We just completed a summer project at Kaiser with their youth internship program. Each Friday, the youth who were assigned to mentors in various departments of the health care system, experienced education day as a way of exposing them to the broad range of services and careers in health care. As part of that day, Federal Toastmasters was invited to facilitate a Toastmaster's meeting for the young people.
It was a wonderful experience.
Watching these outstanding youths grow in confidence and ability to formulate ideas, lead meetings, and speak in public was a real inspiration.
At the helm of this program was an outstanding and enthusiastic woman named Gretchen Fritz. She invested time, energy, and love into each of her students with a flair for innovation and a commitment to their development. I would recomend her for any local coaching hall of fame.
Unfortunately for Fresno, she is being transferred to a new location with greater responsibilities. She will do well.
Some lessons I learned this summer were:
1. There are pockets of innovation and creativity in places where you may not expect to find them.
2. Everyone brings something to the table of human experience. Even and especially the young among us have much wealth of experience and insight to contribute.
3. Everyone can learn to communicate better. Not everyone will be a professional public speaker, but each person can learn to be a competent communicator
4. That a new generation of leadership is training itself at an accelerated pace and that they bring competencies and skills that are much greater than those of my generation at the same stage of life.
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Toastmasters provides a great forum where adolescence would be able to explore their inner most selves and find wonderful jewels. They can also find Jewels within others. These experiences can be very powerful in shaping their futures for the better.
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