on doing more roles . I suppose , as I said , I took on some area director , division director and district secretary and things like that . So it's changed that . I'm loving it now .
I got it on meeting and I love it the buzz of the meeting , the friendships , camaraderie . But , I'm still learning . I'm learning every time we go to a meeting and I'm learning new skills all the time . It's a historian , but in any role I do now .
Yeah , and I think that's one of the ongoing themes that I find when talking with other toastmasters . It's just that there is endless possibilities for learning and whichever role you throw yourself into , you learn something .
Yeah , and pathways is my difference . I really wanted to get into pathways . A lot of people weren't keen for the change , but I wanted to . So I definitely wanted to . I am a distinguished toastmaster already , but I wanted to get a pathways distinguished toastmaster . Yeah , I've nearly completed that .
So , yeah , it's totally different , like the first DTM was in the old program . So , yes , I've learned so much about pathways as well by doing another DTM .
What ? What have you ? Can you elaborate on that ? So what's , what have you found is different and how have you learned more from that ? That newer program ? It's the digital platform .
I suppose I love it . A lot of people don't like it , but I do love it and I do love the way it is evolving . There's been problems , but they're listening to us at Toastmasters International and they've made some changes and there's some more big changes coming which are going to make it even better .
Apparently , and I love that it's now addressing the digital age . Obviously , we couldn't stay where we were . We had to . We've all had to learn if you use digital devices , so it had to come with Toastmasters . So , and I actually enjoy the program .
Yeah , I'm good , excellent , it's . I agree , the online space is it's not going away and so I think with the online clubs and I think they're called explorations about digital , digital space and even some of the electives , you can do that , that support like podcasting or writing blogs or all of that .
I'm interested to see what the new ones going to be like when I think yeah .
I wonder how many of us will dive into that one straight away , Like let's do that one .
Well , I'm about to need to start a new pathway . When I'm going to hang out till a new one is coming up ?
Yeah , yeah , me too . Yeah , I'm nearly nearly finished . Oh no , not nearly finished , but about halfway through my second pathway . So , yeah , I'll be looking for one next to that , and this was one of your projects wasn't it to do a podcast ? It is . It's a level four elective of , oh I think , presentation mastery .
So , and so you're still doing it , like you didn't just do one podcast and that was it .
No well , the criteria for the actual project was that you had to do an hour's worth of podcasting and that could be 10 , 10 minute episodes or two half an hour episodes . But yeah , this this is up to episode 23 . And I'm I'm really enjoying it , so I'm not going to be stopping any . Yes , I'm running with it now .
It's not the new niche , indeed , indeed , what I was if . What I found interesting when I was researching podcasts in space , in the space about Toastmasters , was that there was very little Australian content , like minimal to none . So this is great .
What you're doing and it's getting up there You've got a lot of followers .
Well , look , I'm you know there's more people listening to it than my mother , so I'm grateful . But yeah , it's about , I guess , about promoting it and I'm trying to invite people from different clubs and they might , they might mention it in their clubs and things like that . So , yeah , look , it's like any social media initiative , building it up .
Yeah , and the ones I've seen , like you've got a good mix . You've got Kevin Ryan , who was a , who was an absolute professional speaker . You know , I've got the younger contingent with Thomas Kraut and great knowledge , tech expertise and and even a couple of newer ones .
It's good , good , yeah , I'm trying to mix it round , so , but yeah , now look , how about we get into this role of historian ? How tell me about the role and how you got into it and what is it involved .
OK , well , the previous historian was Barry Fuller and he did it for eight or nine years and he was ready to hand it over . So he asked me if I'd like to do it or good friends with Barry and so I said yeah . My husband asked about this because I hate history on TV .
I never watched history and he thought it's the funniest thing in the world that I agreed to be the district historian . But it's a lot of . It is computer work , updating records and things , and there's a lot of statistics , which I love . I love statistics .
So actually what's involved is all the information has been entered in previous years by Barry and his predecessor , claire Murphy . There's been 10 historians over the years , but those two between them have done about 22 years Wow , and so before 2000 , I think it was about 2003, . A lot of it .
