What are the opening hours?

Monday 9am - 5pm Tuesday 9am - 5pm Wednesday 9am - 5pm Thursday 9am - 4pm Friday 9am - 5pm Saturday 10am - 4pm Sunday 10am - 11am

Oak Park Toastmasters

Home
United States
Oak Park, IL
Oak Park Toastmasters

Toastmasters is a non-profit organization which gives its members the opportunity to develop and imp

06/29/2019

At our June 27 meeting, the arrangement of the room was different - we were sitting at the tables facing each other. It worked - some guests felt more relaxed when they introduced themselves. Thank you, Hector Valencia and Deidria Davis for joining us. Some old guest and members came back and we had a great meeting.

Joe McCarty was the Toastmaster. He announced a vote for the new board of officers:

He will be replacing Julie Wakeman as the club President.

Huan Tran will be Vice President for Education

Almetris Snolligan will be Vice President for Membership, replacing Jennifer Ellis

Tracy Cooper will be Vice President for PR, replacing Nonna Working.

Chaffee Benson will be Secretary.

There are two more positions to fill in - Treasurer and Sargent-in-Arms.

Chaffee Benson gave a fantastic Icebreaker about her life lessons from being a twin. The speech was well composed and well delivered. No Crutch words. Congratulations, Chaffee!

Russell Working gave a speech about how people leave wishes for their funerals. This was a profound eulogy commemorating the death of his friend.

Scott Clark was a great Table Topics Master - he chose interesting topics for the contest, including the one about what other careers would you choose in life. Russell Working won that contest.

Winners of the June 27 meeting: Chaffee Benson - Best Icebreaker/Best Speaker, Russell Working - Best Table Topics.

06/15/2019

At our meeting on June 13, we had a few new guests: Melody Hartzog, her sister Trina Hartzog, Trina's husband David Clairborne. Thank you, Jackie Doherty and Cindy Handwerker for bringing a friend, Judy Neuber. Also from Wheeling came Zaliya Mallard, Nonna Working's fellow Russian.

Huan Tran was the Toastmaster for the first time and did a great job, Rahul Handa - Master Grammarian, Russell Working - Table Topics Master.

Almetris Snolligan gave a fantastic Icebreaker about growing up in the family of 11 kids in the West side of Chicago, avoiding all the dangers of the area and becoming the first college graduate in the family and a successful educator. Congratulations, Almetris! Your story was amazing and inspirational. We are looking forward to more speeches from you.

Table Topics contest was fun, as always. Russell offered a variety of questions. The funniest response came from our guest, David Claiborne. He chose the topic "The worst punishment for you is - (blank)." Naturally, for someone who was called to speak publicly and was very nervous, the worst punishment was exactly that experience. However, out of this misery, David pulled out a victory. Great job, David! We want you to come back and speak more.

Winners of the June 13, 2019 meeting: Almetris Snolligan - the best Icebreaker, David Clairborne - the Best Table Topics Speaker.

05/24/2019

hank you, our new guests, for joining us at our May 23 meeting: Karl Van Roenn, Pete Nowicki, Aldo Hinojosu. Our old member, Bill Burns, came too and was a great Table Topics Master. His question "What was the scariest thing that happened to you which was actually funny?" caused a lively response: everybody had a terrifying experience that afterward causes laughs. Jackie Doherty's story about being nearly killed by a banana boat in the Bahamas was the winner.

Huan Tran gave a speech about the types of leadership. We gave him a group evaluation.

Martha Smith was a Toastmaster of the day and she gave us a wonderful invocation about following your curiosity rather than your passion.

Winners of the May 23 meeting: Huan Tran - the Best Speaker, Jackie Doherty - the Best Table Topics Speaker.

04/27/2019

Congratulations to our new member, Chaffee Benson! Thank you for joining the club.

At our April 25 meeting, members, who visited the Toastmasters' District 103 conference on April 13, shared their opinions about this inspiring event. We learned that Joe McCarthy, our club's future President, is now on the District 103 Board, in charge of education. Congratulations, Joe! We are looking forward to your new ideas and effective leadership.

Rahul Handa was our Table Topics Master for the meeting. All our guests - Simone, Diane, and Ramona - participated in our Table Topics contest.

The Best Table Topics Speaker: Huan Tran.

04/20/2019

We enjoyed the annual Toastmasters conference (district 103) on Saturday, April 13. Met old friends, listen to inspirational speeches. Took photos with the World Champion of Public Speaking 2018, Ramona J. Smith:

04/12/2019

Lots of fun, as always - at our Aprill 11 meeting in the Veterans' room. Joe McCarty was the Toastmaster, Russell Working - Table Topics Master, Tracy Cooper - Invocator.

Huan Tran is rapidly improving his speaking skills - we all enjoyed his speech about challenges of the English language for non-native speakers. His elegant humor and the personal story were touching our hearts.

Our new guests - Chaffee Benson and Burt Blanchard took an active part in the meeting. Chaffee even won the Best Table Topics contest. Congratulations, Chaffee! Your story was very powerful - we'll all remember it.

Winners of the April 11 meeting:

The Best Speaker - Huan Tran, The Best Evaluator - Jennifer Ellis, The Best Table Topics Speaker - Chaffee Benson:

03/15/2019

At our March 14 meeting, we enjoyed an amazing icebreaker from Eugene Terrell Jr. This was an inspiring story of overcoming abuse and getting confidence in creating your own personality. Congratulations, Eugene! We want to hear more speeches from you. You definitely have a talent for public speaking.

Huan Tran was fabulous as the Toastmaster and Table Topics Master - it was his first time, but it showed his great potential as a leader. He developed a fun style of introducing speakers and commenting on the topics.

