Please note: The Early in the DAE Toastmasters Club is a “closed” corporate club, in that it is only open to UBC Development and Alumni Engagement portfolio employees, or DAE affiliate employees. (If you don’t know what that is, it’s probably not you. Sorry. If that does describe you, then read on.)
The club began as a germ of an idea in Christie Goode’s labyrinthine mind. She used to belong to a downtown Vancouver Toastmasters club with strong speakers, and after hearing some of Phil Gerard’s hopes & goals for the DAE people development plan, she thought Toastmasters might be a good fit.
So she made the case to Phil that Toastmasters is:
- An amazing opportunity to develop communication skills – not just public speaking, but also training in simply arranging our thoughts to share in meetings, speaking spontaneously, etc.
- Excellent training in giving constructive feedback in non-offensive ways.
- An opportunity for cross-portfolio relationships to build (and not in a cheesy “social event” type of way, but in a real, let’s-work-together-and-encourage-each-other-to-reach-our-goals kind of way).
- Fun. (Yes, it turns out we laugh a lot. Cheryl’s office is right next to the Boardroom – you can ask her.)
- A chance to learn more about each others’ personal quirks and interests (through speeches and stories).
- A venue where we learn how to be vulnerable and mutually supportive in our professional context. (OMG, did I just say that? Am I allowed to admit I don’t have it all together and that I get super nervous? Shhhh.)
- Phil agreed, so we tossed it out there, and low and behold LOTS of colleagues were interested, (some even had it in their pro-D goals already!) and we were off to the races. That was January 2011, and we had our first actual meeting Thursday February 3rd.
We now have 28 members and about 16-20 of us meet every Thursday at 7:55am (yes, A.M.) in the DSB boardroom. But sometimes we do wild and audacious (wink, wink) things like hold our meeting at the Chan Centre and pretend we are Al Gore bringing our message to the world.
Want to join us? Talk to our fearless VP Membership, or any of the rest of the TM Exec, or anyone else you know who comes.
What the heck – you could even just show up. We’ll just smile and say, “Hey, great to have you here.”
