goodbye to all that

Thursday was my final Toastmasters meeting. I had planned this for a while.

I joined Menifee Toastmasters in October 2015 after having moved here in May. I really enjoyed it. I liked the way the program was structured and the progression involved. The program was based on a series of print manuals with a nice range of variety. After I finished the Competent Communication manual and got my Competent Communicator award a whole new world opened up with a selection of fifteen advanced manuals on a wide variety of topics. Through those I got my Advanced Communicator Bronze and Advanced Communicator Silver awards. In amongst all that I got my Competent Leader award through the Competent Leadership manual.

And then Toastmasters International had to go and change it all. They replaced the previous program with a new one called Pathways. It is all web-based and focused on corporate-sponsored clubs, as opposed to the community clubs. It has a distinct career-based bias, neglecting the wider range of experience. I was not happy with the new program.

Thursday’s meeting marked the end of my tenure as president of the club, so it seemed time to make the break. There are other things I can do on those Thursdays. There is the Farmers Market, there is the local interfaith council on the second Thursday, and always the noon Eucharist at Good Shepherd Episcopal.

In counting my ribbons I found I had twelve best speaker awards, thirteen best evaluator, and nine best table topics, the impromptu segment. The count is not exact, as there were ties and sometimes I got the ribbon and other times not. So I feel good about my accomplishments.

Nonetheless, it is time to move on.