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2023-2024 Newspaper Articles
April 28, 2024
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Jack Nguyen
How to Say Funny Stuff
This session is designed to introduce people to the basics of humor and joke writing, why we should care about humor, and how we can apply it to public speaking. In this session we will dissect the basic structure of a joke and learn a basic template for crafting as well as delivering jokes. Finally, we will touch on many of the challenges involved with humor and the secret to developing unshakeable confidence. Along the way you will hear many hilarious and embarrassing stories that will no doubt make you feel better about your own life.
Bio
Jack Nguyen has been an avid Toastmaster since 2013. He has competed in speech competitions, participated in open mics, and has given close to 100 speeches across 5 districts. He has never cancelled on a speech. He believes that the best people to learn from are the ones that have to struggle the most to succeed. Having gone from being an unfunny dude who took six months to work up the nerve to give his icebreaker to being a district humorous speech champion he believes he’s one of those people.
Suzanne O’Brien
Career Confidence: 4 Keys to Professional Growth
If you’re looking to take your career to the next level and you think you may need to look beyond your current company to advance or change careers, come learn the 4 fundamentals of strategic career management so you can improve your ability to get the job you deserve. As a bonus, attendees will receive a take-home resource to help them utilize and implement the principles learned in the session. By the end of this session, you will know how to:
Bio
Suzanne is a Career Advancement Coach and the Founder and CEO of LevelUp Careers, which she established to provide greater awareness, understanding and tools for aspiring executives to achieve their goals. Previously, as an Executive Recruiter for the Toft Group and Renaissance Leadership, Suzanne led VP and C-Level searches with some of Silicon Valley’s most exciting tech companies backed by Sequoia, Bessemer, and Lightspeed Partners, Khosla Ventures and NEA.
Prior to executive recruiting, Suzanne managed the strategic services program for the New Zealand Government in North America. In this role, Suzanne worked closely with CEO’s on global expansion strategies and recruited C-Level executives to the Board.
In her spare time, Suzanne has served on the board of MBA Women International and has also served on the Graduate Management African Pipeline Advisory Group, along with representatives from top business schools including Kellogg, Booth, Maryland, Wharton and Stanford.
Gary Gardner
How to overcome “Speech Flu” and write Excellent speeches effortlessly
Have you ever been stuck writing a speech? In this session, Gary will share with you how to overcome “speech flu” and create great speeches effortlessly. Using a creative tool that you will use frequently any time you need to write a speech or get clarity surrounding a personal or business issue you need to solve. He will demonstrate how to write a great speech faster than can be imagined, while learning about the greatest problem-solving tool ever invented.
Bio
Gary’s primary focus for many years has been helping clients in transition. Whether it is retirement, sale of a business, the death of a loved one or any other life change, Gary has been a thinking partner with his clients in transition into their new post-transition lives. He is a Certified Financial Planner and Certified Financial Transitionist.
Upon graduating from the University of California Santa Barbara, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa. Upon returning to the U.S., he entered the financial services industry and helped pioneer the fledgling financial planning movement. He served as a board member of Hospice of the East Bay Foundation from 2005-2014 and an Area Governor of Toastmaster International in 2015. He will complete his DTM in 2018.
Orlando Redden
The 6 Human Needs and How to Own Your Perception of the World
This session covers the 6 Human needs from Robbins Madanes Coaching program. We will build a game plan on how to use them to better the way we feel about our lives or give us direction on how to. We will learn what Labeling and Reframing is and how to use it to change the way the world impacts us. Through the process you will be able to either self-reflect or work in a group.
Bio
Orlando is a passionate speaker and strong advocate for self- improvement and communication. Within the course of his studies, he has become a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Practitioner and has also completed a coaching certificate from Robbins-Madanes Training. He is an avid student in the areas of human behavior, particularly body language, interpersonal communication, improvisation, public speaking, leadership, and martial arts.
Throughout Orlando’s life, he has experienced and collected a variety of life lessons that have helped him to become more confident with himself and to practice this in his daily interactions with others. These life lessons have helped Orlando maintain a sense of being centered and grounded, especially in difficult situations where it may be needed the most.
Katrina Sawa
Love Yourself to Success & Excellence
Regardless of what type of financial situation you’re in, many people struggle because of lack of love in their life. Join Katrina in this presentation where she will share insights from her book, “Love Yourself Successful”, and you will learn why it’s important to devote a certain amount of time to developing and nurturing the four types of love that will undoubtedly affect your success and excellence in whatever you set out to achieve.
