Great experiences made for a winning weekend
I didn’t win. But I sure had fun. The Toastmasters District 6 Fall Conference was held last weekend in Rochester. The Fall Conference is also where the finals of Toastmasters’ annual Humorous Speech Contest take place, and this year, I made it to the final round of competition. I had fun giving my speech, and I think I did a good job delivering it. It got a lot of laughs and applause, and people were nodding and smiling as I [...]
Learning and enjoying the language of dance
Her name is Deb Lysholm, and dance has always been an important part of her life. She learned – and loved – to tap dance as a child. Later, teaching dance classes brought her joy as well as income. Dance became her refuge and her escape during 23 years in a violently abusive marriage. And when she was working to rebuild her shattered life, she started to dream of building and running her own dance studio. Virtually everyone told her [...]
Cameras and courtesy provide common language
“Un…deux…trois.” English translation: “Say cheese.” That was the context, anyway, one afternoon last week as I stood near the waterfront, smiling and waiting for the woman with the camera to snap the shutter. I was in Barcelona, Spain, at the Mediterranean port where Christopher Columbus launched his journey to the new world. The location was both scenic and historic, and many of the people in the area were tourists taking pictures. I saw a young couple who were taking turns [...]
Enjoying a new view, both night and day
I set my alarm extra early one morning last week, so I could see the stellar event I’d been reading about: the “blood moon” and eclipse that had been scheduled for the wee hours of the morning. The eclipse was interesting to watch, but the deep red color the moon was supposed to be didn’t live up to its hype. That’s okay, though. Just the act of getting up to see it made me think – as these events always [...]
Learn to help, heal, comfort and inspire with the power of your story
Whenever I meet someone new, I enjoy chatting with them as we share basic information about ourselves and learn a little more about each other. Depending on where we are, and the circumstances of our meeting, this might consist of where we’re from, what kind of work we do, our family background or demographics, and what brought us to the place or event where we met each other. More often than not, there will come a point – either at [...]
“Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
That’s not a pick-up line. Well, actually, it can be, but that’s not what was on my mind when I was introduced last week to someone who looked very familiar, though I couldn’t quite place where I knew her from. She had the same reaction I did. “We’ve met before,” she said, “but I’m not sure where.” For the rest of the evening, we tried – unsuccessfully – to determine where it was that we knew each other from. The [...]