Your Communication Skills Can Thrive

The past year and a half and counting has likely been the most disruptive period in our lives. Toastmasters, a non-profit organization that helps people overcome their fear of public speaking and at the same time develop leadership skills, was greatly impacted as well. Surprisingly, Lincoln-Way Toastmasters continued to thrive during these challenging times.

Pictured above is Chris Boyk who oversaw the overall strategic role and the operations of the 72 Toastmasters clubs in District 54. This district makes up central and northern Illinois except for Chicago and its immediate suburbs.

Prior to March 2020, (pre-COVID-19 shutdown), the vast majority of Toastmasters clubs met in person. After March 2020, if a club wanted to continue to meet, adaptation to a virtual club experience using video conference meetings was required. This was a huge technical undertaking some clubs could not navigate.

Chris by profession is a process improvement consultant. He spearheaded the rapid conversion to virtual club meetings. He set up multiple Zoom accounts while organizing orientation sessions for dozens of clubs and enabled their members to learn how to host Zoom, Teams, GoToMeeting, and Google Meet meetings. This allowed Toastmasters clubs to fulfill their mission in helping individuals meet their personal and professional needs.

Lincoln-Way Toastmasters actually found a way to thrive by adopting to virtual meetings. Lincoln-Way Toastmasters did lose some members who did not like virtual meetings but also started to pick up members who were open to the new normal of virtual meetings. In fact, members started to learn the best practices for virtual meetings such as camera positioning, getting the right lighting, standing for certain presentations, sharing your screen, reading facial expressions in a grid view and other virtual techniques.

Unfortunately, some Toastmasters clubs lost members and closed down due to challenges faced in converting to virtual meetings.

Chris was a transition leader in helping multiple clubs go to a virtual format. As meeting restrictions ease, Chris is working on ways to have hybrid meetings which he pioneered at other clubs in the district. In a hybrid meeting, some meeting attendees will meet in person and others virtually.

This past year, Chris also served as President of Lincoln-Way Toastmasters. It actually turned out to be a very successful year for Lincoln-Way Toastmasters. The club retained memberships, club members reached several educational milestones and 2 members: Andrea Regan and Kris Kizer became district speech champions. Also, for the third year in a row, Lincoln-Way Toastmasters became a President’s Distinguished Club. There are over 16,000 local Toastmasters clubs, less than 5 percent of them make this distinction.

If you want to develop your communication skills both in front of a group or one-on-one, you should attend a Lincoln-Way Toastmasters meeting. Lincoln-Way Toastmasters is a friendly, supportive group with a proven track record of success for its members. Guests are always welcomed to our meetings and you are never under any obligation. Lincoln-Way Toastmasters is non-profit and our membership fees are very nominal. The membership is open to all individuals 18 years or older.

Lincoln-Way Toastmasters meets on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of each month at 7:30 PM. Right now, our meetings are still virtual. When we return to in person meetings, we will meet at the Village Hall in Frankfort, IL. To obtain a Zoom link to one of our meetings, please email Thad Gray at: mail4thad@yahoo.com. Your communication skills can thrive even in these trying times.