Bio
Katrina Sawa is known as The JumpStart Your Biz Coach because she literally kicks her clients and their businesses into high gear. Katrina is the author of “Love Yourself Successful and the creator of the JumpStart Your Marketing System”. She enjoys inspiring entrepreneurs, speakers and professionals to move faster and more affordably towards their ultimate revenue and professional goals using online and offline relationship marketing strategies, leveraged business models and ongoing accountability.
Katrina is an energetic, tell-it-like- it-is speaker and award-winning coach who has been featured on the Oprah and Friends XMRadioNetwork, ABC and TheCW. She’s a featured contributor to the Women Speakers Association and the Public Speakers Association of which she was awarded the National Collaborator of the Year Award in 2016. With 30 years’ experience in sales, business and marketing Katrina speaks to groups of all sizes and works with dozens of different kinds of industries and businesses.
Meredith Crawford
How to Use Brand Storytelling for Marketing Excellence
Learn the 3 keys for using brand storytelling to develop emotional connections with your customers. Gain a deeper understanding of why brand storytelling is an effective marketing tool, how to develop your business’s story, and how to share it with prospects and customers. Receive a workbook to help you formulate your business’s story at home.
Bio
Meredith Crawford is the founder of Solerno Media, a marketing agency that empowers non-profits, small businesses and entrepreneurs doing business with heart to tell and share their stories. She is also an advisory board member to Hack the Hood, an Oakland-based non-profit that introduces low-income youth of color to careers in tech.
Prior to founding Solerno Media, Meredith was the CEO of MindShare Design, and oversaw Savicom and Vidi Emi email platforms. In 2017, she negotiated the acquisition of WorkStraight, a work order software solution. While she was there, Meredith added 18% to the multi-million dollar company’s revenue stream. Two clients, a Fortune 500 company and a business training company had banner revenue years. Both clients attribute their success to working with MindShare Design.
Randy Wight
Find out How Two Words Can Reveal Your Excellence
Randy will help you understand the power of acceptance, listening and eye contact. You can throw away the script of life and start living. You will see how you gain greater control by letting go. You will learn how to find excellence by epically failing! Learn how to use new tools to fashion a new outlook and a new you! Stop saying NO and find out the power of YES!
After this session, you will leave with a better understanding of how to communicate more effectively, collaborate more deeply and Co-create more effectively. With just two words, he will show you how to change your point of view and capture excellence.
Bio
Randy is a Toastmaster since 2006, Randy splits his time as an author, inventor and award-winning speaker. He says his claim to fame was serving as a President’s Distinguished Area Governor. A business development leader for over 30 years in the Specialty and Natural Food Industry. Randy established the gold standard for sales performance. In addition to recruiting and training teams that attained all time sales records, his direction resulted in over 150 million dollars of new launch revenue.
Randy began his speaking career in Stand-up Comedy with North Bay Stand-up Comics where he garnered a regional finalist spot in Showtime’s “Funniest Person in America Contest”, Randy’s list of accomplishments includes Corporate Trainer, Co-Founder of Transformational Goals Seminar Series, Randy is founding member and General Manager Act II Improv Troupe, Coach of Business Professionals and aspiring comics.
Don Franceschi
How to “CLICK”—not “CLASH”—with Others
Have you ever noticed there are some people that you instantly “click” with—and some you instantly “clash” with? Why is that? Often the reason is a difference in behavioral styles. In this workshop you will learn the components that make up the four basic behavioral styles, identify your behavioral style and the style of others, and learn how to “click” and not “clash” with those other styles—and have some fun along the way!
Bio
Don Franceschi, ACB, joined Toastmasters five years ago. He is currently a member of three Toastmasters Clubs, including an advanced club. He has been a Toastmasters keynote speaker, trainer, and a District Humorous Speech Contest Finalist. Don recently retired after 29 years with the State of California and has spent some of those retirement hours as a Santa Rosa Junior College Community Education instructor, and a TEDx Sonoma County Organizing Committee member. He is the proud author of the Amazon Best Seller, “From Awful to Awesome: 9 Essential Tools for Effective Presentations”.
Don’s motto— “Let’s save the world—one presentation at a time!”
Dr. Michelle Peticolas
Allow Change to Unblock Your Brilliance
While change and challenge can be difficult and even stressful, they also can provide an opportunity for growth and empowerment. The same emotions and mindset that feed our resistance to change can also block our brilliance. In this workshop, Dr. Peticolas will explain how our innate brilliance may be tamped down in childhood by trauma, neglect and/or misguided parenting. Discover how the habits and beliefs we develop to keep us safe when we are young can limit both our brilliance and our ability to adapt to change. She will share 3 strategies we can adopt to reduce fear and shift our mindset to more easily embrace change and achieve excellence.
