How Toastmasters Helps Rotarians Achieve their Bucket List Goals
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Craig Harrison, a 28-year Toastmasters member and professional speaker, explained how Toastmasters' structured communication and leadership programs complement Rotary's mission and help members achieve personal and professional goals. He demonstrated Table Topics impromptu speaking, showcased famous Toastmasters alumni, and highlighted the partnership between Rotary International and Toastmasters to enhance member skills.
Key takeaways
- Toastmasters has trained over 350,000 members in 143 countries since 1924 in public speaking and leadership development through supportive club environments.
- Members gain confidence, networking opportunities, and practical experience through rotating roles, prepared speeches, impromptu speaking (Table Topics), and peer evaluations at regular meetings.
- The new Pathways program offers customized learning tracks in team presentations, leadership, humor, and coaching, allowing members to pursue goals aligned with their interests.
- Toastmasters clubs exist in diverse settings including medical schools, companies, nonprofits, and city councils, making them accessible to Rotarians pursuing various bucket-list goals.
- Membership costs approximately $50 twice annually with access to materials, online resources, and the award-winning Toastmasters magazine.
About Craig HarrisonCraig Harrison is a 28-year member of Toastmasters International who has authored over 100 articles and spoken on four continents. He now makes his living as a professional speaker and trainer, helping others develop communication and leadership skills.
AI-generated from the meeting recording — AI can make mistakes, so check the recording for anything important.
Meeting for the week of July 20 - July 26, 2020
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: How Toastmasters Helps Rotarians Achieve their Bucket List Goals
Speaker: Craig Harrison
Is this your first time to visit us? If so, welcome to our weekly online meeting! To complete our meeting, please continue reading from here to the bottom of this page.Each Monday our week’s meeting is posted early in the morning, U.S. Pacific Time. These meetings are designed so that you can read and watch what we post anytime during the week. The entire meeting takes about 60 minutes to complete, with the video conference recording of the program being the bulk of the time.Note that you can easily read this meeting with your favorite device, so feel free to take our meeting on the go with you. Please also make sure to complete the attendance form at the bottom and leave a comment. Enjoy!
To properly attend this meeting, please:
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Read and watch the content below in its entirety.
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Complete the attendance survey.
Everyone is also encouraged to leave a comment in the Disqus section at the bottom of the page.
Welcome to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley!
Here’s a message from President-Elect Brett:
President-Elect Brett
Guests, we are happy to have you join us this week!
As we see it, our flexibility as an online, asynchronous club allows a special type of service to Rotarians around the world: we make it easier for anyone to strive for and maintain 100% attendance. That keeps you engaged with Rotary's events and ideas, and provides a moment of inspiration for devoting your creativity, talents, and resources to good causes.
You are certainly not required to pay anything in order to attend our meetings. However, if you would like to make a small contribution to our service efforts, you are welcome to do so in our secure Happy Dollars section down the page. This could be what you normally pay at your own club's meetings for lunch, for example. Any amount is welcome, but first and foremost, we're happy you've joined us, and hope you will share with others who we are and what we do to help inspire Service Above Self.
And don't forget to fill out our attendance form so you get an email you can pass on to your club's secretary!
The Four-Way Test
The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships.
Of the things we think, say or do
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Is it the TRUTH?
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Is it FAIR to all concerned?
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Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
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Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
Weekly inspiration
Every week we start our meetings with a short video highlighting innovation, inspiration, entrepreneurship, or social change.
Can you enjoy music if you can’t hear it? If you ask the kids in the Feel the Music program, the answer is an emphatic yes. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra travels around the world introducing young people with hearing impairments to classical music through these classes and workshops. We join the orchestra in Hamburg, Germany, to see how the musicians help kids experience music using their other senses.
World of Rotary
Rotary’s peace initiatives at a tipping point
Through a Rotarian's Lens
Sometimes a photo can capture an amazing moment. In this section Member Keith Marsh shares his incredible photography!
If you'd like to submit a photo for this section please contact Keith.
Comet Neowise was discovered in March 2020 and is the brightest comet in our Solar System since Hale Bopp in 1997. It is about 160 million miles from Earth and can be seen in the Northwest skies about 10-11pm. I took this photo at 2000 ISO for about 5 seconds on a sturdy tripod. On July 23rd, it will be southwest of the Big Dipper. It will not be back for 6800 years.
Learn something new
This section is curated by members Shags Shagrin and Rushton Hurley and aims to teach our members and guests something new, fun and useful! If you have any ideas on a fun trick or skill you'd like to share please contact Rushton or Shags.
Kitchen Hacks Time Again!!
In this video, you will see 10 awesome kitchen hacks you can use in your home kitchen. It's a bit longer than most, so feel free to speed up the playback and read the captioning or right-arrow to skip ahead a bit!
Coffee with a Rotarian
A natural part of Rotary is the networking and the fellowship you get out of meeting other Rotarians. Coffee With a Rotarian is a monthly program of our club where we match participating club members for one-on-one virtual (or in some cases in person) coffee meetings, so they can learn more about each other. This program is organized by member Tzviatko Chiderov.
