A trend today in many professions is a stronger emphasis on quality and accountability in all forms. Knowledge and talent have their place, but many understand that a strong command of communications and leadership skills will separate the group of most successful practitioners from the rest in their industry. Where can we exercise our command of written communications while at the same time helping fellow Toastmasters?

We believe that we have another opportunity in Toastmasters and another "safe space" to grow as communicators and leaders in the spirit of the Toastmasters Promise. We can use online resources and volunteer time and effort to extend our "laboratory time" beyond the meeting,to practice good communication and leadership skills as we report stories that support our club mission and our District mission?
 

FEATURE IDEAS AVAILABLE
 
Check the list of story ideas below that are in search of writers. Before writing a feature from start to finish, please get in touch and (1.) propose an approach to how you think the story should be covered, and (2.) a self-imposed check-in deadline for the first draft.

The list below is just for starters. Got an idea not listed here? Great! Get in touch (Steps 1 and 2 above).

• Your experience as...
  • A new club member
  • An Icebreaker speaker
  • A speech contestant
  • A club officer nominee
  • Any officer in Toastmasters
• How an article in The Toastmaster magazine became particularly helpful or relevant to you or your club

ADDITIONAL GUIDANCE

• For those who wish to embrace grammar and spelling with enthusiastic passion, we would like to suggest that you use reference works and a style guide familiar to you. If you don't care about spelling and grammar, that's absolutely fine also. (Just so everyone knows: We reserve the right to edit all postings, and while our primary intent is to support the District mission, we also want to help you be more effective as a communicator online. We may edit your submission directly or store both your original and our revision(s).)
• For your feature, propose a title that's snappy, or just a "working title" if your snappy-maker is on the fritz. Some stories can be told 100 different ways by 100 different people and each is still worth sharing.
• Regarding a copyright statement, if your work is original and if a copyright statement is important to you, then include it at the END of your text. Identify the copyright owner (a person's full name is OK, it does not have to be a company) and include a "Used with permission" statement. Some may argue that all that is unnecessary, but why not be safe instead of sorry, right? If you are absolutely, one-hundred-percently sure that you care not in the slightest about the commercial value of your writing, then it's probably OK to omit the copyright statement.

Copyright © 2009 by Harmonie Technical Communications, LLC. Used with permission.