There wasn't a lot of digital content , so Barry and Claire converted all the club's information into digital content and it's been posted up on the district 69 website now , and so there's an actual history of every single club since about 2003 . There's a history of the clubs that have been formed and closed down .
From the very beginning they actually started a page or two document for every single club from about 2003 .
So well , I might be 2010 , I'll have to check that but it has some early history of the club , like when they started , where they started the club members , the charter executives , and each year it's updated to add in the new presidents every year and it's also updated to add in any club awards , like the DCP awards or any special awards that the club has
received , also any members awards that the clubs want to include . So it's an ongoing living document . My like , as I say , I inherited most of the information . At the moment , I'm just trying to put it into a new format that includes the new branding , of course , because branding wasn't around when they started it .
Yeah .
I'm doing that , but and there's a lot of information missing from a lot of clubs . So , and even though Barry and Claire all both tried to find that missing information , I thought I'll have another go .
Yeah .
I tried to get it . So that's why you got my email , because I contacted every club to Check the records I had , yeah , and to supply and emissing information if they could .
Unfortunately , all of the information isn't available to some clubs because the records there Personal records have been lost and there's a lot of information now available on toast mousses international , but that only came in once toast mousses international became digital , so I'm still looking for information , but it will be out there in a new format .
Mmm , I'm sure there would be . You know older members in clubs . You know longer term and older members in some of the clubs that that would love to Contribute to the history , because I know that that some of the long-term members in our club , for example Matt Gravatt , do talk about you know the club 10 , 20 years ago .
We've got one member who's been there for 30 years . So , yeah , it would be interesting to even to even interview some of them just to get the transcript of .
Well , district 69 is in its 53rd year now , so there's quite a few clubs and started not long after that and it's the older ones that know the information or might have it tucked away in a folder somewhere .
So , yeah , I'm finding a lot of that is coming from the older members because the new ones Haven't heard , inherited anything , don't have anything , so they don't know .
So they're relying on the older members and we have to do it now before all those older members are lost , exactly exactly , but also I think it May become easier to do that because there's Facebook pages and Clubs are moving to Google Drive and taking advantage of some of that to store their information and to get their club information online .
Yeah , yeah , definitely it's easier now when you start , or Clubs that haven't been going for too long . That , as I said , a lot of the information is on . Tosmus is international , now the history of the clubs , hmm , but yeah , so from now on it won't be as hard , but you've done the legwork oh . Well , I didn't know . Claren buried it . All the legwork .
I'm just updating the format , basically , and Trying to find the missing information .
Hmm , I was looking through the history document actually and , and you know , reading through the adventurers history and how they became a mixed club in 1973 , it's hard to imagine clubs not being mixed .
But they were . They were actually lots of Members in those days who were women , but they had . They went under male names , oh Wow . So suddenly , once women were allowed , like David Roberts became Davina Roberts .
Oh , it's funny because actually in the in that section of the adventure is history it talked about infiltration by women . That was actually the word . Wow , okay .
Supplied a lot of extra information . I know we're happy to include any information that any clubs want to , other than the basic table which gives all the Mm-hmm basic information we want .
Mm-hmm , I wonder if , if another potential stage of that document is linking out to the Facebook pages , because that would have photos to clubs and all sorts of things . That's a good idea , mel , like I'm just adding more to your to-do list , you're welcome .
But it's a good idea and even like there's a lot of pictures and things already in there in the District history documents now , so I've been trying to think of a way how I could have links to them instead of , as like , there's 162 clubs , active clubs now . Yeah and so as this gets bigger and bigger , there'll be more documents attached to it .
So , yeah , I've got to find someone or work out how to do that .
Have a link to the extra documents okay , we can have a chat about it afterwards . I can help out with that , but and and . So in the hundredth year of Toastmasters , or are there any interesting facts about Either Toastmasters that you've discovered or District 69 .
Oh , yeah , district 69 . As I say , we're in our 53rd year . Yeah , we have 162 clubs now . We have had 195 clubs .
At one time Wow , that was in 2019 there was 195 clubs and , of course , covid COVID affected that a lot and the numbers dropped and the clubs dropped after that , but they've come starting to come back up now it's a couple of years , which is good . We're in within District 69 .
