Congratulations to Linda Coleman and Gary Chiu for achieving their Competent Communicator awards! Linda finished with a bang on June 15th with a speech about her District Conference experiences, appropriately called "Experience It." Her energy and confidence wowed those who remember her first speech, back on December 9, 2008, which was titled "My Journey." That night she started on a new journey, and has inspired her fellow Afterburners every step of the way.
Gary accepted a tremendous challenge: to finish his CC by the end of June when he had 6 speeches to go. It would have been one speech at every meeting, but then a technical glitch bumped him from the agenda on one night. Undaunted, he did TWO speeches on the last night to achieve his goal, demonstrating a gritty determination that we might not have expected from that laid-back guy who gave his first speech on August 25, 2009 called "Coming of Age: What I Learned at 16." On that two-speech night, June 22, we saw a true coming-of-age for Gary.
These two outstanding Toastmasters deserve a little break from making speeches, but not a long one. After all, with all those free manuals, Linda and Gary have a lot of new goals to get started on!
Jodie Sanders
