My Toastmasters Experience

Allow me to go back to 1997-1998 This was the time I was appointed Area Governor for Division B. The Area numbers changed so I cannot mention the Area I was a part of(though it can be read in the lette of appontment that I somehow stumbled into while sorting out the clutter some time ago). Sufice it to say that I was in charge of three clubs - later four. I can't even remember one club's name. But of those that I can remember, we had Diamond (my mother club), Tambuli, CPA and Friends, and later joined by CAP Toastmasters club. Anyway, what I wanted to emphasize was I was chosen by then Division Governor Dulce, as opposed to Julie Prado from Tambuli - ideally the role would be a rotation among the clubs, and Dulce was the previous Area Governor, so this was a prerogative she insisted on, and Johnny 'Pawe' Uy gave her the decision to take me instead. First thing I did? I decided to visit Tambuli - unannounced. In their first meeting at the Metro Club, I decided to v...

With entries about the Hall of Learners Advanced Toastmasters Club (HOLA, for short) in my oterh blogs, I wonder if I had to make mention of it here as well. I did make an entry about something similar to this topic in on my Facilating, Coaching and Leading blog, so should I mention it again? Of course not - the link is there for anyone to look into. But for completist sake, since this is my Toastmasters specific blog, I will touch on it and possibly add some things not found in the other blog entry. For example. I covered how I prepared for the Presidency, and helped form the infastructure to make HOLA run smoothly (if not seamlessly). I already mentioned how suddenly being the Division N Director made me split my time as HOLA President with that. But I made sure I was not forgetting about HOLA. This is where I mentioned that I had a great team, starting with my twin (upon their insistence) VP Education co-Vice Presidents. Marge and Abby shared the role, and responsibilities by f...

This focuses on how others perceive me. Yes, I've been around for quite some time now. I joined Toastmasters in 1996, and for some reason, became Diamond's President around my second month in. Times were unique, but because I came for the Jaycees, the concept of leadership was not new to me. Plus the charter President of Diamond Toastmasters was my co-Jaycee, so he probably saw me in aciton back at Q.C. Capitol. Among all likely members of Diamond, I seemed to be the one most capable and willing to handle the reins after all the problems the past President and CHarter President got into. Other more seasoned members wanted to steer clear of this issue - as said Charter President was a control-freak. Well... yes. But he was more focused on wanting Diamond to stay on it's social scale as a premiere Toastmasters club, meeting in the Makati Sports Center. Diamond had some luminaries as members - but being such, they too did ont take kindly to being told what and what not to do...

SETSI and Friends Toastmasters was struggling. For starters the current set of officers were too busy with other things, and they were making SETSI a second priority. It hurt, but I, too, was busy with HOLA - and I had done my part with SETSI as it's Immediate Past President. I still attended, but I noticed the neglect This was Spike's term but he, too, was focused elsewhere. In one meeting, it was suggested that maybe part of the problem for the club was it's name - others might be wondering waht SETSI is (yes, it's a acronym), others say it lacked a good come one name. So we decided to rename. Anotehr reason, SETSI itself was not being used as a facility anyway, and it's owner was also too busy to renew his SETSI TMC membership. So remane it we did. From SETSI and Friends, we gave it a new name... Silangan (Eastern) Toastmasters. Hopefully, this newe name would attract more people. Heck, I even made a teaser for the club, as shown here. It would be the last t...

And there came a day when the leaders of Division H banded together to form an Advanced Club for Division H, and the southern part of Metro Manila. The brainchild was that of outgoing Division H Director Joyce Delovieres, and she invited me to join the club. Now, as a relatively new face in Division H, Joyce barely know me - but saw how I kept working to bring SETSI to reach President's Distinguished. We would communicate semi-regularly, as I kept her posted on SETSI's status and progress. We first met when District Director Jazz (a good friend of mine) introduced me to newly Inducted Direcotr Joyce, saying I would be helpful... albeit, an X-factor to Joyce and the rest of H (since SETSI and I came from Division M). Anyway, I did join and later, as Joyce was forming her Excom, she asked me to be her VP for Public Relations. This was exciting for me... as I saw how SETSI lacked the media presence that could have helped it get known in te Marikina area. I knwe the VPPR back...

