En route to Jericho Beach – Vancouver, BC

Another hiatus week – out for a few days of R&R in British Columbia and Washington State. The flowers are brilliant this time of the year.

Sometimes life is truly serendipitous. I have been avoiding taking the role as timer for our meetings for over a year because 1. I find it rather dull and 2. I prefer to speak. However, the Competent Leadership (CL) manual dictates that eventually I would have to take on this role (I plan to only fill it only as many times as its required in the CL). However, given my state of oral health / recovery from a painful root canal last week, I have absolutely no desire to speak this week and am therefore happy to fill in as timer! It doesn’t hurt that I’ll also be picking up my receipts at the meeting this week to put in for reimbursement at work tomorrow

I had, on occasion, wondered what my employers felt about the long lunch I took every Monday to attend meetings. Finding out that the company was going to reimburse me my membership fees was indeed a pleasant surprise.

I will be absent for the next few weeks on a “capital” adventure of untouched country, fresh air, history, and, of course, planes, trains(?) and automobiles! While most of the logical world might surmise that going somewhere warmer might be more pleasurable, I respectfully disagree, noting that going somewhere colder == an increased warmth in coming home. Given my historical tendency to repeat favoured vacation destinations, Iceland will represent a distinctive break from the ordinary… an expected foray into the extraordinary. Catch you all on the flip side!

Reykjavik, Iceland

Ottawa, Canada (my “ex” home)

Now that I’ve finished my Competent Communicator (CC), I’m enthused to get on to the specialization manuals… but what to choose? I feel like Carrie Bradshaw, trying to select between numrous fabulous pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes. 2 manuals come free, and with the rest at $4.00 a each, I am tempted to just acquire them all.

• The Entertaining Speaker
• Speaking to Inform
• Public Relations
• Specialty Speeches
• Speeches by Management
• The Professional Speaker
• Technical Presentations
• Persuasive Speaking
• Communicating on Television
• Storytelling
• Interpretive Reading
• Interpersonal Communication
• Special Occasion Speeches
• Humorously Speaking

On second thought, perhaps I will just order the ones that I’d have the most fun with. Although I have found Toastmasters to be extremely beneficial in terms of professional development, my original reason for joining was for professional entertainment!

I need an attitude readjustment! Having found myself experiencing some lethargy towards the time involved in preparing and attending meetings, I found my enthusiasm waning towards a fantastic group of people who’s company I enjoy and value. I realize that I have become impatient as opposed to mindful, somewhat resentful as opposed to enthusiastic. These are not the sort of emotions which I care to embody. I think I need to “re-inject” my enthusiasm into the group; I need to simply learn how (once again) to enjoy the meetings for what they are, and to perform whatever role which I am assigned to 100%, rather than plodding through acceptably, with some lethargy. In other words, my club deserves my full participation and effort!

Today, I am the “Ah Counter” – my role is to count “ums and ahs” and all of those pesky little filler words that sneak their way into our conversations (but, and, etc.), and to report on it with the intent of helping others become more mindful in their speaking.

It’s been posted out to me that I often misuse the word “Open” – for example, I will asked if a store is “opened” rather than “open”, even though I consciously know that the latter is correct. It makes me wonder how we begin to butcher and misuse a word – where do these bad little habits begin?

I have never had an issue with the common misuses that I frequently notice in other people – affect vs. effect, their/they’re & your/you’re & its/it’s etc. and yet I cannot seem to conquer my “open” issue. Granted, my examples are usually only obvious in the written word – and stare out at me like a glaring red marker – but I believe they are still of the same beast.

I’m almost certain this is a social idiom – perhaps along the same lines as a person who will say “I seen” instead of “I saw” – which, incidentally, grates my nerves and makes me cringe! Yet, I also recognize this as having a social/familiar/dialect root.