Speaker 1 0:00

um, oh, all right. Well, we'll start going in three, two, one. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to episode 47 of the talkative toastmaster podcast. This week, my guest is sally turner, from the water. There we go. Now let's start again. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to episode 47 of the talkative toast master podcast. This week, my guest is sally turner, from the water, from the waterloo bay club. She's also the area 20 director within district 69. I first met sally at last year's area 20 conference and then got to hang out with her a little bit more at this year's district leader training, where we were both learning how to be area directors. Sally is doing some amazing things with both public relations and club marketing and is also a very successful Toastmaster sorry and is also running a very successful Toastmasters program for children called the Gavel Club. Can't wait to hear more about all of this. Welcome to the show, sally.

Speaker 3 1:11

Thanks, mel, it's great to be here, Pretty exciting.

Speaker 1 1:15

Excellent, All righty. Well, let's start by you telling us why did you join Toastmasters?

Speaker 3 1:22

Okay, I can blame this all on my daughter, rachel. About 2020, rachel became school captain at her primary school and I looked everywhere for someone to teach her public speaking, spent ages looking everywhere, couldn't find anyone who could do it at a reasonable price. So, 2021, I saw that Woodley Bay was running a speech class course. It came up on my Facebook feed and it was cheap. It was at a local library, so I contacted them and said, hey, if I do this course with you, can I bring my 13-year-old daughter along? And they said, yeah, okay, definitely. So we went and did it. From there, I actually got over the nerves and absolutely dragged myself to each of these just for Rachel's sake. I went oh, actually, this is fun, I like these people, and the confidence boost it gave me was kind of amazing. To be honest, I noticed the difference from the start, so I ended up joining the club and Rachel came along as well, and we've been there ever since so about three years now at Willoughby. It's been great.

Speaker 1 2:29

I love that. I love how it was triggered by your daughter. I've not heard an entry into Toastmasters like that before.

Speaker 3 2:38

It's not something I wanted to do. Even I'm very introverted. I don't like public speaking that much.

Speaker 1 2:47

Wow, but yeah, so it's all her fault. Oh, excellent, and in three years you've done so much. You've completed a pathway, you've held club roles, you've competed, you've now an area director. I mean, tell me about that journey, because you have really embraced Toastmasters by the sound of it.

Speaker 3 3:05

I have. That's true. To be honest, when I first started I had to drag myself to club meetings. I hated it. I'd get nervous. If I had a speech, I wouldn't eat for days, almost Leaning up to it. I was so terrified. And then it got a little bit easier and I made a commitment. I was going to a meeting no what and then I make commitment. I was going to do a speech every month, so basically every second meeting, and I was not allowed to back out of it unless it was an emergency or something. I had to go do that speech and then from there it just got easier and easier and suddenly I got put into a VPR role at the club. That was the first year and then became president the second year and I'm now VPE and it's just gone from one thing to another and I don't know. I look back and go hold it. How did I get here? What happened?

Speaker 1 3:54

not meant to be doing a lift yeah I think Toastmasters who get committed have this whether it's an occupational hazard of saying yes, yes, yes, I can do that, and you just keep saying yes and it sounds like that's what you've. Yeah, it was a bit that way. Yeah, absolutely. And what do you most enjoy about being a member now?

Speaker 3 4:16

I like the people. I think a lot of the Toastmasters say that.

Speaker 3 4:20

It's the friendships you form, it's the challenges you can set yourself and it's the confidence it does bring into you. As I said, doing Speechcraft it was a four-week course. I immediately noticed the difference, sort of thing, and went, oh my gosh, if I stop doing Toastmasters, what's going to happen? Am I going to go backwards and lose this? So yeah, it's been that. And friendships Like made some amazing friends at the club. So yeah, it's been that. And friendships Like made some amazing friends at the club. But yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 4:48

And outside the club now we're doing area director. It's been great.

Speaker 1 4:52

Yeah, the area director role really helps to broaden your horizon as far as seeing you know what and who is outside of the club. How are you finding that you know three months in? How are you finding that you know three months in? How are you finding that role?