We're very proud to say we've had 14 presidential citations Just found our district and what does that mean ? Well , they've done amazing work within their district or for Toastmasters . Okay , that we actually given there . There's only a few awarded every year . So , okay , it's a big thing Hmm , presented with a citation by the international president .
So we've had actually 14 of them in 53 years , which is amazing , yeah , yeah . So we've now got I Think I looked up today about 2800 members , which , okay , also has dropped considerably since that , of course , when there was 195 clubs , but that's coming up and .
I think this year we might become distinguished , because the district hasn't been distinguished for over 10 years now .
Okay , and does that ? Is that based on members per club or members in the whole area ?
Based on membership , but it's also based on the number of clubs that become distinguished . So okay as you understand , the club has to get five or six . Five goals , I think to be distinguished . So each district has a certain number of clubs .
They need to be distinguished , the district can be discussed distinguished , but they also need the membership as well and other goals . So okay that looks like it might happen this year , which will be bright exciting in the hundredth year it's all happening this year .
Yeah , what , what , what do you think it's important to keep a history of an organization like this ?
well , I suppose history is important for anything , but as we , as we get older and they're like when we get to be a hundred , it'd be lovely to be able to look back on the beginnings and so forth and further on down the track .
I think things just very important and Just looking back through it all and seeing who's who started it and who were all the club mentors and all the past district governors and district directors , I Think it's important for any , any organization to keep historical records . Mmm .
Hmm , yeah , and I wonder you know in each club if , again , some of the older members , it's almost like how do we get them on video , audio or get their stories out and just have that as part of the club history , just so it's there , and how do we get that into this document that you're maintaining ?
That's maybe something that could be encouraged within the district to get the older members , like those ones coming up for 40 , 50 years now , or there's few that have got register 50 , so , yeah , go interview them and get them to talk about the beginnings and each club .
And , yeah , and if you say you can help work out how to put links to these things in the district history , that would be great .
Yeah , well , at least that gives access to photos and that's getting more updated . Very , you know they're getting more updated regularly , so there's also .
There's not just the club history that's been kept , it's the district executive team history .
So for each year there's like 53 years now , but we've got a record of all the district governors they were district governors and our district directors and all the positions , the team positions that were held each year and all the areas and divisions and their district , their division and area directors or governors over the years .
And that's a good thing to look through to see how much it's changed , because divisions didn't come in for a long time in Toastmasters . So to go back to the beginning and see how it all started in , how it was all , just one area to start with . Now it's broken up into so many different areas and clubs . That's interesting to see that too .
Yeah , and do other districts have historians ? Is this a general role ?
I don't know it'd be interesting to find out .
I just wonder if there's historian training or if you get together with other historians or you just work it out .
That'd be a good idea . Well , as I say , toastmasters International are now keeping the history of clubs , a certain amount of information of clubs , but there's a lot of other things they're not keeping that are interesting to be kept .
Might that be a potential new role for you .
International historian . There you go . I might try that . You need a promotion . The frustrating part is that historians don't have access to each club's historical documents .
It would be much easier if I could look these things up , but of course , for privacy reasons I suppose that it's only each club executive have access to that information at Toastmasters International .
I would like to see district historians have access to all the addresses or anything like that , or phone numbers or anything , just the names of the charter members , the charter executive and all the accounts over the years .
Yeah , it would make your life easier rather than having to rely on presidents and VPEs .
I've got a response from a good majority of the clubs in the district . There's some that haven't responded yet , but I'm following that up still , so hopefully we can get the information before it's too late . I'll keep saying that before it's too late .
Yeah , I guess that's the thing and it's interesting . I was at a family get together on the weekend and we were talking about keeping family histories and family stories and almost a similar conversation in terms of just hearing almost the audio family tree and capturing these stories before people aren't around anymore .
That would be good , excellent . I've come from a large family . There's six children and surprisingly , we all have different memories of different things . So if it's recorded , it's there .
Exactly .
There'll be no arguments . Oh no , that's not what happened .
Well , there'll be six versions of the same story . Right , there'll be six versions of the truth .
