By Najaf Dostaliyev Club Leads Chair
It was 9:00 am on Saturday July 8th, and like me, many other enthusiastic D25 members and guests were eager to join the online meeting. This was a celebratory morning at D25, as it was the first Toastmasters meeting of the 2023/24 year. Everyone was excited to join and celebrate this special occasion, with the blend of learning and improving together. Sheltering from the heat was also a blessing.
Right at 8:59:59, the all-powerful Zoom master opened the doors to the kingdom to allow the PATIENTLY waiting Toastmasters to enter. Happiness replaced the action of passively staring at a computer screen!
Immediately, I heard the voices of the new Trio warmly welcoming all to the room. Everyone was happily talking and greeting members who just joined, and among them were the first-time officers, ADs, Division Directors and others. I lost count of how many joined but I do remember my screen showing 25 members per page, and I had three pages of Zoom stretching from Fort Worth to Little Elm to Frisco. JD made an announcement proclaiming he wanted to start a new club, and he would give free food to those who would come and visit the next Saturday morning at his place. Yes, he mentioned the food!
At 9:30, Emily, our new DD opened the TLI session enthusiastically sharing her vision of sunshine for the district and embraced everyone by asking questions to learn about others. Jesse and Phylliss shared an image of a driver’s seat of a vehicle and welcomed everyone ‘on the bus’, letting all know that they had the opportunity to drive and lead with positivity. I’m not sure if the image was from a Tesla or an RV, but the driver’s seat seemed very comfortable to be in!
Brandi Wesley and Kelsey Dean oversaw running the TLI ship, and behind the scenes, they recruited talented TLI facilitators (yours truly included) to come on board and assist during the meeting. They made a plan, executed it with grace, and had a variety of TLI sessions from the President to the SAA, with three supplemental trainings for those wanting more. Jesse, Brandi, and Kelsey conducted a great TLI session from the morning until afternoon.
This was a great TLI session! I heard rumors about an ‘unknown’ Toastmaster that expertly conducted the Secretary training (wink,wink). This was a fun TLI session with lots of updates and new initiatives by Phylliss and by D25’s amazing leaders.
