Toastmasters Leaders Institute

I went to the very first Vancouver Island Toastmasters Leaders Institute (TLI) today.  It was a very inspiring event.  I left with an adrenaline pump of making a speech about my experience at the TLI today.  It let me get to know Toastmasters International (TI) as an organization a bit more.  I was always curious to know how TI, as a non-profit organization started in 1924, has expanded to establish 12,800 clubs across 113 countries with currently 260,000 active club members.  The Wikipedia cites TI as an educational organization.  I’m sure Dr. Peter Senge will agree with me that TI is a true reflection of a distinguished learning organization.

I attended six presentations today.  In the morning, Jennifer Oakes explained the characteristics of leadership.  She emphasized the capacity to influence others to achieve worthwhile results and the willingness to take risks and accept failures.  Lorraine Henderson reviewed the ten promises a Toastmaster signed up for when s/he was voted in.  Honestly, I felt guilty for not living up to the promises I have signed up for.  Sylvain Houde’s presentation was about Moments of Truths, which was around the topic of self-evaluation as a club.  Sly (his nickname) showed his statistics of reasons of members leaving their clubs.  68% of members leaving because their clubs were offering different services they had expected to receive.  Mind boggling!

Lunch time hangouts with Leo, Kelvin and Immanuel were unexpected, but fun.  Leo has really advanced with his coaching skills.

After lunch, James Sultan presented one of the most inspiring speeches I have ever experienced.  The title of his presentation was “If you build it, they will come, and stay.”  I was blown away by how well spoken Jim was and wish I had videotaped the entire speech.  Glyn Williams went through the three fundamentals of mentoring: activities, qualities, and benefits of the role of mentor, mentee, and club sponsor.  Mark Roch ended my TLI experience with a The Secret like promotion of visionary board, reinforcing vocabulary and compositional sentencing practice, communicating to peers, and involving community support.  To me, Mark had the most creative and open-minded introduction, by knocking off a box of highlighters followed with engaging audience’s participation.  I enjoyed how he used it as an analogy of “leadership is a choice”.  It really rattled me.

The chat with Immanuel on the ride back brought me back to reality.  As the co-president of my club, I have a lot of work ahead of me to do.  Coming home with the warmest welcome from Anya and Holly brought emotions to my eyes.  Boxes started to accumulate around the house.  The adjustment of going to Crownwood from Blackwood is closer.  Life is full of changes; ain’t it the truth?