This week we have Mark D from New York, NY, USA reporting on a chat with Angela from Sydney, Australia
We encourage all club members to participate in Coffee With a Rotarian. You can sign up here!
Service report
Tell us about service you’ve done recently in your community.
Click here to fill out The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley Service Survey
On the first meeting of every month, we feature service reports from club members for the previous month. Thanks for your service everyone!
Club announcements
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Haven't joined the conversation on Facebook yet? Consider joining the conversation by signing into our club members-only Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/rotarysiliconvalley/
Our events & projects
We hold our meetings online, but we do regular service projects and social events in the Silicon Valley! This section is updated every week with our upcoming events. We welcome guests to all of the events and service projects listed here.
Past events
Upcoming events
All times are Pacific Time! (San Francisco time)
District 5170 events
All times are Pacific Time! (San Francisco time)
More events coming soon! All events are open to guests, unless otherwise mentioned. Feel free to join us! If you ever have questions, please email inquiries@siliconvalleyrotary.com
Happy Dollars: do good by sharing something good
Each week we ask our members to share stories with the club and toss in a few dollars to support our efforts. The primary goal of this section is to provide a fun way of getting to know each fellow members and guests, while giving back to a good cause.
Happy dollars is an opportunity to share something positive that has happened in your life whether it is personal or business. Think of it as your opportunity to brag a little, but also put a little bit into a karma jar. The money donated through happy dollars is put to charitable use, and the message that you leave for happy dollars will be posted in our online meeting the following week for the entire week for folks to see! (Pending that it’s appropriate!)
Here are the happy dollars contributions from last week!
This section is usually updated on the early hours of Saturday, so contributions made over the weekend may not be listed here.
Please allocate to PolioPlus Fund. Hoping to kick start the rotary year with a contribution! I’m grateful for finding a club that I can attend meetings from wherever I am!
Selected comments
Every week at the bottom of our meetings, there is a comments section for members and guests to tell us what they enjoyed about the meeting or to ask questions to the speaker. We select a few comments every week from last week’s meeting to be featured during this week’s meeting.
Here are the comments selected from last week’s meeting.
Kelly said:
I want to try these stretchy potatoes!
Over the years I've heard of many water projects created and implemented by Rotary clubs, but I think this is the first I've heard that offers a longer term, sustainable solution by empowering the community through this social enterprise model. Thanks, Jon!
Heather Shaw said:
Love the tornado eggs
I have been following this project on facebook and am looking forward to becoming more involved in a project. I will check back in on the webpage and see whats the plan for 2021
Richard Knaggs said:
Thank you Jon for such a wonderful presentation. We have the Year 1 test for technology solutions at our school. If it will work for Year 1's it will work for everyone. Wishing you massive success and I hope you get to Ethiopia.
Be sure to leave a comment at the end of this week’s meeting after you watch the program below, and perhaps you’ll see your comment featured next week!
Program: How Toastmasters Helps Rotarians Achieve their Bucket List Goals
Speaker: Craig Harrison
Every week we bring to you a new program on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education, and how those contribute to service to others. Special thanks to member Roger Plested for leading our club's Programs Committee in finding us amazing speakers each week.
The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley seeks to explore perspectives on service from across the world. The views of the speakers in our programs are their own, and unless stated otherwise, are not necessarily reflective of the views of our eClub nor Rotary International.
If you have an idea for a cool speaker, please feel free to reach out to them directly or submit THIS FORM so our Program Committee can contact them!
Involvement with the communication and leadership programs of Toastmasters International can help Rotarians excel in their careers and communities, relationships and overall aspirations, through a blend of skill development and a boost in confidence.
Our speaker, Craig Harrison, is a 28-year member of Toastmasters International who now makes his living as a professional speaker and trainer. He directly credits working the communication and leadership programs of Toastmasters International for his success. He's formed numerous clubs, authored close to 100 articles for Toastmasters worldwide magazine, and has spoken to clubs on four continents. Through Toastmasters Craig was also able to get promotions, change careers, launch his own company Expressions Of Excellence, publish books and change lives through the coaching, speaking, training and leadership skills he's mastered through Toastmasters. He's also a past president of the National Speakers Association - Northern California and founded their Speakers Academy in 2004.
Whatever your goals within and beyond Rotary, Craig assures us that our involvement with Toastmasters can accelerate our goals and help turn our aspirations into achievements. Hear stories of how Craig and others applied their communication skills to extend their sphere of influence and positively shape our world!
Members and guests, please welcome Craig Harrison!
Additional Resources
Upcoming program recording schedule
All of our guest speakers and programs are recorded live online over Zoom video conference. We welcome members and guests to join us in one of these upcoming recordings. Recordings are approximately 30 minutes long and are subject to change without notice.
Our online video conference room link for these recordings is always http://zoom.siliconvalleyrotary.com/. You are welcome to join us! Please note the timezone listed for all recordings is US Pacific Time (San Francisco, California, USA).
If you can’t join the live recording, please send your questions for an upcoming speaker to programs@siliconvalleyrotary.com.
