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“Good afternoon, fellow Toastmasters and distinguished guests.
My journey to this lectern today has taken me twelve years to complete. Now don’t think for a moment that I’ve had an extraordinarily long morning -- no that’s not the case at all. What I am referring to is when I was first exposed to Toastmasters twelve years ago. It was 1994 and I was a junior at the University of South Florida and had just secured one of four coveted positions with GTE Data Services – or GTEDS as they were known -- for cooperative education within the business college at USF. This meant that I would spend six weeks working AND getting paid at GTEDS. I was thrilled. I couldn’t wait to start. Of course I had no idea that this experience in my life would plant a seed in me that would take twelve years to fully propagate. You see, GTEDS required all of their cooperative education students to participate in at least one Toastmasters meeting. They sponsored a private club for their employees and it was an active and well awarded club. When I arrived at GTEDS and learned about this Toastmaster requirement, I found someone in my group who participated in the meetings. I wanted to be sure I received credit for my one and only visit. You see I had no idea what Toastmasters was and had no interest whatsoever in public speaking -- I was scared to death to even whisper my name in front of a group of people. So off I went accompanied by my co-worker to what I thought would be my one and only Toastmaster meeting. And my co-worker was thrilled to take me as his guest. He happened to be the Table Topics master that day and unbeknownst to me and to him, he was setting me up for my very first Table Topic win. When my co-worker went to the lectern that day, he asked the one and only guest, me, if I would like to participate in Table Topics and offered me a quick explanation of how it worked. I said Sure! I’ll do it. The group applauded my enthusiasm and hook, line and sinker they had me. My table topic that day was: A stitch in time saves nine. What does this mean to you? I immediately had a thought come into my mind. I stood up and shared with the group for two minutes an event where I had sewn an outfit and forgotten to hem the skirt and wore the skirt with the pins still in place. By the time I realized it, I’d ruined my pantyhose. Thus the moral to my little story was had I stitched in time, I would have saved the cost of my pantyhose which happened to be nine dollars! I shared my story with the group and it was especially funny to them because the outfit was made to wear on my first day at GTEDS. And much to my surprise, I won Table Topics for that day. This little group gave trophies for the person with the least “ums and ahs”, the Table Topic winner and the Speech winner for the day and as such, I was presented with my trophy and more applause at the end of the meeting. Oh the glory of the applause! That week as I proudly displayed my Table Topics trophy, little did I know that what was happening on the inside was a public speaker was being born and that twelve years later this person would actually emerge as a member of Toastmasters. I only stayed six weeks at GTEDS so I did not join their club, but I did continue to visit many Toastmaster clubs over the years and have participated in many table topics since that fateful day twelve years ago and I have flirted with the idea of actually joining a club -- but never within me was the commitment I needed to actually join. Until now… So after twelve years of meandering my way through many Toastmaster meetings I am thrilled to stand here today presenting my first speech as a brand new Toastmaster Member. And it makes me wonder what other seeds have been planted in me and what else will emerge in my future. |