Speaker 3 5:07

it's been great. I've actually really enjoyed it so far. Um, haven't really done much about the conference yet. I'm gonna get going on that big time, but yeah, just meeting new people at different clubs and seeing their journeys and that and being able to help out really really enjoyed that and then meeting the other area directors and going, you know, helping out with different club speech contests. It's been wonderful, it really has been.

Speaker 1 5:32

Yeah, there's lots of opportunities if you want to throw yourself into it, for sure. And so how did this Gavel Club start? Can you tell me what it is and how it evolved from you as a member at Toastmasters?

Speaker 3 5:49

Okay, as I said, the reason I got into Toastmasters was because I couldn't find anything for kids. So Rachel, my daughter, is a very extroverted person, the rest of the family is introverts and she's about 150% extrovert, loves being in front of people and talking. So we joined Toastmasters and that and I heard about this thing called Gavel Club that people run and I couldn't find anywhere in Brisbane that did it anywhere vaguely Looked around, looked around and someone mentioned it and then I found out you could run a year-flat program. So I got all the material, bought all the books and got them imported from Toastmasters International and looked through them and that and it took about six months or so before I got up the guts and said, ah, okay, I want to do this, contacted the club and said, hey, I want to run this course for kids. And that was all supported me.

Speaker 3 6:40

I had Brian and two of our really good members. They said, okay, we're there with you, and Kevin, who his kids had two of his daughters, had done the speech craft course with us. So I contacted him he wasn't doing Toastmasters at the time contacted him and said, hey, we're doing this. So he came back into Toastmasters and brought his girls along. So we started this Youth Leader Program. So the Youth Leader Program is a six-week course, or it can be eight weeks, it's up to you. We ran it over six weeks. You have manuals to work through, it's like speechcraft but for kids.

Speaker 3 7:15

I managed to get nine kids in total scraping to get them together, sort of thing and we ran the course From that. On the final night I was like woohoo, it's all over, we've done six weeks and everyone was happy, a big night and we had all the parents there and that I actually had kids coming up and begging me to keep doing it the following term. So that was term three last year and I was like please, can we keep going? And looking at them I was like, oh my gosh, what do I do? I don't really want to but.

Speaker 3 7:43

But so we did another term of it sort of thing run it as a Toastmasters Gavel Club without actually joining Toastmasters, just to see how it went. We had a couple of extra kids come along in that time and then the following year, so the beginning of this year, we officially became a Gavel Club. So we're a Brisbane Youth Public Speaking Club. That's club. So we're the Brisbane Youth Public Speaking Club. The kids came up with the name, or BIPSC for short, and we've grown from there. We've now got 21 kids that come each fortnight. Wow, and they have the best time ever. It's amazing to see the growth. It's amazing we have things like one of the girls was away on holidays one week. She rang in on Zoom and sat there on Zoom because she didn't want to miss out. It's things like that you go oh my gosh, I've got kids not going. They're so committed, they love it. It's weird. I mean these kids are giving up their time to do public speaking and stuff. And yeah, and just seeing the growth.

Speaker 3 8:42

We have one girl who was when she joined. Her big sister was coming and her mum said I'd love my other daughter to come along, but she is a selective mute. I don't know if I'll ever get her to talk. She came along and first night she didn't really say anything. She sat there and watched and she's now talking. She gets up and talks in front of everyone and has a great time. Wow, I've got other kids' parents come along as well. It's really strange, but my daughter suddenly wanted to go do all this other stuff. She went and joined guides by herself, even though her friends aren't going, and she's doing this and she's doing that. And you think my gosh. I mean I don't say anything, but it's just that confidence boost. Yeah, just that confidence boost. Yeah, I know I get it from doing Toastmasters and they're getting it from that.

Speaker 1 9:26

It's amazing yeah, and and also at the age where this is happening for them. So how, how old are the range of kids that that are in the club?

Speaker 3 9:37

we have eight year olds through to 16 year olds.

Speaker 1 9:40

Eight year olds my goodness yes, how do they go? Like what? And goodness yes, how do they go and what type of speeches do?

Speaker 3 9:50

they talk about and how long do they talk? For Most of the kids, the younger kids, we say you can talk shorter, like three to four minutes sort of thing, and some of them only get a minute and a half two minutes and that does not matter the older kids. We encourage them to do four to five or over, especially the older high school kids. We try to do five minute plus speeches sort of thing, but they'll talk about anything from pets, they'll make up stuff.

