Announcements

Club earns the prestigious President's Distinguished Club recognition

Toastmasters International recognized our club for our acheivements in the 2002-2003 TI year (ended in June 2003) by awarding The Austin Toastmasters the President's Distinguished Club honor. This puts us among the elite clubs in the world, and marks the first time since 1989 that we have earned this honor. Congratulations to our two presidents during this past year, Richard Balius and Paula Shuart, and to all the officers and members who helped make our club so successful.

Under the guidance of Don Garner and Kurt Ruzicka, we are on our way to a Distinguished Club award again.

Club contests every Spring and Fall

Plan early to participate. We plan a Speech and Evaluation contest every Spring and a Humorous Speech and Table Topics contest every Fall. The Spring contest is the local-level requirement for the International Speech Contest. If you don't feel the urge to compete, we need supporting roles such as timekeeper and sergeant-at-arms filled. We also need members to serve as judges at other clubs, so we can have judges at our contests. Please speak to Education VP, Tonja Miller, about participating in any contest. The District 55 website has more information on International Contests.

All-Around Toastmaster Award

A recent addition to our club is the All-Around Toastmaster Award, which can be earned by any member of the Austin Toastmasters Club if that member serves in all eleven roles by the date of our banquet this summer. All a member has to do is fill every role at least one time:

Toastmaster
Topics Master
Speaker
General Evaluator
Evaluator
Grammarian
Videographer
Ah Counter
Vote Counter
Timekeeper
Invocator

A certificate will be presented to each Austin Toastmasters Club member who has earned the award at our annual banquet.

If you made a New Year's Resolution to be more active in Toastmasters this year, this is just the way to do it! The Membership VP, Amy Samet, is keeping track of who fills the roles each week.