楊博志
Bruce Yang
Taichung Advanced
2019.11.19.

What would I do? What would I do? What would I do? I kept asking myself anxiously. Then it suddenly occurred to me I ever had one letter published in May 2014 Toastmaster magazine in which, to make 2024, the first 100th anniversary of Toastmasters International more meaningful to me, I pledged to achieve my second DTM by 2024. I asked myself “Why not achieve this goal by November 2019 to make your 20th anniversary at TTC more meaningful?”

Is it possible? There’s nothing impossible once we set a goal and plan to achieve it, right? First I reviewed what I had achieved. There’s no problem in the communication track since I always prepare a speech and set a goal to finish six speeches per term. I already got my second ACG in 2016. What I merely lacked in the leadership track is a sponsor or mentor for a new club or a coach for an existing one. So I had to wait for any new message anxiously. I told myself I would become a mentor for any next newly chartered club in central Taiwan. Maybe God hear my sincere prayer. This March Taiwan Power Company near Taichung Harbor held a demo meeting, I volunteered to deliver a speech. When International President Lark Doley visited Taiwan this April for annual conference in Kaohsiung, she also visited TaiPower to give a keynote speech. When Tension Wu asked who would be a sponsor or mentor for the new club, I immediately replied I volunteered to be its mentor.

To be a mentor for a new club is of course a big challenge. Fortunately in Toastmasters we stress on teamwork so we invited many senior members to introduce different roles in a regular meeting and Pathways, and give trainings. Winwind was officially chartered on May 15. Along the way, I cooperated with another mentor, Lina Yang, a good friend and a senior member from Tachia Toastmasters Club and Medical Group Toastmasters Club to answer members’ questions and encourage them to to take different assignments in a meeting to keep making  a progress. We both strongly believe so long as we help members build a firm foundation, Winwind would end up a promising club.

However, to our consternation, Winwind members, most of them are engineers, voted to stop paying the membership fee and attending the meetings at the end of September. Even though it was not a happy ending to me, I appreciate many members’ helps to make my dream come true and successfully applied my second DTM this November, making my 20th anniversary at TTC very meaningful. From  now on, I would pay attention to achieving goals at Pathways and try my best to help other members. Let’s see what I would achieve before my third decades in Toastmasters comes to its end.