Women L.E.A.D. Toastmasters

February 21, 2024 The theme for our Open House this week was Community Service. Ramya gave a prepared speech titled ‘Paralysis by Analysis’ explaining how not to overthink. She emphasized how to be empathetic to ourselves and practice self-love to embrace life as it comes. “No amount of grief can change the past and no amount of…

February 14, 2024 We celebrated friendship for our Valentine’s Day meeting. Toastmaster Helen introduced our meeting theme, “My Best Friend.” Several members’ friends joined as guests. In “Are you a perfectionist?” Gail gave us clear examples of when perfectionism goes too far, and how it can be used positively.  Akila shared “Prudent Choices,” and encouraged…

February 7, 2024 Kudos to all participants in the Women L.E.A.D. international speech contest and evaluation contest. Congratulations to Jagan Kaja on winning the International Speech Contest! For our Evaluation Contest, Snehitha Bassa, Jagan Kaja, Akila Nagamani, Chandana Srinivasa, Gloria Kao, Ramya Radhakrishnan all participated. Congratulations to the the winners of the Evaluation Contest!1st Place:…

January 31, 2024 The theme of our January 31 meeting was “Star Power.” Abhijeet Joshi and Lindy MacLaine conducted an interactive workshop on “Evaluate with Empathy” to prepare our Toastmasters for the upcoming evaluation contest. They emphasized the importance of “Radical Candor” during evaluation, which stimulates the maximum desirable change in the speaker. The workshop…

January 24, 2024 Photo by Vlad Hilitanu on Unsplash The theme for our January 24 meeting was Team Building. Our Word of the Day from Grammarian Helen was “Consensus.” We enjoyed 3 speeches: Vaibhav shared his engaging Icebreaker, “Breaking the Ice in the English Lab: My College Adventure.” Ramona inspired us to bravely use our…

January 17, 2024 In our January 17 meeting, Dennis Dawson delivered a workshop on Storytelling. He walked us through what not to do (ramble), and the key elements of a story (a series of challenges each overcome, culminating with the story’s crux, and denouement; plus character development/transformation in this process. He answered our members questions.…

January 10, 2024 Our theme for our January 10 meeting was Confidence.  Our word of the day was Ebullient, meaning high spirited, or showing liveliness or confidence. Anushree shared thoughts on leadership styles and what makes a good leader. We learned about the different leadership styles and the ways to adapt to different leadership styles…

January 3, 2024 Our theme for the first meeting of the year was Fresh Start. Preetha shared a Leader profile of Claudia Goldin, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Her work includes investigation of women’s economics and the gender pay gap. Priya shared “Networking in the modern world!” with her DARE framework for networking:…

December 20, 2023 Our theme for our December 20 meeting was Winter Solstice. ❄️ Akila Nagamani started the meeting with a Leader Profile of Taylor Swift. She was inspired by Taylor Swift’s resilience as a young artist and the community of Swifties. 🎵 We played a creative game of white elephant 🐘 as a hybrid…