But , yeah , I think it is interesting to hear some of the stories of the back in the day and the toastmasters that work through the books and their transition to pathways and the online program and , yeah , so sorry at the this year's district convention they're trying to track down a lot of information about the district 69 history as well and I said highlighting
toastmasters international 100 year history .
But they reached out to me about some funny stories and things . I said talk to the older district governors and district directors who are still around because they have some funny and amazing stories to tell In the day .
Yeah , yeah , definitely , and yeah , that conference will be awesome . I haven't been to one before , so it'll be my first .
Excellent , yeah , and then lovely Caloundra , where I live . It's beautiful here .
Perfect , so are you going ? Of course , it's just down the road we go to most , we go to most of them .
We've become conference junkies .
Oh , it's great to meet people in person . You know it's nice meeting people online , but it's much nicer to meet , meet people in in toastmasters .
It's a great weekend and it's like hometown , you know meeting up with friends . You maybe only see once a year at these scenes , but it's wonderful yeah yeah , definitely , and does this role take much of your time ?
Are you a member of two clubs and you're taking on this role , so is this a role that you're keeping for a year , or is you know , yeah , intending to stay no longer , or ?
I'm in my third year now .
Okay .
I have been asked to do it next year . I'm happy to do that because I really want to get everything you know and all the information I'm looking for . So stay for another year or two if they want me , and it's at the moment .
It's taking a lot of time because it was reformatting of the book , but once that's done , as I say , all you're doing every year when the elections are over and the awards are put out at the end of the year we go through and enter all the awards , enter the new presidents and also , in course , every year when there's new clubs , you have to enter the new
clubs into the district history .
Yeah .
Okay , at the moment the current history book has got all of the clubs since 2013, . I think it is even the ones that have been suspended . But because that was getting so big , I'm now going to have just active clubs in one historical record and the clubs the other clubs in another booklet , digital booklet . They're all going to be digital .
Okay and has the skills you sort of cultivating from doing this role . Is this helping you elsewhere ?
Yeah , I've already learned a lot trying to do this Chat . Gpt has become my best friend Because of the format it's in . It's not easy to transfer the information to the new format that .
I've got .
So I just go to Chat GPT , give it copy and paste everything from the well copy and paste lists from the current book , told Chat GPT what I want it to do , what sort of format I want it in , and sometimes I have to tell it two or three times because it doesn't understand exactly what I'm trying to say . But it finally gets it out .
Then I can easily paste , cut and paste to the new format . So I've learned that Great . I've also learned some other word skills , like I've learned how to do a table of contents for the first time . So that'll be , and so the new one will have the table of contents and you'll be able to just click on your club and go straight to it .
Okay , and scrolling through and trying to find it . So yeah , I'm learning new things all the time , which is good .
It's awesome and have you been able to do speeches about this ? Are you able to weave that role into speeches and things like that ?
Yes , yes I have , Because in our 50th year I was asked to do a speech about the history of Toastmasters . Unfortunately , that was it was all online . It wasn't added um conference or anything , so I did that .
But because I'm doing this as a DTM project , I'm required to do two speeches one to explain what I'm what I'm doing , and the other one will be done when the project's finished . So I'm just surprised just talking about it and contacting people , but how many people don't know that they even have history documents ?
on the list . So that's we need to get that information out there Exactly and , you know , maybe , uh , I think , the District 69 group and even just promoting it in that Facebook group , because a lot of the the hardcore District 69 members are in that particular group .
So , yeah , maybe , Well , there's a competition at the moment to design the front cover of the new digital handbook , because that's not my forte and what would probably take me a week to do . Someone who's got those skills could probably do it in half an hour . So I've put out a little competition for that . Yeah , outsourced , but as you say , it's not .
We need to get it out to more clubs because it's there's not that many District 69 members are on that District 69 members Facebook page .
Yeah , yeah , Okay . So the DTM project , how , what ? What does that project look like in terms of the ? You know what's required for that project . I haven't got that far yet into my Toastmasters journey , so what , what does a DTM project look like ?
It's a large project meant to encompass all the skills you've learned during your , all the other things you've done . You have to do two pathways and you have to be to a district role , a club coach , mentor , a sponsor I think one of them . There's a . There's a few things you have to do to get the DTM .
