Transitions

For 4 1/2 years I've served in the same post for the Peace Speakers Toastmasters Club at the Presbyterian Center as I did briefly for my Toastmasters club in St. Paul - as Vice President for Education. I've planned the educational programs for almost every one of the twice-monthly meetings, actually led plenty of the programs, oriented new members, and taken on many responsibilities. The club's activity level has ebbed and flowed - and recently flowed - with some half a dozen new members joining in the past six months - and - with my would-be stroke, my promotion, and so on - I resolved in January to step down when my term was up June 30. I set up programs for the six months and tried run things more on auto-pilot and also tried to involve other officers and members in programming - which is good for everyone and good for the club. For more on the club, see one of my other blogs at: http://peacespeakerstoastmasters.blogspot.com/ . Wednesday two weeks ago was my last official meeting as VP for Education. I was part of a slate of officers elected - this time as VP for Public Relations - which includes what I've done with the blog. I hope to also construct a club Web site and brochure. So I'll be transitioning to a new role and lessened role within the club. Toastmasters has been critical for the belated success I occasionally had in the classroom, as well as success in job interviews and making presentations (like Monday, June 15, to the Review of the PC(USA) as a Whole committee and like tomorrow with an Environmental working group at work). A Stewardship Minute talk I gave at church in late October - whose text was on the blog - was a classic Toastmasters speech, and I personally believe that this speech was - if indirectly - important for me clinching my promotion at work. Late last week I was scheduled to meet with the incoming VP Education, Eric, and in preparation for this I went through a huge stack of Toastmasters materials in my office. I recycled a bunch of stuff, put in a box a stack of stuff for Eric, kept a few things to keep in my office, and brought a few things home. The only diploma/certificate-type item I have in my office right now is my Toastmasters Competent Communication program completion certificate. Friday I lunched with Eric, talked about responsibilities, and then turned over the box to him. Once upon a time - since we had no VCR that worked as a recorder - we asked Mom to record and mail stuff for us. Mom recorded John Edward's 2004 Democratic Natoinal Convention speech - which I only heard on the radio a bit while i was diriving from Illinois to Louisvlile - and we later watched this at a Toastmasters meeting as an example of a spech by an experienced speaker. The most recent time we've watched a speech like this was Governor Sarah Palin's speech when Senator McCain announced her as his running mate - except for then we turned over a new life, and watched it projected from YouTube - instead of with a VHS tape like this one (pictured above) that Mom and made and mailed to me. Another kind of transition took place for our family when I was cleaning out materials in the upstairs alcove, which has become an extra storage space for items I'm trying to keep closest to me. For a second time, Vincent had received materials from colleges - mainly from nearby colleges we had looked at - but occasionally from his ACT and SAT scores - from as far away as New York state's NYU and Skidmore - and we'd also accumulated standardized test review materials that we occasionally got him to use. The math study did not improve his ACT math score and the unusual circumstances of his SAT test did not promote a good score. Trying to sort materials: I kept two valuable test review books to take to Goodwill, and I kept in a file a few materials from a school Vincent might really go to - Indiana University Southeast - Otherwise, I took all the materials to recycling later in the week.

Speaking of college, we're pretty sure Vincent is going to get timed out of one of two dual-enrollment high school-college classes he's currently enrolled on-line. Stephanie has said Vincent will have to exit our house if he gets timed out (and conceivably kicked out of the school). I suspect I'll push for us to have him take the GED pretest and if he does well at that and gets a job and pays us medical debts and $100 monthly rent (and cleans his room and does his laundry), he can stay - Target is re-opening a bigger store early this fall. But that's an awful lot of ifs and as much as we sometimes enjoy having Vincent around, it's not clear it makes sense for us to support him ad nauseam if he's basically on a permanent vacation/retirment (besides tinkering with one class maybe 30-60 minutes a day four days a week and occasionally doing laundry). Good news early in the week: Stephanie also got her renewed IN teaching license - which she had worried she would have to take classes for or was applying for too late - which she now needs to get to her school district office (along with taking care of one more detail).

-- Perry