Bio
Dr. Michelle Peticolas empowers women leaders and change-makers to face their fears in order to reclaim their authentic power. She is a national speaker and leads workshops for organizations and groups including: The Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, UCSF Medical Center, JFK University, and UC Berkeley. Her award-winning documentary series Secrets of Life and Death is screened in universities throughout the United States, Canada and Australia. She has appeared on Voice America’s Empowering Women, KDIA’s Aging By the Bay, BBM Global Network’s Courage to Overcome, Money 1055’s Rush Hour For Success, and KPFA’s Women’s Magazine. With a Ph.D. in Sociology and over 18 years experience, Michelle coaches people through major life challenges. An expert on loss, emotional wounds and unresolved grief, she is a featured author in the soon-to- be-released anthology: Breaking Barrier.
Robert Strong
How to Tell Stories Like a Wizard
In this fun and interactive magic show and workshop, magician Robert Strong shows and explains both moments when your brain struggles with the wrong assumptions and when a new reality is revealed to create magic. Robert Strong is a Comedy Magician who has been amazing audiences since he was 12 years old. Since then, he has performed on national television, in all 50 states, in over 40 countries, and twice at the White House. He was a 10-year artist in residence at The Smithsonian and regularly leads workshops at Singularity University, Stanford University, and at Google.
Bio
Robert has been crisscrossing the world since 1985 entertaining audiences large and small, young and old, formal and casual, and everything in between! Recently voted “San Francisco’s Funniest Prop Comedian“; “The Bay Area’s Best Performer”; and “San Francisco’s Best Comedian”.
Kiran Patel
From Conflict to Connection: Communicating Collaboratively
Do you sometimes find yourself in challenging interactions? At a loss for finding win-win solutions, you may either forego your needs or impose your needs over others. In this workshop, you will learn and practice a framework to create a connection in which your conflicts dissolve and get resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. Bring your personal challenges and leave feeling relieved and hopeful.
Bio
Kiran Patel, M.A., C.Y.T., is the 2017 winner of the District 57’s Table Topics contest. She is an award-winning speaker, empowering coach, interpersonal communication trainer and engaging performer. Her authentic and playful presence has touched thousands internationally (live, radio and TV) for 40 years. Her writing on nonviolence and yoga has been published in “India West”. She draws on her vast training in Western and Eastern traditions—MA in Social Psychology, advanced yoga teacher certification, mediation certification, year-long Nonviolent Communication leadership training and prejudice reduction train-the-trainer.
Bett Bollhoefer
Dream Big, Be Bold and Write Your Own Book
It’s time to Write your own book! Authors get paid up to twice as much as a speaker without a book. Having a published book makes you an authority. Having a book allows you to have back of the room sales on top of your speaking fee, or if you are speaking for free, allows you to make money. This workshop will allow you to leave with a plan to write, self publish and market your dream book.
Bio
Bett Bollhoefer is a Distinguished Toastmaster and winner of the Division Governor of the Year award. She spoke at 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 Carnegie Mellon SEI SATURN Conference on Architect as Leader. Bett speaks and writes on software design and is the author of several books including How to Write, Self-Publish and Market Your Book. Bett cohosted the popular Software Architecture Concepts podcast for two years and is the co-host of the GE Digital podcast IOT Goes Industrial. And for fun, Bett is a professional Improv actor, enjoys swing dancing, hiking, painting and playing the cello.
James Jeffley
Your Story Matters, Tell It
Everyone has a “story.” Your story may be of fame and fortune, or fear and famine. Regardless of your situation, your story is valuable, and by telling it, you can inspire and empower others. In this fun, interactive session, you will:
Bio
James Jeffley is an award-winning speaker and trainer, professional coach, author, musician, minister and father. He is the author of “Follow the Signs: Lessons Learned Traveling Life’s Highway,” a three-time District 57 International Speech Champion and a two-time finalist in the Toastmasters World Championship of Public speaking. He will spend the 2017 holidays on a speaking tour in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates with other notable Toastmasters.
Dave Blum
The Memory Palace
Have you ever found yourself up there at the lectern, your speech well-practiced, only to realize with horror that your mind has come to a complete blank? If your answer is yes, you’re not alone. At one time or another, we’ve all blanked out on a key element of one of our speeches. It’s no reflection on you or your memory. Most of us rely on “rote memorization” to practice our speeches–an out-dated method that doesn’t work very well with the way our brains are actually wired.
In this highly-interactive session, you will learn how to turn your speeches into a series of highly-memorizable images that work in sync with your brain’s wiring, making the whole process much easier, more effective and more fun.
During this session, you’ll learn how to:
If you want to never forget another Toastmasters speech, this is the session for you!
Bio
Dave is the President of Santa Rosa Toastmasters Club 182. He is a Toastmaster who has jumped into the new Pathways program. He has completed Level 3 of the Pathway, Presentation Mastery. He was about to begin Level 4 when a fire roared into Santa Rosa a few weeks ago.