Just like any beginning, everything looked hope-filled. What we did not consider was that the world was starting to slowly, gingerly open up. Establishments were now trying to bring a reluctant work force back to their establishments. Vaccines were strating to be available, and people were starting to feel relieved that the worse was over. Or was it? Resurgences of cases after coming about having some freedom forced the government ot rethink opening up again. But one thing was clear... it was just a matter of time before people needed to get back to working. The world needed to restart tehir economies. This meant getting busy once again, away from home - albeit reluctantly. Many were still grieving. I lost my mom before COVID officially became a pandemic, a friend much earlier in what seemed a freak accident - but I wonder if both were somehow COVID related. But more so died during the lockdown, until vaccines started coming in, and even when there was the start of one being availa...

It was officially on my second full year as a Toastmaster where I was asked by then SETSI and Friends Incoming President Janice, if I could be the next Club Vice President for Membership. I said okay - though I was still on the learning what was new and navigating around Pathways and the Toastmasters Internation website. I'd say we did good because we ended SETSI and Friends' second year as a President's Distinguished Club (though I would later realize how exactly we accomplished this feat - hint, it was the Distinguished Club Program), and as we were nearing the end of the current Toastmaster year, I was asked to be the next Club President. I said yes... though after asking wht happened to Jalvi Valdez, who I thought would be the next President (as he was the VPEd), I even talked to the guy and learned that he wanted to focus on work. Long story short, he got what he wanted in Tostmasters, but he now needed to grow his work. So I became SETSI and Friends' third Pres...

My official reason for returning in Toastmasters was this... in the past, when Toastmaster friends would ask me if and when I would return, I would be non-commital. I had several reasons, but the main one I stuck to was, I'd focus on family first -and help get my kids through college. By this time, during the pandemic, both Bryce and Bernice did not just graduate - they had found jobs too! The pandemic just forced them, like everyone else, to work from home. Set things up that they could work and communicate remotely. Suddenly, Zoom was the paltform to learn and use by everyone who wanted to keep in touch. No one could go out of their homes, as it was considered a health risk. COVID 19 was no laughing matter - some people who got it, never recovered. But what was perplexing was that others who seemingly got it did not even show signs of getting sick. Unfortunately, this still made them carriers. I bring this up because this was the type of environment I found myself in. We were...

Soem time after I became president of Infinity Toastmasters (the corporate club of Fujitsu Toastmasters club), the tragedy that was 9-11 happened. This made the U.S. into a Xenophobic state, seeing security concerns all around. The foreign business partners were suddenly left hanging - including Fujitus Philippines Inc. Naturally, this meant businesses that were Satesside froze. Unfortunately for Fujitsu, this meant a large chunk of it's business got lost. The company decided to cut their workforce, and one of the unfortunate victims of this cut was of course, Infinity Toastmasters. Part of this move as well was the letting go of a lot of Senior personnel via Early Retirement offers. I was one of those offered. Thus I also found myself suffenly unemployed. I stopped Toastmasters altogether. I did not have the means to continue paying for membership, and even if Diamond Toastmasters was subsidizing my membership while they could, I still felt uninspired becasue of what I went th...

Once in a while, Toastmasters tries to help the community - and this can come in many ways. One of which is a Speechcraft - which basically allows non-Toastmasters to go through a very similar basic communication manual (usually 10 speeches, but can be lessened depending on timetable requirements). I've unofficially conducted such a speechcraft with my Training team way back in I/ACT, and this one was a project Dennies Siongco for a group of teachers at a school near UERM, Manila.I believe I was still the Division Governor for B here, and was doing the opening remoarks before the actual Speechcraft program happened. Just an FYI, it was through speechcraft - handled by Diamond Toastmasters with the Capitol Jaycees, where I first heard about and got to get a feel of a Toastmasters program. By this picture's time, I stopped being a Jaycee - and focused more on being a member of Toastmasters.