Speaker 3 10:14

We have all sorts of all sorts of you know all about their lives by the end of the day, after a few weeks, and they just, they have fun, they get up and give it a go.

Speaker 3 10:24

And we have fun, they get up and give it a go and yeah, we know we have fun meetings and we have serious meetings. Like we had our last meeting a term, which was last Monday, and we had a backwards meeting, so the kids loved it. The evaluators got up and did an evaluation and the speakers had to get up and do what the evaluator said in his speech. Yeah, we had lots of dancing and animal noises throughout speeches, okay, and stuff like that, which is great. It's not so much about speech at the moment, things like that, it's more about the confidence.

Speaker 1 10:55

Yeah, getting up and doing it oh it's, it's amazing, I mean, that will have such an impact on their lives, because when the number of Toastmasters I've talked to that have said I wish I'd have started earlier, even 20, 30 years earlier, and yet these kids are starting to teenage years, I mean they're setting themselves up for just such a different potential life path than they otherwise would have got.

Speaker 3 11:24

Yeah, it's incredible and it's pretty easy once it gets going. It's actually pretty easy to run because they do all the work we've got a vp. Who does the agenda for us each week? Yeah and I send out emails and stuff, but they run the meetings like it's. My oldest. Rachel comes along and says mum, butt out, this is our meeting.

Speaker 1 11:43

You leave us alone down the back there and watch yeah, and so how many adults are at the meeting, each meeting um?

Speaker 3 11:52

well as Kevin and myself at each meeting. We've got one other dad who tends to hang around, so it's only like three or four there's. I like. Have at least two, just so that you've got back up. There's two of you there and something goes wrong. You got yeah, got to be yeah, there's a lot of kids.

Speaker 1 12:06

It's a lot of kids. 20-ish kids, that's a lot, yeah, but yeah. So, and is it like a normal adult Toastmasters club where there's a president and do you have the roles allocated, or is it more of an agenda where the kids just get up and talk and do different tasks?

Speaker 3 12:25

No, it's a bit like test masters. We do have the roles allocated, so we do. They do have roles. They don't do super a lot in those roles. The VP does do the agenda and keeps track of that. Rachel's the president. She gets up and opens the meetings and takes a fair bit of responsibility actually, which is great, and they do learn leadership from that. You can see the older kids developing and we're trying to implement mentors to the younger kids, so the older kids are learning how to mentor, which has been great. And then the agenda is similar to. We have round robin and table topics and have you been paying attention? And stuff like that. It's a bit more chaotic than a normal meeting. Let's just say that it's like Toastmasters, but chaos.

Speaker 1 13:09

I don't know. Some of our clubs get a bit chaotic. Sometimes I have to come along. I'd love to see how this actually works, because it just sounds like they really throw themselves into it, which is great. Now you've mentioned Rachel, your daughter. She started all of this. She planted the seed for you to get started with all of this. She's obviously been in and around Toastmasters and these programs for some years now. How have you noticed a change in her? Yeah, with her extra is, you know, it's giving her extrovert personality real space to express herself. How's, yeah, what changes have you noticed in her?

Speaker 3 13:54

oh, she's loving it. Um, she was always, as I said, extroverted, loves people and stuff. So for her coming along, she, her speaking, has improved. She just won a steadford wind man Stedford the other day for Table Topics basically it was the property, she was speaking and she owned the stage. The adjudicator was blown away, actually in the comments she made. She's coming to all the with area director role. She's coming to all the different clubs with me and every meeting she can and she's meeting people. She's one of these kids that just go up and introduce herself and start chatting to everyone which has been great my youngest daughter who's very introverted through doing BIPs and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 14:40

She's very quiet, but she joined a debate team at school and she's one of their star debaters. She literally owns even though she doesn't really say much outside of debating she owns that debating and it's kind of amazing. Wow, you know. You can see the changes and the difference it does make.

Speaker 1 15:00

Yeah, yeah, oh, it's so good. And do you actively solicit members, or are you finding that word of mouth and people are coming to you?