So this is a major project and there's a mountain of paperwork to do for it , because it's , you know , it's all about learning to plan a plan a goal , plan your objectives and your key . What's the word I'm trying to think of ? Key ?
Like performance indicators .
Yeah , yeah , that's that's one thing , yeah , and your timelines and all that sort of thing . So you have to get together a team . So I've got Barry Fuller , who was the previous historian , because I needed his , his input , because he knows all the history anyway and I just wanted him involved .
So it's it's not me changing everything they've done before , it's just me updating it , finding information . So he's helping with that . And I've got Thomas Kraft because I wanted a young , enthusiastic person on the on the committee . So , yeah , we have , we have meetings and we have emails between us to make sure the projects on time and on track .
So it's fairly it's meant to be a fairly large project . Now it's not . It's not just a high performance leadership project . It's meant to be bigger and be more , I suppose , useful to a greater to . I don't know to can you edit that one out ? It's meant to be a worthwhile project that's going to be of benefit to a lot of people .
Or the dispute or you can even do it as something outside of toastmasters . It doesn't have to be a toastmasters project . You can do it as part of a work thing or a social thing .
So I think it's interesting , though , when you can make it about toastmasters , because it just gives you such a different perspective of the organization . I'm finding that with this , this podcast , and so I can imagine you're talking to every president , practically , or every every club as a result of it .
So I mean , that's , you must be getting to know a lot of people and hearing different stories .
Yeah , yeah , and I don't know about any large role like that Like when I was district secretary that I got to know a lot of people . So taking on these roles as you go up through toastmasters does get you a better understanding of the whole toastmasters projects and everything . It's amazing .
Yeah , it's a massive organization . It's sort of . I'm trying to encourage , you know , new members in my club to like come along to area competitions and the conference and , just you know , see different parts of the organization because there's so much learning opportunity and opportunities to do interesting projects .
Yeah , yeah , and when you first joined you're not really you don't know anything about outside your club . So , yeah , it's not to .
You've been in for a while , you start to understand the concept of areas and divisions , and then district and then international , and you don't really need to know it , probably when you first joined because you're just there for a particular reason .
So , but as you do leadership roles , which is where it's where leaders are made so as you start doing those leadership roles , you start venturing outside your club and learning those things .
Yeah , and how ? I mean you mentioned a little bit earlier that you can go into situations now and not feel shy and all of that . But if we sort of loop back to that in terms of your ability to get up in front of a crowd now , how are you doing speeches and how do you feel when you're in front of an audience now ?
Oh the fear the absolute adjunct fear is gone . Yeah , everyone still gets a bit nervous when they're doing something important or something big , but so sometimes nerves , but there's no fear . You know , I don't , I really I never think now that I'm going to drop dead up there , for stop breathing or start crying .
Yeah .
Get up there If you make a mistake or if you you know it doesn't go right , you just keep going , and I think I heard you say in one of your podcasts that it's a safe place to fail Toastmasters .
Yeah , definitely .
Yeah , and so yeah , no , there's no fear anymore ?
Yeah , that's great . And are you still doing cake demonstrating ? Yes , yeah .
I probably do more demonstrating than actually making the cakes now , because it's something I really love . And that's another thing . Toastmasters teaches you like preparation skills , like doing doing up lesson plans and preparing for things like that , and doing spreadsheets .
And you know , you do little notes every time you do a demonstration , you do a notes about the demonstration to hand out and yeah , it's just that that's something that Toastmasters has helped with too .
Yeah , I agree . I think it helps to make that stuff second nature and it just it's so handy when I've found in work , if I have to whip up a presentation , I literally can whip up . It's whipping up a presentation and even if I stick to a very basic structure , I know it's going to be a structured presentation .
Yeah , and it's the right word structure . You structure it well so that it's more easily taught and more easily learned by people .
Yeah , now what would you say to new Toastmasters ? You've obviously been in Toastmasters for a long time , but what would you say to people who you know might be pondering whether to join and they're not sure and they're shy and it took them a long time ? You know it's taking them a long time to walk into a club . No-transcript .
