Brenda Daniels TLI Chair

 

This Saturday, July 28, 2012, Toastmasters Leadership Institute at the University of North Texas in Denton offers nearly 20  educational and leadership growth sessions! All club officers can attend designated training to learn about their roles and anyone can attend the following elective classes to help themselves and their clubs:

1. Alternate Leadership Training: For those who have served in their elected office previously, we offer a great alternate leadership class called “The Influence of a Leader.” Motivational speaker and leader Maurice Tait will teach you how to be a better, more impactful leader and how that can and will influence others.

2. Toastmasters 101: How do you hand off control of the lectern? Who should you call first in Table Topics? Which speaker should be listed first on the agenda? What is the role of the Toastmaster, Table Topics Master, and General Evaluator? Find the answers to these questions and more in this session led by Bob Marion.

3. Chief Judges Training. WE WANT YOU for chief judge duty! If you are familiar with contest judging and want to take the helpful step of serving as a chief judge, please attend this two-hour session led by Diana Pittman.

4. Motivating Achievement: Claire Misquez will teach you about opportunities for growth available through the Toastmasters International Communication and Leadership tracks and membership programs, and how to encourage club members to make progress toward their educational goals.

5. Member Retention Strategies: Susan Gardner will help you develop a plan to address the ugly secret of Toastmasters – that we lose about 50 percent of our members every year. It doesn’t have to be that way. Find out how to keep your members in your club.

6. FreeToastHost and Website Basics: Website guru Jodie Sanders will cover everything you need to know, and more, about leveraging FreeToastHost, the content management system that supports most of our club Websites. Make your site more effective and exciting by bringing home the secrets of success to your club.

7. The Club Coach Program: Marylee Mims will explain what the club coach program does and how you can be an effective club coach, helping clubs that are eligible for a coach (those with 12 or fewer members) get healthy again.

8. Humorous Speech Contest: Learn how to give your audience a side-splitting laugh-athon experience when you compete this fall. You’ll learn from Regina Clay, who has shown her great skills in prior humorous speech contests.

9. Speakers Bureau: Thought about extending your speaking arena beyond the club or contest level? Then you may be interested in joining the District 25 Speakers Bureau. Lauren Midgley will tell you what this requires and why you should strongly consider it. Also, existing bureau members can learn how the program is evolving.

10. DCP Program and Strategies for Success: The Distinguished Club (DCP) program shouldn’t bea mystery to any of us, as Toastmasters. In this session, Gary Samuelson will reveal tips and techniques to ensure that your club gets and stays on track to be Distinguished, Select Distinguished or President’s Distinguished.

11. Contest Quality Training: Don’t you just love contests? The excitement of competition? The energy of the crowd? The free snacks? You want your club, area, and division to put on THE BEST LITTLE CONTEST IN TEXAS, don’t you? This session, led by Cindy Hinckley, is for all you contest chairs out there, and anyone else who wants to know how to make your contest the BEST!

12. The High Performance Leadership (HPL) Project: What is an HPL project and why should you complete one? It’s more than just an important step toward your Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) award, as Chuck Mencke will explain in this session. You’ll get a solid understanding of how to think about the HPL experience.

13. The Five-Step Speechwriting Process: Many Toastmasters find it difficult to advance in the program or compete successfully in contests because they struggle with writing speeches. In this class, Sara Boepple will outline a five-step process you can use to write great speeches. So eliminate the writing barrier forever.

14. New Club Sponsors and Mentors: It takes experienced Toastmasters to help a group become a new club and to take that new club from new to strong. In particular, it takes sponsors and mentors. Find out from Michael Sherridan what these roles and involve. Consider the privilege and benefits of serving as a sponsor and/or mentor.

15. Evaluation Contest: Learn how to score well when you compete in a speech evaluation contest. You’ll learn from David Watkins, who has shown his great skills in prior speech evaluation contests.

16. Speakers Showcase: Attend this session and either listen to Toastmasters who are presenting manual speeches, help evaluate those speeches, or give a manual speech. The role you play is your call. Steven Timmons will coordinate it all.

17. Judges Recertification: If you are an experienced judge and need to be retrained (certified) for continued service as judge, please attend this one-hour session led by Diana Pittman.

18. Lunch and Learn: As part of a great lunch, feast on our mini sessions covering tips on how to make the Competent Leader manual a more integral part of the Toastmasters experience and providing an overview of the District 25 Speakers Bureau, its benefits, and how to join it.

19. Judges Training:  If you want to become a speech contest judge, please attend this two-hour session, held after the lunch and learn session and led by Diana Pittman.

 

By Julie Cosgrove