Speaker 3 15:12

Mainly word of mouth. I mentioned it. We had about 15 members up to last term and I mentioned two people and then someone found us, who you sent to us, actually Mel yeah and suddenly we had another six members and I was like, oh my God, it's a good number. Now I wouldn't want to have it much bigger, because all the kids want to do a role each week and it's hard with 20 members, getting them all a role to do.

Speaker 1 15:38

if that makes sense, yeah absolutely, and you're right, I think there is a demand. I monitored our club's inbox for a while and, yeah, there's the odd query that comes in saying you know, I'm actually not looking for me, I'm looking for my child. And yeah, I think it was. Until you started to tell me about this at the district leader training, I really hadn't seen anything locally. So it's great that you know you're doing this in our area. And are there many other gavel clubs around? Like, do you talk to other leaders of gavel clubs around the country or there's two in Sydney that I know of and that's it, yeah, right, as far as I know.

Speaker 3 16:21

If anyone out there's got one, please contact me, because I'd love to be in contact. Yeah, yeah, but there's just not many.

Speaker 1 16:31

I guess it's a fairly big commitment. It's very much a community service that you're offering, and it's with any volunteer organisation. It's all about time and you know. But yeah, I mean it's awesome that it's just flourishing by the sounds of what you're saying, so it's great. Yeah, Well done.

Speaker 3 16:56

It's been an adventure, a huge adventure.

Speaker 1 16:59

Yeah.

Speaker 3 17:00

Look back and go oh my gosh, I can't believe I started that.

Speaker 1 17:04

Yeah, very good and in terms of your own progress as a Toastmaster. You've been in for three years and working through Pathways, but you also won. You and your club won an award this year at the district conference for your website and social media activities and general public relations. Tell me about that and how you go about. You know marketing and looking for new members at your Waterloo Bay Club.

Speaker 3 17:39

Okay, I became VPPR. That was my first committee role, so that was the year before last. Took it over from Christine. Christine had actually won it the year before last. Um took it over from Christine. Christine had actually won it the year before and I took it over from her and set it up simply for myself.

Speaker 3 17:54

So it's just a template, drop a new photo in, depending on the theme and stuff, and push the social media side of it. And when I heard there was actually an award for it, I thought, oh my gosh, I want that award. And I actually went really hard that first year and managed to win the award, and I was actually at the conference and got to accept it and I was so excited, so pleased with myself. I was like, oh my gosh, I did it. I did it A year of work. The following year, we had someone else in the VPR role and then she had to quit Toastmasters a few months in for the thing because of family commitments Toastmasters a few months in for the thing because of family commitments. And so I took it back over again and then we won the Website Social Media Award again. It wasn't as big a thing that year, though, so I was just like it was good, but yeah we didn't even find out until a couple of months afterwards, but it's been.

Speaker 3 18:45

that's been quite an adventure as well. I did do a lot of social media marketing in my previous job so it was something I could step into reasonably easily. And the creative side it was fun. I enjoy the creative side of all that.

Speaker 1 18:59

Yeah, it's interesting as well. I don't think a lot of people would necessarily associate Toastmasters as somewhere where you could gain social media experience and that marketing and promotion experience. It's one of the skills I think that is very transferable. I mean you mentioned that you had done it previously but yeah, every club has a social media presence in one way or another and yeah, it's just another unexpected skill that can come from taking on one of those leadership roles.

Speaker 3 19:32

It is that it's true and it's so important too, because people will check social media and if they see the club is active and a social media post coming up and that, they'll go oh, it's a good club, it's active. These clubs that don't post on social media or update their website, they'll look at it, go. Oh well, they haven't done anything for six months. Maybe they don't exist anymore. And it's one of those things, by having that presence it makes you look alive and active, and like these people doing stuff yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 20:02

I know, when I went to malaysia earlier in the year, I was looking at clubs to go and visit and and I find you looked at the Toastmasters International website to find out what clubs there were, and then the next thing I did was click through to their social media pages and, yeah, you want to know what sort of a room you're going to be walking into and you know again, is the club still running? Is there signs of activity there? So it's definitely definitely important. Yes, yeah, and in terms of, I guess, translating those skills to the clubs that you're working with through your area director responsibilities, are you both learning things from different clubs and feeling like you're able to advise them, because it's such a balance between seeing what they're doing and being able to advise how they could potentially improve it is.

