Hello and welcome to the summer 2020 newsletter!
As you know, since the beginning of the lockdown, we have moved our meetings to Zoom and on to the virtual stage to carry on with our mission to become better leaders, speakers and Toastmasters.
A very quick survey
Given the public health crisis, we will remain online for a little while longer, at least until it is safe for us to meet again in person. We have now established our new e-routine and are getting comfortable on the virtual stage… well, there’s no place like home! We would like to ask you what you would like our Toastmasters meetings to look like in this environment and, with your ideas and feedback, we will reshape our meetings as much as we can to respond to members’ needs and preferences.
Please could we ask you to take the survey here – it will take you less than 5 minutes.
Your new committee
July is the beginning of the Toastmasters year and a new committee has taken on its functions to serve the club and its members for the year to come. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our immediate past president Margarita and last year’s committee for their hard work and commitment.
Your committee for 2020-21 is:
- President – Yamina Bakiri
- Co-Vice Presidents Education – Matt Robertson & Tomasz Setkowski
- Vice President Membership – Raymond Hill
- Vice President Public Relations – Kamakshi Pandya
- Vice President Mentoring – Yassine Meziane
- Treasurer – Lei Li
- Secretary – Helen Hosein
- Sergeant at Arms – Stirling Habbitts
- Immediate Past President – Margarita Sachkova
Irrespective of the platform we use to communicate, our top priorities for this year are education, education and education! We would like to help our members achieve their educational goals and our Vice Presidents for Education and Mentoring will make it their mission to get you there. Please feel free to reach out to them if you have specific objectives and want them to concoct you a personalised plan to grow and learn. The first rule is to show up… attend the meetings and sign up to perform a role or speech every time. Don’t wait to be READY… life doesn’t wait. A perfect speech is a delivered speech – full stop. Please follow the link here to easy-Speak to continue your educational journey NOW.
Pathways and mentoring
Last month was our final opportunity to complete any awards from the communication and leadership tracks in the Toastmasters legacy programme. Everyone is now on the new Pathways educational programme and mentoring is available within the club to help you get started. Contact our VP Mentoring Yassine via mentoring@bloomsburyspeakers.org.uk for more information.
Autumn contests
Finally, we would like to announce our Humorous and Table Topics contests taking place online on 14th September 2020. Please save the date and start preparing your speech. If you would like to enter the contest, please let us know. There are no qualification requirements, you just need to be a paid up member of the club.
If your membership fee is due soon or has just expired, please note that we are offering a discount at the moment for all those renewing their membership, so join us again and don’t miss out!
Next meetings
Our next three meetings are on 27th July, 10th August and 24th August and will be hosted on Zoom unless otherwise announced. Keep an eye on our members’ WhatsApp group or public Meetup page for details of how to join.
We are really looking forward to seeing you again on the virtual stage!