Just do it . Yeah , just get up the courage to walk in that door the first time and you will find there'll be supportive people there , no matter how frightened you are , how nervous , they'll be there to help you . Now they will recognise that straight away and they just help you and support you Like well , my first club . They joke about me now .
They say I wouldn't say a word for about six meetings . I was just trying to get up and I'd sit there sweaty hands and red face , think I hope nobody says anything . I hope nobody asks me anything . It comes gradually , just comes very slowly when you're at that level of fear . Anyway , yeah .
So just do it , because it'll be the best thing you've ever done , and don't leave it till you're in your early 40s , like I did .
Yeah , yeah I've heard this a few times about how people you know , toastmasters wish they'd started it earlier and how would have given them confidence when they needed it way earlier in their life and in their career .
Yeah , and it's not just for , like I always say , toastmasters is horses for courses . It's not just for the little shy , nervous person , it's for business people who want to improve their skills . It's for professionals Like there's a lot of people who walk into clubs and they haven't got any fear .
They need to learn how to present better for their careers or their hobbies or their professions . So it's really and it's got so many different avenues . You can go up , you know you can go up the service role , the administrative roles . You can do the leadership roles and you will , by consequence , take on leadership roles .
So it actually is where leaders are made . But I tell you what I never joined to be a leader Me neither .
No , no , no it happens .
Naturally . It's that opportunity where you can , you know , just be a leader in your club or your area of division . You can go on . Look at Gavin Blakey went on to be a Toastmasters international president and I saw him speak last weekend and he said he was a very shy . He joined because he was so shy and nervous about speaking .
So it can take you wherever you want it to take you , but it will definitely take you further than you are .
Yeah , it's . It's never ceases to amaze me , like , oh , I'm doing this now . I didn't really ever think I'd be doing this , you're right .
Yeah , that's exactly right . It's good to remember that , because it's good to remember how you were when you started and how you are now , and that's good when you see new people come in and that need the help as well .
And also it's because it is continuous learning . You know , not not everyone has a mindset of what can I learn ? You know when's the last time I did something new ? And I can pick out many things that Toastmasters makes me do . That's new , and unless you actually seek that out , you don't tend to do that in life .
Most you know there's , there's people that like learning and like to terrify themselves . Yeah , yeah .
Yes , you're right . And also , as you get older , it's important to keep your mind active , and you know that I've got friends who now I've got nothing to do . I don't know what to do . Well , I've never had nothing to do to comment Toastmasters and cake decor any .
Yeah , exactly , and even if Toastmasters was seeing me a bit quiet , there'd be a million things you could do . So , and so how long will it be Like ? When's your timeline to finish this current project ? Is the current project that updating the book and new format ?
Yeah , so we started the project in November last year and the plan was to have it done by the end of June this year . However , we've been progressing fairly well . So the timeline now is the district conference . Have it done by then ? Excellent , just because that doesn't make any difference to the district conference , but it's just a timeline .
It's the hundredth year , yeah , and I'd like to get it finished . Well , now that's how I start . I want to get it finished too .
Yeah , and so what then , are your goals for the what's after that ? I don't know .
Well , there's probably , as you say , there's more things we could do with the history records , like put links and things to the website . So that's something I could probably explore . Now you've given me that idea . Other than that , I'm just still in two clubs and enjoying being involved in two clubs .
No , let's just keep going with the historian for now and see where that goes , I suppose . Yeah , yeah .
Yeah , and how ? How are you finding the online club I has has ? How long have you been in the purely online club ?
Well , I've been in the weblet club for a few years now and I love it . I love it because the other club is an advanced club . Okay , my , my home club original club actually had to close down a couple of years ago , but I was in the an advanced club at that time , so I stayed there .
I decided I wanted to join an online club and that well , that's another a new learning experience as well . We're all learning how to present online and do backgrounds and things . That it's . It's a new learning one and I love it .
It's a totally different .
Yeah , yeah , I wouldn't recommend just an online club for anybody who needs to get the confidence .
Yeah .
And present , because it's that actually standing up in front of people me to do if that's , if that's , if it is a fear , but it's , yeah , it's another alternative and it's another way to learn something new as well .
Yeah , I think that that's actual standing in front of an audience and feeling the adrenaline , actually feeling you know bits of you shaking and and feeling that adrenaline flowing through you is quite something .
