When the Thrill is gone

 A recent article in the Toastmasters Leader Letter.   "When the Thrill Is Gone. How to reignite your passion for Toastmasters". By Kate McClare DTM

  There are times when you read something and it just seems to ring true to your own experience at the time.,   This article is very good and if you have not read it I would encourage you to do so later when you have time!   

  In our club, the last several years, we have been through a lot!  The pandemic and all that that entailed,  with us meeting only on zoom and so forth definitely had an effect on membership.   I still think in many ways we are still trying to re-group or recover from all of that mess.  

 Beyond that I think Toastmasters in general is struggling with membership and so forth. This article goes into many thoughts and ideas about what to do to build membership and re-energize . The article talks about different areas of our lives and addresses those very well. IE: Personal Matters, Club Dynamics, and Burnout. 

 All of these areas certainly at one level or another apply to each one of us.   We all have much larger lives than just the few hours a week we are involved in Toastmasters.   

   I would encourage all of us to think about our involvement and in an effort to re-engage focus on what we want to get out off our time together in Toastmasters.   It might be a  simple as  completing a given level in your pathway. Maybe consider preparing a speech for the speech contests coming up.  Look at opportunities to serve at club level or even area or district level.  

   The last thing they talk about in the article is make it fun.     I know the officers have tried to do this with different ideas but we are certainly open to any other ideas you all may have!   One of the ideas in the article was how one club had a joint meeting with another club!   We have done some of that in the past  and I remember that fondly.  It was indeed a lot of fun!   What about us all crashing another clubs meeting!?  A large amount of us just show up maybe   via zoom or in person?  What if that club did the same thing with our meeting?!  I think that could be fun.   

  I will close this post the way the article closed and that is to share this quote from Helen Blanchard, DTM, the first woman to serve as Toastmasters International President: “If you get out of Toastmasters all that there is to get out of Toastmasters, you’ll never get out of Toastmasters.”  

  Link to the article:   https://www.toastmasters.org/magazine/magazine-issues2025/August/When-The-Thrill-Is-Gone