Arduous was the Valley Toastmasters’ word of the day last Tuesday, and it seemed fitting.<\/p>\n
The meeting included awards recognizing several long journeys. Three members received Competent Communicator pins for many months of preparation, speeches and 6:15 a.m. meetings, and one Toastmaster attained the public speaking and leadership group’s highest award — Distinguished Toastmaster.<\/p>\n
District Director Joanna DeSantos was in town from Ketchikan to recognize the club members’ achievements.<\/p>\n
Joyce Vick, who has been a Toastmaster for more than 11 years, was the recipient of the Distinguished Toastmaster medal.<\/p>\n
“I’m releived,” Vick said. “I’ve worked so hard for it. It’s kind of the ultimate goal for a Toastmaster.”<\/p>\n
She said her desire to achieve the rank became a specific goal during a Toastmasters conference in Malaysia, where she encountered others with the rank.<\/p>\n
Ultimately earning the rank required delivering more than 50 speeches over the years.<\/p>\n
Vick said she’d have difficulty picking an all-time favorite speech.<\/p>\n
“I love them all,” Vick said. “There isn’t one I haven’t enjoyed speaking.”<\/p>\n
Although, she said the first speech she had to give — known as the icebreaker — was probably her least favorite.<\/p>\n
While it was mostly enjoyable, Vick said attaining the rank still took dogged detirmination.<\/p>\n
“It’s presistance,” she said. “You keep doing things that make you a little uncomfortable.”<\/p>\n
Other club members gushed about Vick, and one joked she wanted to “be like Joyce” when she grows up.<\/p>\n
Club President Jenn Berger and several others particularly noted Vick’s enthusiasm .<\/p>\n
“The word that comes to mind for me is vibrance,” Berger said. “Not only does it seem like you’re always having fun, but that you’re having a blast.”<\/p>\n
Vick returned the compliments.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s a great group of selfless people,” Vick said.<\/p>\n
Other awards<\/strong><\/p>\n Berger, who has been a Toastmaster for two years, was one of the trio who rose to the rank of Competent Communicator.<\/p>\n The other two members to do so were Chip Wisner, the club’s Sargeant at Arms, and Mark Stauffer.<\/p>\n Berger, Wisner and Stauffer all said they joined Toastmasters to improve their public speaking skills.<\/p>\n Unlike Vick, the Competent Communicators all said their favorite speech was the icebreaker, even though it was difficult.<\/p>\n “It’s hard to share the layers of your real self,” Berger said.<\/p>\n But, Berger Wisner and Stauffer said things gradually improved.<\/p>\n “Each time it got easier and easier,” Wisner said.<\/p>\n The meeting itself<\/strong><\/p>\n In addition to handing out awards, the Toastmasters conducted business as usual.<\/p>\n That meant a prompt start, warm up talks featuring attempts to weave in the word of the day, a pair of speeches and some constructive feedback.<\/p>\n There was hardly an idle moment in the hour-long meeting that was attended by about a dozen coffee-clutching Toastmasters and guests.<\/p>\n Berger said attendance was slightly stronger than usual, and the club hopes to continue to grow.<\/p>\n “I hope people will consider trying out a meeting,” she said.<\/p>\n The Valley Toastmasters meet every Tuesday meeting at St. Paul’s Community Hall, 9055 Atlin Drive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Arduous was the Valley Toastmasters’ word of the day last Tuesday, and it seemed fitting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":474,"featured_media":36351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[73],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-36350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-ccw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/474"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36350"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=36350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}