Birmingham, AL: VA Voices Toastmasters

Birmingham, AL
Meets 6 PM Eastern Time Tuesday
Attendance: (11 members and 3 guests)

Maya Angelou once said: "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." And I have to say that the members of VA Voices in Birmingham made me feel special even before I attended their meeting. 

After contacting the club, Mary sent me an email almost immediately to let me know that I would be receiving a link to the meeting soon. Then McKinley, another member of the club, sent me the link. And an hour before the meeting, Hattie called me on the phone to verify that I had received the link. Now who does that? I was impressed and I felt very special indeed. 

When logged on and attended the Zoom meeting, I still felt the love. The members were so welcoming. 

This club does things a little differently than we do at my home club. They do an invocation and say the Pledge of Allegiance and they have their own club mission statement which they read at every meeting. One thing they do that I liked is that refer to guests as "potential Toastmasters." And that must be working for them because 15 people have joined the club this year and they are President's Distinguished. 

Feedback is a hallmark of Toastmasters clubs and I would be remiss if I didn't offer a couple suggestions that might allow this club to soar even higher. 
  • They held their officer election in the middle of the meeting between the prepared speeches and the evaluations. In my opinion, it would have been better to have the election at the end of the meeting and allow guests to leave at that time.
  • The two speech evaluations in the meeting focused more on content and less on mechanics. It's my belief that my job as an evaluator is to help the speaker on how to say it better and not what to say.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this meeting and would encourage everyone to check them out at VA Voices in Birmingham.

Comments

  1. CynthiaCJune 4, 2020 at 7:53 PM

    It was a pleasure to have you all join us for our meeting. You are welcome anytime.
    Thank you also for your feedback, we will do our best to incorporate your suggestions.

    ReplyDelete

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