We asked Kim to introduce herself to you:
I have the joy of beginning and ending my day as the mom of two daughters and wife of 16 years to my best friend. They are extremely supportive of my Toastmasters journey, even when the kids thought it was some sort of recipe exchange meeting!
My introduction to Toastmasters began when I joined American Equity as the Director of Training and Development in October of 2010. Around the same time, one of our clients, Phyllis Allen, approached our company President at an appreciation event and complimented him on being an excellent speaker. She was well qualified to make this assessment as a past District Governor and a Distinguished Toastmaster! Phyllis thought our company would be an superb place to create a Toastmasters club and offered to help. We worked closely together and delivered a three-week Speechcraft series to over 40 employees at American Equity. With definite employee interest and the generous support of our senior management, we chartered Eagles Voice Toastmasters Club in September of 2011 with 20 members. I count this as one of my professional accomplishments in my first year at the company.
An interest in public speaking has been a central part of my life beginning with high school and college theater, majoring in Journalism at Drake and my career in corporate training. Although I’ve had the opportunity to speak in public for many years, I crave to grow and improve and always learn something from my own speech projects and the evaluations of others’ projects. The personal benefits are many, but what lights my fire is how the organization feeds my passion to watch others flourish by what Toastmasters extends to its members. I respect the courage it takes for most to expose themselves by speaking in front of others. The thrill in seeing someone progress from their first knock-kneed-white-knuckled-
As you can imagine, my favorite club office is VP of Education and I’ve had the delight to fill that role twice. I was pleased to be appointed as the Area 73 Governor in 2012-2013; a very young Toastmaster at the time, but eager to help the District. Many tenured and kind Toastmasters harnessed my enthusiasm and added their knowledge so that we accomplished much that year. I am privileged to serve as the Division C Governor this year as well as the President of my home club. The camaraderie of our club family and the Toastmasters District 19 community motivates me to do all I can to grow leaders, clubs and the district as a whole.
The reasons a person joins Toastmasters are as vast as the number of members we have. The surprise for many is what is gained along the way. I hope to help each member with whom I interact to get what they desire out of our organization. I remember the words of Zig Ziglar, “What you get by reaching your destination is not nearly as important as what you will become by reaching your destination.” When members get what they want, theybecome leaders of the future.
Kim Dennis