A lot has happened in my live over the past few years. This will be a bit of a random/rambling post. I have moved 3 households, sold two houses, and added a new member of my household. My 93 year old father-in-law is spending his last days with us. Becoming a care-giver has became the life of our family. I admit I have not given the needed time to my son's future (22 year old with Autism).. so he spends most of his day watching Anime and playing video games.
I am still in Toastmasters, I went from Sergeant at Arms to Club President and now the VP of Public Relations. Toastmasters is an AWESOME organization, but they are also a very old organizations. They are not TED talks, which I think some people are looking for when they visit our club.
Toastmasters is playing catch up. They have totally expanded their educational program so it allows greater personalization. My hats off to pathways, it is a needed improvement. Some of the members are taking a bit longer to adjust to the new program, which Toastmasters has allowed two years.
So as VP of PR I got off to a slow start, my father-in-law was hospitalized twice and my wife once. I became too stressed out to have any creativity. I haven't given a speech or written in my blog since my father-in-law has moved in. A few weeks ago, that all changed..the doctor recommended Hospice for my father-in-law. Surprisingly I welcome the help, I know that it means he is getting closer to the end of his journey.. but it is a fact that we have all accepted.
Our club membership has dropped from 22 to 10, we have enlisted the help of a club coach. I feel in part that it is a failure of me not doing my job to draw people in.
Starting a week before Thanksgiving, I decided to jump into the PR thing with both feet. I have made websites that stayed on the top 10 of search engines, I created clubs with 100s of members. The problem was, they died when I moved on. I am taking what I leaned and applying it to Toasting Excellence.
Web Page. The website looked like something made in 1990, optimized for Netscape. It was also hard to manage. My upgrade to a Wordpress site is still a bit dated in appearance (2010 look) but offers so many more features. http://excellence.toastmost.org
Social Media. We do have Facebook and Twitter accounts. To make us more visible I added MeetUp and LinkedIn. I also posted our meeting information on Graigslist.
We may be adding live video conferencing, testing Skype currently.
I am working on adding links to other local clubs and having them reciprocate. Toastmasters is a powerful organizations, if I can help build connections to help us move as one.. all of our clubs will benefit.
I feel my life is starting to get on track to start working on my personal improvement again. I hope to have less random blog posts and more detailed post on what is working (or not working) and forward planning.
My current goals are:
* Make sure my father-in-law feels loved and is comfortable as he reaches the end of his journey
* Build exposure and membership in my local Toastmasters club
* Find a program that will assist my son into becoming more independent.
* Continue to be a true public servant as I continue working for the state government.
* Find time to start dating my wife again.
Check back to see how I did and maybe offer some tips.