Founder and President of Dr. Clue Treasure Hunts, the world’s largest team-building treasure hunt company, Dave Blum earned a B.A. in English from Pomona College in Claremont, California, a professional coaching certification from IPEC, and is continuing member of the North American Simulation & Gaming Association .
After a three-year stint teaching English in Japan for the Mombusho English Fellows program, Dave worked in tourism and the non-profit sector before discovering his destiny as a treasure hunt master, team-building trainer, writer, speaker and entrepreneur.
Adrian Chofor
G.R.O.W Into Your Dreams
We all have dreams that we actively wish and hope for, but how do we stop dreaming, hoping, and wishing and start LIVING our dreams? Learn how to achieve goals, produce results and make BIG things happen in your life using the G.R.O.W. Model.
Bio
Adrian Jefferson Chofor is a performance and empowerment coach. She is passionate about empowering women by helping them clarify their vision, reach their goals and live the life they really want. She is an avid traveler, runner, and mother of two active and adorable children.
Adrian is the club president of Oakland Uptown and is well on her way to reaching her goal of raising its status to President’s Distinguished. She is a recipient of the Outstanding Achievement Toastmaster award and Triple Crown Award for receiving three educational awards within a year. She has also served as a host and evaluator on District 57’s Toastmaster Time TV. She has been a Toastmaster since June 2016.
Kevin Markl
Knowing Your Audience Isn’t Optional
Before writing or speaking in any setting, you must connect your content and message to the needs and expectations of your audience. In this session, Kevin Markl will present an interactive framework to understand who your audience is and what they care about the most. Learn how to discover and apply these insights to alleviate any anxiety or stage fright, maximize audience engagement and deliver an impactful presentation.
Bio
Kevin Markl, ACG, ALB, is a product marketing manager at CallidusCloud, where he has worked since 2011. Kevin conducts qualitative research on competitors and buyers. He turns these insights into personas and crafts product messaging and positioning that resonate in the same way Toastmasters develop speeches that resonate with their audience.
Kevin is passionate about helping others reach their goals – whether it’s teaching someone how to ski or coaching others to excel in their sales and marketing role. He embodies this passion for communication, leadership and helping others through his journey in Toastmasters. He joined 7 years ago and has immersed himself across the organization, serving in roles from Club Secretary to Division Director. Kevin currently serves as Public Relations Manager for District 57 Toastmasters and supports member and leadership development at contests, speechcrafts, open houses and officer training.
John Murphy
Technology: Your Partner to A Successful Club
Almost every one of us uses one of the myriad of different softwares available to us for the purpose of enhancing our personal and professional lives. This session will use Google as the example software for taking a closer look at how our clubs (or life) can run more efficiently using a cloud-based platform. This session will dive into how to leverage Google’s suite of free technology to build, connect, and promote your club using the latest technologies. You’ll hear how other clubs are using Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Photos, YouTube, Slides, and more to provide an immersive and shared learning experience. You likely already use some of these, now learn how to be a power user for your club by working smarter, not harder.
Bio
After graduating from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, John Murphy became the lead presenter for equity and debt seminars on behalf of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, then a portfolio engineering trainer for a private, wealth management firm overseeing $70 billion+ in assets. John joined TM early in his career and then like so many others his life became too busy to accommodate being a member. He went on to found, grow, and recently sell his technology start-up of 5 years, where he led his staff using only Google-based applications and extensions. He rejoined and jumped into Pathways with enthusiasm. He has now completed his first Pathway, Presentation Mastery and has completed 3 levels in his second pathway; Visionary Communication. For everything from investor presentations to employee training to logistical engineering, for him it’s all about letting the technology serve its communication purpose.
Jim Kohli, DTM
International Director, Region 2
Toastmasters International
Jim Kohli, DTM, of San Ramon, California, is a principal architect at GE Healthcare, where he has worked since 1982. Kohli develops and encourages the adoption of technology strategies, advises senior executives on personnel and technology matters, manages his division’s intellectual property portfolio, and mentors and coaches less experienced leaders.
Kohli holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is also trained as a medical first responder as well as a fire responder. He has received multiple awards from GE for patent authoring and co-authoring, product development and accomplishments relating to excellence in team morale.
He says, “My Toastmasters experience has expanded my professional horizons and is directly linked to a promotion that moved me from Wisconsin to California for a job that required greater communications skills in addition to technology skills.”
As a member of the Toastmasters International Board of Directors, Kohli is a “working ambassador” for the organization. He works with the Board to develop, support and modify the policies and procedures that guide Toastmasters International in fulfilling its mission.