And yeah , we had a new member give his icebreaker in the last couple of meetings and and it was , it was one of the most profound and powerfully moving icebreaker speeches I've ever heard and and and you know he said , just said to me afterwards I didn't quite realise how tough it was going to be to get that .
It was a subject matter , just the nature of the personal story he told and I , you know , and and we're all sort of sitting there practically in tears . It was so moving and he's like I don't necessarily think I would have chosen that topic for a nice breakage speech , but but he had to deal with that , that adrenaline and the emotion running through him .
And yeah , that would be quite different . Online , you know , it'd be just a different experience because you're just that little bit removed , but when you're actually eyeballing people and you can see their reaction and Exactly , yeah .
And it's really my first icebreaker . First icebreaker was I stood there with written out fully , read it out fully , and I was shaking like a leg , yeah . And then the first total topics was 11 seconds . I didn't want to do what I told the Goddard and table to this Don't ask me , don't ask me any . Ask me , of course , yeah , 11 seconds .
But you know what the evaluator found something positive to say about that ? That's the best part about Toastbusters I'll always find something positive , though I think the positive comment was you stood up there for 11 seconds , congratulations .
And he said something Exactly Well , I know the thing about evaluations .
I have to meet people where they're at and it's just enough to get you to do it for 30 seconds next time , and that's , I think , again , understanding where people are at , and we don't need to an evaluation to get them to Tony Robbins level of speaking Exactly , it's just how do we get them to do it again ?
Yeah , we just have to let them know that they did well for where they are at . As you say and Gavin Blakey spoke about that too when I listened to him Evaluation you hear this a lot evaluation is the cornerstone of Toastbusters .
But I do believe that , like nobody would go back to a Toastbusters meeting if they didn't get good evaluations and didn't feel appreciated for what they did do , whatever level it was .
Yeah , yeah , it's nice and reaffirming . Like that it's especially for new and terrified speakers . Yes , you know it's sort of .
But even the good speakers they need evaluation , sometimes too , for their structure and their presentation , their body language and that .
I remember I worked for a CEO once in a public relations capacity and I would sit with her on media interviews sometimes , you know , three-way via phone with a journalist in another country and we'd be three-way .
And the first I was fairly new into the role and the first interview I did with her you know we're in the taxi on the way back to the airport and she was a very accomplished speaker . She was excellent . And then she said to me okay , how can I improve on that ?
And I froze and I'm like , oh , and from then on , each time I watched her speak I looked for how she could improve . She knew what she was good at , but she's like tell me what I can improve on , because if I'm missing things , you're my eyes and ears . I want you to point them out .
So , yeah , having to give feedback to the CEO , yeah , I was terrified . But now , for every speaker I try and find a point for improvement , because there's always something and I think the newer members don't want , they don't think they're qualified to point out a point for improvement , but it's so important .
It is . But if they get newer members to evaluate with the understanding they're giving them to more experienced host masters , they understand . But by evaluating you're learning what you need to do yourself as well , because if you're looking for the points that are needed for that presentation , you're then taking that in yourself and learning that yourself .
Yeah , yeah , it's a powerful skill . It's a powerful process and a powerful skill , and so do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up ?
No , thank you for inviting me , and I enjoy your podcast . Oh , thank you .
Well , I hope it's been a pleasure to have you on and it's so interesting to hear about this historian role and the work you're doing . And yeah , I think to have that history of District 69 is great for anyone that is interested in the history of the club . So we'll put a link to the show notes in the show notes to that document and the District 69 page .
Thank you .
Thank you , but I'd be aware that it will be updated to the new format by probably the end of April .
So that's okay , we can update the links if the links need to update .
Well , thanks for highlighting District history , which , yeah , as I say , more people need to know about what's out there . They do .
What do you mean ? Well , you know , if we can spread the word , then , and that sort of makes the document more , even more juicy and full of information than yeah , but You're most welcome . Well , thanks again , sue , and I can't wait to see where we are in another 10 or 20 years .
Luckily All right and I'll see you at Caloundra Convention .
Okay , thanks , see you , that's great . Thank you so much .