Speaker 3 21:02

It can be challenging at times, just with the improvement stuff Depending on the club. Some clubs you go, clubs you go oh yes, there's ways you can improve here. Other clubs go oh my gosh, we should implement that now. Club and you take it back to your own club and work it in to the program. Like we've just recently changed the way we were on our agenda, okay which has been quite interesting, just with the double meeting, speeches and evaluations before and after the break, which has been great.

Speaker 1 21:32

Yeah, I've seen that agenda and I know at our Mount Gravatt Club we have the more traditional speeches in the first half and then evaluations in the second half, and I'd like to give that a run and just to try it and see, just to mix things up a bit. But I think that meeting within the meeting, the double meeting agenda, keeps it moving. And yeah, again, it's just, you don't know until you try these things and sometimes there can be a lot of resistance to changing the way we've always done things.

Speaker 3 22:07

Yeah, yes, it can be a challenge sometimes for club members, but our clubs embrace it and they're really enjoying it. We've only done it a few times now, but three meetings but, so far it's been good.

Speaker 1 22:19

Yeah, yeah. It's just good to see how other clubs are doing things. And in terms of contest season it's, you're obviously not competing this year if you're running the conference. So how, how do you feel about that? Are you happy not to be competing this year? I don't know.

Speaker 3 22:37

I enjoyed competing last year, I think I had a vague idea when I was put on the area director role and I wouldn't be able to compete, but then it was like oh, okay, okay, yeah, I really can't, yeah, I really can't yeah, yes, which is yeah, anyway, next year yeah, there seems to be the alternate years when a raft of people are in leadership roles and can't compete and then then get back into competing in the following year.

Speaker 1 23:05

So sort of listening to various people in particularly the leading edge club yeah, I want to compete this year. I haven't competed for a while, so it's yeah, I think I'm happy not to be competing actually. But running a conference and running the contest is an entirely different process.

Speaker 1 23:26

Getting my head around, I think I'm learning more about contests than I've ever intended to learn and the rule book and judges. There's a lot to it. There is, there is, and it's more than just your average half-a-day event. The logistics are quite interesting when you get into the detail of how many people that need to be there and if you're using internal judges or external judges and all these rules. I'm so glad there's so many other more experienced Toastmasters around that we can ask for help with. Yes.

Speaker 1 24:07

Yes, yes. And so what in terms of your goals for this year for Toastmasters? What sort of goals do you have for yourself?

Speaker 3 24:22

Viping area director to start with. It's a lot of juggling at the moment because I'm vp at the club, I've got a club as well, and area director role. So I've got lists upon lists of things I've got to do so survival at get through finish. I'm doing dynamic leadership. I've only got about four more speeches and then, so get through that. And yeah, try and try and make club. Keep Wooloo Bay going along like it is. We've been a President's Distinguished Club four years in a row now, so hopefully we'll do that again this year.

Speaker 1 24:57

No pressure to keep going on that path. That's an amazing achievement. I mean that is meaning that your club members are hitting their educational goals, that you're getting lots of new members through, that you're all getting trained, so it sounds like a very healthy club.

Speaker 3 25:15

Yes, yeah, it's been a good club. There's some very active members in it, which we've been very lucky. A couple of our wonderful people on the committee are retired, which helps. They've got some extra time. They're busy, but they've got the time to put into it, yeah.

Speaker 1 25:31

I think it does make a difference. When you have committed, experienced members who are there and are able to mentor, or who just seem to know the things and know the processes and know how things work and they're able to sort of just give you either the president or whichever role, is that little gentle nudge to say, oh, now you need to be thinking about this and you probably already know this, but here's a document that's going to help you do this. And they just seem to know what you're going to need and when. And yeah, yes, yeah.

Speaker 3 26:08

It makes a huge difference.

Speaker 1 26:10

Yeah, huge difference.

Speaker 3 26:11

Having that experience, I know one of the clubs that I'm area director for at the moment. They've got a lot of new members a couple of experienced members, but a lot of new members. They do need that extra help to get through things because of the number of newbies.

Speaker 1 26:30

Yes, it's one of those double-edged swords getting large numbers of new members because it's great, because it's lots of new energy and everyone's enthusiastic and everyone wants to speak and, at the same time, as you say, you need that sort of experienced structure and the processes and the mentors, just to be able to onboard them and get them using pathways and understanding how things work.

