Tri-County Toastmasters #5682

The Tri-County Toastmasters club met on Thursday, March 15th at the Virden Area Community Center. Members in attendance at Thursday’s meeting were: Les Apps, Todd Austin, Jim Blankenship from New Berlin, John Davidson, Liz Mollett from Auburn, Alan Saeger and Billy Watkins. Two guests were also present: Toastmasters Division C Governor Eileen Kluckman and Mary Mitchell.



Alan Saeger was the evening’s Toastmaster. Billy Watkins conducted the table topics (impromptu speaking) portion of the program.



The evening’s first prepared speaker was Dr. Todd Austin, who is currently the club’s public relations officer. Austin delivered a speech called “Putting Tri-County Toastmasters On The Map”, which detailed his club public relations print media campaign. This was a project from the advanced ‘High Performance Leadership’ manual.



The evening’s second prepared speaker was John Davidson. His informative speech was entitled “Our Country’s First President”. This is the speech that Davidson will be competing with in next weeks Area 1 speech contest.



The Toastmasters Area 1 speech contest will then be held on Saturday March 24th at 9:30 a.m. at the Virden Area Community Center at 105 West Jackson Street in Virden. At that time, John Davidson of the Tri-County club will compete against representatives from the 3 Springfield Toastmasters clubs.



All local residents are encouraged to attend the area contest. The contest is open to the public and refreshments will be served. “This is an awesome opportunity to observe some proficient speakers in action.” said Les Apps, club president and Area 1 Governor. “Attending a speech contest serves as a great introduction to what the Toastmasters program can do for people, by turning ordinary men and women into confident speakers that feel comfortable before an audience of any size!” For more info contact Austin at 965-3100.



The next regular Tri-County Toastmasters meeting will be on Thursday April 5th at 6:30 p.m. at the Community Center. The scheduled speaker at that meeting will be Les Apps.