Back in my first life in Toastmsaters, before my two-decade long hiatus, I was active in joining contests... at least, when I was not a District Officer (Area Governor 1997-1998 and Division Governor 1999-2000). I would usually join in Table Topics or Evaluation - both merited a different kind of preparation, one focused on quick thinking, the other on listening. Both needed the ability to organize one's thoughts. I won the Table Topics once, and Evaluation twice - unfortunately, my last evaluation trophy - a beautiful glass scuplted on, broke, so I just have two... all of these were on the Area Level - my lone attempt to go Division ended in me going overtime by two seconds. Ah well, leson learned. So why join? Aside form the beautiful trophies, and recognition? I guess it's about meeting and mingling with friends. Yes, there may be a level of competition, but at the end, one needs to accept oterh Toastmsters as part of their ever expanding network... a network where one c...

Division H had it's first even Eductional session, and they invited us (some of Division B's stallwarts) to speak in their event. The picture was taken after the activity, showing us being given a tour of IRRI and receiving some tokens of apprciation. I still had a copy of the program some time ago, but forgot about it already. Anyway, this holds a bit of significance to me because it was indeed my first foray inot Division H. If you asked me back then if I would have eventually joined 'H', I would probably have said 'No', as I was solidly 'B' way back when.

This particular onw was after the MidCon. We all trooped to a nearby bar (who's name I cannot recall anymore),and whooped it up with free beer. This was most likely my first Fellowship night in Toastmasters as I hardly go out after club meetings. You see, in Diamond, I was surrounded by old foggies who just wanted to go home after the club meeting. This one was my exposure to different clubs, Toastmasters that weren't too old and a lot more fun. As the first picture points out, I was transition form a formal attire to my Pirate look... Arrrr... I met Toastmasters colleagues, friends, and yes... even new faces. It gave me reason to realiza, there was a fun side after all to being a Toastmaster. Who knew? Well... now I do. Don't get me wrong, I was no prude, nor total geek - I used to go our a lot after board meetings with my old organization, the Jaycees. We drank a lot and had fun a lot too. So I knew how to have fon. Good thing I discovered this in Toastmasters too. ...

There was a time that District 75 was so active it even help a Toastmasters midyear convention. Granted that it was more Luzon-based, but then again, so was the majority of the membership. This one in paricular was perhaps the first one - and we had it at the De La Salle College of St. Benilde Hotel. in Manila - it was a hotel / school for the CSB HRM students. But in our case, it was a relatively swanky new building, with no frills designs. This particular picture was me being the host to the morning session / opening program. I learned there and then that I was not a seasoned host. Sure, I knew how to be articulate, and could follow a prorgam - but I lacked some knowledge in hosting protocols. Ah well... that is why we join - to learn these things. The next picture is with my co-members in Diamond Toastmasters. I was the only one in barong because I was a host. The rest were in their more comfortable get up. Of the people in the picture, only Dulce is still active in Diamond -...

A blast from the past. As the banner states, this is 1999. It's Toastmasters Week and I'm doing the opening address as the Division B Governor. Lord was I ever that thin? Yes, we even had t-shirts printed to commemorate the occasion. Too bad I couldn't find pictures of the otehr activities - I know we had a motrocade around the Ayala triangle, and held a bingo in the Manila area - in different days, of course. Ah well, until I can find more pictures around this era (we didn't have celphones with built in cameras back then), I would have to guess that this would be one of my earlier pictures with Toastmasters. I'm sure there are others... just that I really need to check old albums - the physical ones.

Simply put, this blog will be where I will be putting all the posts about my Toastmasters-related activities; past - present - and maybe even thoughts for the future. It will be both (mostly) archive with pictures, whenever possible. Specially from last year, when I was slated to be the Club President of the Hall of Learners Advanced Toastmasters, and i serendipitously became the Division N Director. There are stories and memories behind those two statements, and I shall share what I can here. Why do this? Perhaps to have a one stop shop for all these memories. Why now? Up until this past year, Toastmasters seemed to have a comeback into my life. Why so? Maybe by writing / blogging it here, I will get to realize the 'why' of it all. In other words, I don't have a concrete answer right now. Writing about it could possible flesh out the real reason. Why here? Why not? I mean, I have no other place to document / transcribe these events from my viewpoint. Who knows? This...