One Member’s Journey through the 2020-2021 Toastmaster Year

The 2020-2021 Toastmaster year was interesting to say the least! We ended the prior year interacting exclusively online due to the pandemic, which was challenging for our contests as we all scrambled to figure out how to hold online events. The year continued with everyone learning how to maintain clubs while still upholding the Toastmaster values of integrity, respect, service and excellence.

My club, Bright Monday, was no different from many other clubs. We took the months of April and May 2020 off to figure out how to handle the dynamics of holding virtual meetings. It didn’t help that the club is mostly medical professionals who were being shuffled to different jobs and schedules. We were hoping this would be short-lived, and we would be back to normal meetings in no time! Wow, did we ever learn that we were now in a totally different world!

We resumed online meetings in June of 2020. Like most of you, this was another learning curve for our club, but as we know, Toastmasters learn to adapt. Unfortunately, we lost members who were tired and stressed from an uncertain job future. Throwing Toastmasters into the mix was one more hurdle from which they needed a break. While we were striving to fulfill club goals and be supportive of our members, we soon realized that, for some members, the ability to maintain their Toastmaster membership helped them sustain a bit of normalcy that was much needed.

Our club greatly benefited from an online Zoom format! We were able to network with our colleagues throughout Mayo Clinic by providing them the skills through their Pathways learning experiences. We now have members not only from the Mayo site in Rochester but also from the Jacksonville, Florida and Scottsdale, Arizona sites. One of our newest members joins us from California!

I have a fantastic team of officers that has been absolutely instrumental in promoting and maintaining our club during the last two years!  Just recently we held a virtual open house that had sixty guests!  As of now, we are in the process of converting five of those guests into members. Our leadership team reached out through the research groups and also the Mayo Employee Resource Groups (MERGs).  

While some clubs have had challenges maintaining and recruiting members, ours has been very blessed!  I strongly encourage you to work within your organizations locally and worldwide and show them the advantages Toastmasters provides. I truly believe Pathways is a fantastic program that suits many different professions. Once corporations realize the benefits their staff can gain from Toastmasters, they will wholeheartedly embrace it!