Washington Park Toastmasters Celebrates 5-Year Anniversary with International Flair

“You express the truth of your character, dedication to your goals, and your commitment to your relationship with the choice of your actions” – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Washington Park Toastmasters (Club Number 01345063) began in 2009 as an idea by Seema Kashyap. She reached out to a number of interested Audible, Inc. employees and held an informational meeting explaining what Toastmasters was and enlisting enough support to charter as a new club. As charter member Gary Couitt, ACG, ALB recalls, “I told a colleague that I was going to the meeting just to support Seema and that I would be back in 10-minutes. I walked out an hour later Vice President of Education.” Gary currently serves as the District 83 Secretary.

Although we enjoy the generous support of Audible, we made a conscious decision to remain a community club. This has given us a diverse membership, which currently includes members from Audible, Rutgers, as well as others in the community. With the support of our Club Mentor Rochelle Joyner, DTM and from Joe Ann Shaeffers, DTM the club quickly took root and flourished. As a result of all these factors, we have a wide age-range of members and have new members and guests attending all the time.

As part of the larger community, Washington Park Toastmasters has participated in the Area and Division contests. This year our Sergeant at Arms, Ioanna Malandrenias, competed in the Division A Table Topics contest, as well as last year, and our club Secretary, Taj Shareef, won second place in the Division A Humorous Speech Contest. You can read more about Taj and Ioanna’s experience during the first two rounds here.

Additionally, we have earned awards in the Distinguished Club Program each year since – Distinguished (2009, 2013), Select Distinguished (2014), and President’s Distinguished (2011, 2012) – and have set our sights on earning President’s Distinguished again this year.

Realizing that Toastmasters International is not just the local club but a worldwide organization, members My’Chal T. Wilkins, CC and Alexander Uy planned out 5-year anniversary celebration with an international theme. Recognizing that Toastmasters serves as the glue that brings us together from different cultures and areas of the world with the objective to become better leaders and better speakers and that we have been fortunate enough to have members who were born or grew up in number of countries, My’Chal and Alexander arranged for food representing Asia, North America, The Caribbean and Italy as part of the celebration. Topping this off were matching chocolate and crème-frosted cakes decorated with “Washington Park Toastmasters” and “5th Year Anniversary Word of the Day.” Needless to say, the cakes did not last for long.

Washington Park Toastmasters meets Fridays from Noon to 1pm on the 15th Floor of 1 Washington Park in Newark, NJ. Join us in person or follow us on Facebook. Whether as evaluator, timer, Toastmaster or speaker – our commitment is to become better speakers, listeners, and leaders.

Written by,

My’chal T Wilkins, CC