Speaker 1 26:56

Yeah, yeah, there's. Yes, I have a club in a fairly similar situation as well. It's yeah, I think mentoring is an interesting issue or an interesting area of Toastmasters and I'm sort of on a bit of a mission when I think, probably early next year, I want to look at that in our club just to make sure that everyone's getting a similar experience with mentors. I think there's probably a lot of information about it. But you know, from a Toastmasters perspective but I just haven't really gone into that in detail but I really think that's important. Now you know it's the training of well, not quite train the trainer, but just that extra coaching for people and having a structure around that. Do you have a mentor in your club?

Speaker 3 27:46

We do set up for me. No, not for me anymore um we do set up newer members with a mentor, um, usually for first few months at least, just so they've got someone they can refer to and say oh hold it, I'm doing round robin, what do I do? Yeah, etc. Yeah, um, yeah, but no, I don't have a mentor at the moment. It'd probably probably be good for more experienced members to have mentors, you know, just to push you in the right direction.

Speaker 1 28:14

Yeah, it's sort of how to get to the next level of speaking. Yeah, yeah, I mean I find in my Leading Edge Club there's so many experienced speakers and coaches and you, you know, communications trainers that I think it's mentoring by osmosis, watching what they do and how they do it is is I'm finding I'm learning a lot from from that experience. But, yeah, every now and then I think maybe I do need a mentor, just for specific, specific things. But you know, know it comes down to time. But what would you say to people out there whether it's kids or adults, because you can look at it from both perspectives who are nervous about public speaking or may be interested in joining a Toastmasters club but are terrified about starting? What would you say to them?

Speaker 3 29:12

well, the hardest thing to do is walk in the door that first time. It does get easier from there, but you've got to make yourself go back. From my experience it took a few meetings when I first joined and I just couldn't bring myself to walk in the door and the relief I'd feel on a Tuesday night I'll be, oh, I'm not gonna go, I'm not gonna go. It's so wonderful, but once you make yourself walk in the door and you do it and get up and speak, even if it's only doing round robin for 30 seconds, the difference it makes in your life in general not just for public speaking, but just confidence in general is huge it really, really makes an impact.

Speaker 1 29:50

It has for me anyway yeah and and what would you say are some of the most valuable skills that you've learned. You've talked about confidence, but, yeah, what other skills would you say that you've learned from Toastmasters and your time in all of this?

Speaker 3 30:12

But leadership skills, definitely leadership skills and how to manage people. It takes a lot of work managing people at different levels, whether it's just within your club when you join a committee, or further afield, when you go up the chain to district roles. It's a lot of emails, a lot of communication, yes, yes. So yeah, that's been huge for me and it's beginning becoming easier. It starts off a challenge and you're overwhelmed and you go, oh my gosh, how am I going to do this?

Speaker 1 30:46

but it becomes easier and just becomes second nature in the end, which has been great yes, and I think as well, being even just three months in the area director role, I'm finding that I'm learning so much more about Toastmasters, probably, than I have in the entire time I've been in the organization and just it's sort of taking that not a higher perspective, but just seeing it from a different level and seeing how all the clubs fit together and you get an idea of the structure of it all. But ultimately it's still about helping each individual person. That that's what we're here for, that's why we're doing it and, yeah, I just think it's an interesting perspective. I'm really glad that I took on the role of area director, even though it was a lot of work. Yeah, as you say, you learn about just, and it's all volunteer too, so it's all trying to influence people to do things in a volunteer capacity.

Speaker 3 31:47

Yes, that can be challenging. It can be very challenging sometimes, but it's for the greater good, if anything. I mean you can see the changes in people and that's what I love. It's sort of I know the difference it's made to me and I want to make an impact on other people's lives. Yeah, and by doing this work, you can.

Speaker 1 32:09

Well, yeah, and particularly starting with the kids and getting them on board so young. It will be interesting to see how many of them naturally carry on to Toastmasters. And yeah, because they theoretically can't join until they're 18, can they, but they can go along as observers.

Speaker 3 32:28

Yes, yes, yes, yeah. So Rachel's been coming for about three years and we've just started getting Eve, who's now 16. She's an old member of Gamma Club. She's just starting to come along to the adult club as well, which has been great because they get up and do table topics and round robin and things like that.

