This week I will give my 10th and final speech of the competent communicators manual. It is a speech to inspire your audience and hopefully I will do that and not bore them to tears! I have been having a lot of fun with Toastmasters and hope to ultimately achieve the highest accolade of Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM). I hear there are only a few thousand of them in the world and this might be the launching pad for my goal to be on the motivational speaking circuit. I seem to be able to write well and I seem to be able to speak well in front of audiences so together maybe I can do something good in this world and maybe make a few bucks at it.
I sometimes wonder why I got back into the club. I have a great job at a great company and there was a local club right inside the building I work in so getting to it was pretty easy. The meetings are over our lunch hour and usually end on time. All I really had to do was show up. It's not that easy though. As a Toastmaster it is so very important to work the program because you get out what you put into it. So far I've played just about every role in the club including grammarian, toastmaster and evaluator in addition to giving my requisite speeches. I've even become involved in committees that are responsible for putting on special events such as membership drives and awards celebrations. The one thing I haven't done is become involved in leadership which I will need to do if I want to become a DTM.
So, after I give my speech this week I will begin working towards advance communicator Bronze level. This award will be given after 10 more speeches from two completely new manuals that I will have to pick. Then Silver level is 10 more speeches and Gold is still 10 more. All along there are other requirements as well. My goal is to have this completed by the summer of 2012 so just over 2 years to get it done. Hopefully by then I will also be in leadership with my job and be running a team of database designers/developers for the bank. I do have great aspirations and the club helps me to keep focused on soft skills that my technical job sometimes does not allow me to flex.
I will keep you posted on my progress towards DTS, thanks for reading.