Our President, Julie Wakeman, gave an educational speech about the major member roles at meetings (Toastmaster, Evaluator, and Table Topics Master).

We had a few new and old guests. Congratulations and thanks to Jackie Wallen, who not only brought two friends to the meeting but also joined the club!

We thank our guests - Kim, James, Julie, Melinda, Shumeca, Jade, and Shantel - for joining us. We hope to see you again.

As always, the Table Topics competition was great fun. And guess what? A guest won it again. Congratulations to Jade Bryant - her speech about running over a neighbor's cat was hilariously funny.

Here are our winners of the meeting: Eugene Terrell - Best Icebreaker Speech, Jade Bryant - Best Table Topics Speech

03/02/2019

Club member wins second prize in the Area 52 Humorous Speech Contest! Congratulations to Nonna Working - her speech "Universal perils of motherhood" was the second best at the competition held in Oak Park, Dole branch of the library on March 2, 2019.

Special thanks to the support group - July Wakeman, Martha Smith, Huan Tran, and Russell Working who came to root for Nonna. She got helpful feedback at our last meeting on February 28 both from club members and new guests. Welcome, Diana, Mark, Jackie, and Moses. We hope you enjoyed our meeting and will come back again.

At the meeting, Russell Working was the Toastmaster and Invocator, Cindy Handwerker was the timer, Martha Smith - Master Grammarian, Huan Tran - evaluator. It was great to see our old friend Joe MacCarty, who was General Evaluator. Yasmeen Abdullah did a great job as the able Topics Master - it was her first time in the leadership role.

Again, a new guest won the Best Table Topics Speech competition. Jackie Wallen was unanimously voted as the winner. She told us a powerful and moving story and did it in a graceful way. No one could tell she was scared of public speaking. Congratulations, Jackie!

02/15/2019

On February 14, we celebrated the Valentine's with a box of Baci chocolates - each had a message which we used as a Table Topic. Russell Working was a Table Topics Master.

Despite a smaller crowd (of course, everybody else went out with their significant ones), we had a relaxed fun meeting.

Toastmasters Area Director, Jay Shepherd, visited us to listen to Nonna Working's speech as she prepares it for a Humorous Speech Contest. It will be held on March 2 in the Dole branch of the Oak Park Public Library. The club members and guests gave Nonna their feedback so that she could improve her speech.

Congratulations to our Table Topics contest winner, Cindy Handwerker! That was a moving and well-delivered speech. Great start! We hope you'll continue to improve and get full confidence as a public speaker.

01/26/2019

We thought nobody would show up for this meeting - the weather forecast was really bad, but we were wrong. So many new guests came and we had a blast. One of the best meetings ever!

Our club is growing. Congratulations to our new members - Yasmeen Abdullah, Eugene Terrell, Jackie Doherty, Cindy Handwerker. Welcome back, our old member, Bill Byrnes!

Special thanks to all the guests who joined us on January 24: Rafe, Vinny, Daniela, Cindy, Jackie, Shantel and our old member, Bill.

Julie Wakeman was the Toastmaster, Tracy Cooper - General Evaluator, Roy Meza - Master Grammarian.

Russell Working did a great job as a Table Topics Master. Many guests participated and the contest was real fun. Everybod had a great time.

Winners of January 24, 2019 contests: Rafe Christman - Best Table Topics Speaker, Nonna Working - Best Speaker, Martha Smith - Best Evaluator.

01/12/2019

Welcome to the New Year of the Toastmaster challenge! The first meeting of 2019 was quite lively. Thank you, our new guests: Yasmeen, Jackie, Eugene, Cindy and Katie.

We had two speaches this time. Russell Working spoke about the importance of raching our to people who are important to you and those you are important to. Jennifer Ellis gave a lovely description on how she had to move to Oak Park from her beloved Chicago, but gradually discovered its beautiful sides and started appreciating it.

Club President Julie Wakeman was the Toastmaster and Grammarian, Martha Smith - general evaluator. Scott Clark did a great job with his first evaluation.

Almetris Snulligan brought her daughter, Katie, to the meeting. She was great as a Table Topics Master of the evening. Guess what? Her daughter, Katie, won the contest. Must be something in the genes.Congratulations to both!

Here are the winners of the January 10, 2019 contests:

Nonna Working - Best Evaluator, Katie Stanley - Best Table Topic Speaker, Russell Working - Best Speaker

11/10/2018

Our meeting on November 8 was a great success! Almetris Snulligan did a fantastic job as a Table Topic Master - she chose great questions about leadership. It was her first time in such a role, but she made it so much fun that almost all our guests participated.

Congratulations to Katie Fairchild with reaching her goal. She gave her tenth speech at the last meeting and became a Competent Communicator. We all are very proud of you, Katie!

Huan Tran made a great progress too. His speech about bee keeping was well structured and captivating. We are looking forward to hearing more speeches on the topics are members are passionate about.

Special thanks to our new guests: Eugene Terrell, Pete Nowicki, Sean Graham, Rocio Sisco, Lauren Carey and Michael Carey for joining us at the meeting. We hope you'll come back.

Winners of the December 8, 2018 meeting: Scott Clark - The Best Table Topics, Nonna Working - the Best Evaluator, Huan Tran - the Best Speaker.

Address

834 Lake St
Oak Park, IL
60301

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 4pm
Friday	9am - 5pm
Saturday	10am - 4pm
Sunday	10am - 11am

Telephone

+17082150606

Website

http://www.oakparktoastmasters.org/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Oak Park Toastmasters posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to Oak Park Toastmasters:

Shortcuts

Address
Telephone
Opening Hours
Alerts
Contact The Organization
Claim ownership or report listing

Want your organization to be the top-listed Non Profit Organization in Oak Park?