Speaker 3 32:46

And at our club anyway, because Rachel's been there for so long, she quite often runs a segment like she'll get up and run the table topic segment or something like that, because we've got no one else, so she does it. Oh, that's awesome. It's been great. It teaches them a lot of responsibility and interacting with adults as well, especially at that level just to go to an adult club and interact with them all.

Speaker 1 33:10

And I think that's such an important skill and I think with kids it's going to go one of two ways, because they're so used to the devices now and having their head in phones and iPads and whatever it happens to be, but the ones who can develop those communication skills and just interacting with people and so many kids are not interested in interacting with adults in any capacity. I just think that's such an important skill for them.

Speaker 3 33:41

Oh, it is, it is, and you get comments from adults about it, like oh my gosh you know that child will talk to me and have a decent conversation, as Rach has said before. Some of her friends at school and that have said oh, I hate talking to parents and adults, no, I can't do it, I just hate talking to adults. And Rachel's like oh no, I love it, they're all my best friends. You know, rachel's best friend adult, host masters at the moment is 85 years old oh, I love that they look for each other and text each other and you know one of them's away.

Speaker 3 34:13

It's like, oh my gosh, where are they? But to extreme opposite ends of the club yeah, oh, this is great, it's it's great.

Speaker 1 34:23

In one of the clubs in my area there's one of the founding members of this club's granddaughter comes along. So I think we have both ends of the spectrum the you know 80, know 80-plus-year-old, and the you know maybe mid-20s or 30s. But, yeah, like I mean, there's some beautiful stories about how family members have somehow encouraged each other to get into Toastmasters, and I just love that Rachel started, you know, planted the seed for your Toastmasters journey.

Speaker 3 34:57

Yes, it's all her fault. It's taken over my life now.

Speaker 1 35:02

That's right, I mean, and is she likely to continue on as president of the Gavel Club next year, or is that a rotating role?

Speaker 3 35:12

Well, put it up for election so they vote for the roles. So we'll see what happens next year. She puts herself up and they vote her in. She's very good at leadership now a lot. Through running this, she says to herself Mum, I sound like a teacher. I hate that, but she will pull the kids in line when she needs to and she will run a meeting. Well, which is great. Oh, that's so good. Yeah, so it's great. She's aiming for President of Woodloo Bay as soon as she turns 18. Her birthday's in June, so she can be voted in. And as soon as she joins the club she'll be right.

Speaker 1 35:45

Oh, wow. I mean, it's always. You know, it can be a challenge to fill those executive roles. So when you have someone champing at the bit to take it on, I'm sure she'll get all the support in the world to get her there. More than likely yeah, it's all yours.

Speaker 3 36:03

You know All yours yeah, She'll have been a member for five years by then. Basically She'll be right.

Speaker 1 36:09

Yeah, what a great experience for her, I mean, and to be able to do it together too. I mean, I started Toastmasters years ago with my mum and we both started going to the same club. I think we did that together for about five years. So it's yeah, it's nice when you have another family member who you can share it with. Yeah, yeah, and is there anything else that you would like to share before we wrap up?

Speaker 3 36:38

No, if you're thinking about it, give it a go. It's probably the main thing I'd like to say. Just go along to a meeting. Actually, just don't go along to one meeting, go along to a few meetings. The first meeting you'll leave terrified and but it does get easier and yeah, the difference it can make and the fun you'll have, because usually most meetings are fun I know at our club there. Anyways, you're always happy.

Speaker 2 37:02

You went, yes yes, I've never not regretted I've never regretted going to a toastmasters meeting.

Speaker 1 37:08

You always learn something yes, yeah, very much so um or sal, I've really enjoyed our chat and I'll pop a link to the woodaloo bay club in the show notes. And yeah, and look, thanks so much for the awesome work you're doing and bringing toast masters to kids. It's, it's just setting them off on such an amazing path of confidence. And so all the best with that club and for your contest season and your area director responsibilities for the rest of the year. And yeah, thanks so much for sharing your story today.

Speaker 3 37:47

Thanks, Mel. I've loved being on here. It's been great. Thank you.

Speaker 1 37:53

I'm going to stop recording.