Jack C High Toastmasters Club Idaho Falls, Idaho

6/12/2020

I didn’t realize it would be so hard to get to Idaho.  As Steve and I travel to these clubs all over the states, we find some clubs make it very easy to get to their zoom meetings and some club make it very hard to get to.  They may not have their link on their website so you have to go searching for it somewhere.  They may have a link but no password so he spends much of his time sending emails but getting no response.  The original club we were going to visit in Idaho had similar barriers.  We finally got to the meeting and waited and waited and waited.  It was past time for the meeting to start and still Steve and I were the only ones there.  This club has no website.  Steve connected with them through meetup. I did notice they had a current facebook page so I joined to see what was going on.  We both tried to make a connection with someone to find out where everyone was.  Steve finally heard back on meetup that the club decided not to meet anymore “pause their meetings” on zoom because some members didn’t like it.  No one ever responded to me on facebook.

 

Jack C High was our next club to try to visit in Idaho.  We arrived 15 minutes early for the meeting and were pleasantly surprised to see smiling faces conversing with each other.  They greeted us enthusiastically.  They have 20 members on the rolls but only 9 in attendance.  They began on time.  One thing I really loved about this club is they embraced this new way of meeting online with vigor.  They used chat almost as much as my home club does, although my club has been accused of using it too much.  This is probably fair, because my club has a few overachievers and don’t do anything half way.  “Sharon” chatted during the meeting and told Steve she loved his accent and “Mira” chatted that she loved my Table Topics answer and the story I told. I really liked the personal touch.

 

Since there were only 9 members present, they doubled up on some roles. For example, a speaker also served as an evaluator for another speaker and the Toastmaster of the day also served as timer.  Steve and I would have been happy to shoulder some of the roles if asked.  I think this is something clubs with low attendance might want to consider.  Also it might be interesting to be evaluated from someone you have never gotten an evaluation from before just to get a different perspective.

 

All in all, it was a very friendly and welcoming group and we were glad to finally get to a club in Idaho.