Toastmaster Magazine Reading Gathering in November

I've never felt happier attending our monthly toastmaster magazine reading gathering before. I just came back from one-month solo traveling in Japan. It felt great to be back in Taipei, to be among the warm and passionate golden ladies.

Lydia invited us to her mansion for a pot-luck dinner for our toastmaster magazine reading gathering in November. Michelle bought a huge box of assorted sushi on her way back from Yi-lan. Irene spent hours making curry chicken. Trini prepared stired fried cucumber and sweet and sour cabbage. Lydia made a huge pot of beef soup. The dinner table was decorated with delicious home made dishes. The strong and warm sensation of homecoming from the cold country to our north was beyond description.

At dinner, Trini, the Incumbent Division C Governor and Co-chair of D67 Spring Convention 2008, solicited our support of an extra educational workshop by the keynote speaker Rory Vaden before the Convention. With no reservations, I volunteered myself immediately that I would escort Toastmaster Vaden if needed. The other golden ladies jumped at my proposal and asked for a share of the privilege to accompany the young and handsome 1st runner up of 2007 World Championship of Public Speaking.

In stead of studying three articles Lydia assigned, Some "Free" Advice by John Cadley, page 16; Political Communication: The Power to Change the World by Linda McGurk, page 22; and YouTube Your Way to Better Speaking by Carmine Gallo, page 26 for two hours, we cut it short to less than 30 minutes. The first article was about shopping, and we didn't know what it had to do with toastmasters. The 2nd and 3rd articles are valuable reference articles if we could spend more time reading all the citations.

Harry Fong, the better half of Lydia, joined us for dinner after attending the autumn excursion with China Toastmasters Club members to Chu-ming Gallery in Jin-shan. We were happy to have him with us for a pleasant talk. A heavy-weight toastmaster, he mentioned about Michael Porter's "Strategy", the essence is to make a choice. I thought of Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken on my way home. I need no strategy to get home, because there is only one way!