Highlights From Goodyear Toastmasters: 2011-2012

by Promod Sharma, President 2011-2012, CC

Fellow members of Goodyear Toastmasters, your 2011-2012 executive team leaves office today. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to serve you. Since we inherited a well-running club just after the 30th anniversary, we started building a living legacy for 40th anniversary in 2021 and beyond.

Goodbye

Your 2011-2012 Team consisted of

1. President: Promod Sharmaappreciative of having such a great team and club
2. VP Education: Leila Bates [incoming Area 63 Governor 2012-2013]
   energetic in a demanding role
3. VP Membership: Jonathan Holowka [incoming President 2012-2013]
   active and supportive; also the Webmaster
4. VP Public Relations: Trevor Kelly
   as President 2010-2011, brought continuity to the executive
5. Treasurer: Jada Nash
   efficient and pleasant ... all while studying for her CGA exams
6. Co-Secretary: Balwinder Mangatgood-natured and conscientious despite a busy workload
7. Co-Secretary: Kevin McGlashan
   lively despite juggling workload and family commitments
8. Sergeant At Arms: Gulzar Kandola [incoming Co-Secretary 2012-2013]
   brought flair, especially when introducing the Chair

This post reviews our club’s accomplishments from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012.

President’s Distinguished Club

The year went smoothly and our club remains in excellent condition. We earned all 10 points in the Distinguished Club Program (DCP). That puts us at the highest possible level again: President’s Distinguished Club.

Speaking

Club members spoke at various outside events, including:

• Building Trust With Blogging (Word11)
• Turbocharge Your Club With Social Media (District 60 conference)
• Modern Marketing Methods panel (Canadian Association of Management Consultants)
• Building Trust With Podcasting (Podcamp 2012)
• Using Social Media To Grow Your Practice (Estate Planners’ Council Of Halton)
• Building Trust With Social Media (Advocis Golden Triangle)
• Be The One They Want (Good Works)
• How To Earn And Keep Trust (Freelancecamp Toronto)

Website

We upgraded from our outdated website to the FreeToastHost 1.0 (FTH1) platform. With short notice, we upgraded to FTH2. Jonathan lead both initiatives and did most of the work.

Using FTH simplifies the way members get emails and eliminates earlier problems keeping email lists up-to-date.

Meetup

We started a Meetup group to help the public find us. This has worked well and has become the main source of our visitors.

We have had 59 meetups and have 90 members. I dreamed that we’d rank among the top 100 Toastmaster Meetups in the world. We’re #76.

Twitter

We’re on Twitter (@gytm81) but not especially active. There are opportunities to do more.

Blog

The goals for this blog were 50 posts and 1,000 visits. This is the 66th post. We’ve had over 4,500 visits. This shows there are readers.

The challenge is finding more writers.

Blogging helps in creating and augmenting speeches. A blog post is an ideal place to embed a speech, add the text and link to related items (here’s an example). The club provides a painless way to blog to members with interest.

Video

We have a new video camera. Members can now get video recordings instantly by bringing in their own memory cards for recording.

Branding

Toastmasters International introduced new branding in August 2011. Our club earned a new banner and is awaiting delivery.

Members voted for a new tagline: Speak. Lead. Inspire. 

Hello

Best wishes to the incoming executive. You're inheriting an excellent club.

If you'd like to share your thoughts for the past year, please leave your comments below.

Links

• Viewpoint: The living legacy of Goodyear Toastmasters
• The 2011 President’s holiday address
• image courtesy of ppdigital

You’ll find more about Promod Sharma at promodsharma.com. For tweets about trust, checkout @trustandyou.