Darryl Heron's 2013-14 Presidential Farewell Speech for Toastmasters

Changing of the Presidents (Darryl 2013-14 Club President & Patrizia 2014-15 Club President)

On June 25^th, Word Weavers, my Toastmaster club held out Induction Ceremony, where the 2013-14 Officers handed over the reins to the 2014-15 Officers.  What follows is the speech that I wrote and delivered as I ended my term as club president.

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Darryl’s 2013-14 Presidential Farewell Address

My fellow Word Weavers, we come here tonight to end an era and to start a new one. We come here to say thank you to the officers who served us proudly in the 2013-14 Toastmaster year and to welcome those that will be leading and serving us in the 2014-15 year.

I started my presidency with an inaugural address and I’m ending it with a farewell address. I’m a student of history (as well we all should be) Mark Twain has said that while history doesn’t repeat that it does sometimes rhyme and we should take the time to learn the lessons that we can from the past. There have been some famous farewell addresses through the years and we can indeed learn a lot from the giants of human history as well as the many unknown and unrecognizable people.

As many of you know, I lost my job in October, and through my self-discovery and job searching, I’ve been able to be the President of Word Weavers, even when a big part of my life was in chaos, this was certain and gave me dignity and the ability to lift my head and carry on with a purpose.  Thank you, everyone for placing your trust in me and giving me this opportunity.

I’ve learned a lot this past year, as I have since joining Word Weavers and Toastmasters.  I’d like to say thank you to all of the officers and of you, I can’t take credit for this past year, I’d like to share it with all of you.  I’m happy that we have a beamer that the club can continue to use for years to come (even if we still need to work out the screen problem). I’m excited to have great flyers that we can use to promote the club. A great big thank you to Karin and her husband for all their work on this! I’m also proud that club is Select Distinguished for the 2013-14 Toastmaster year.  While I wanted to be President’s Distinguished for the third year in a row, being Select Distinguished is the 2nd highest honor that we can achieve from Toastmasters and there are lots of clubs that don’t achieve this honor and it means that a lot of members achieved educational awards this year (like Carsten and his Competent Communicator, not to mention Ron and Regina both getting their DTMs this year).  In fact, the club was recognized by the district for achieving the most educational awards in our division for the first 6 months of this Toastmaster year! In life, we sometimes we fall short of our goals, but if we didn’t have goals we would achieve very little. Now, Patrizia and the other officers won’t be pressured to 4 peat and will be able to determine what they want to achieve.

2013-14 Officers

I’d like to call up Patrizia to help me recognize all of the officers from the 2013-14 TM year.

Gabi,

Served as our Sargent at Arms for half the year before her non TM life called her away.  In this time she led the search for a new meeting location that brought us here.  For this I cannot fully express my gratitude.

Gilbert,

Thank you for taking over as Sergeant at Arms, it isn’t easy to take over a role that someone else has started or learning about the role half way into it.

Isabelle,

She has served as Secretary for two years. She has also done a lot of work with organizing and running our club contests for the past two years.

Martin,

The club depends on you and can count on you to fulfil the treasurer role. You submit everything in a timely fashion and were a key part of us being Select Distinguished this year.

Karin,

Karin really helped to take the officer goal of having new flyers and made it a reality. 

Bryan,

You joined our club about this time last year and you’ve brought all your TM knowledge to the club. I’ve really appreciated being able to pick your brain for ideas this past year. You’ve inspired me to know that our club can achieve so much more and we can have fun while we do it.

Andrea,

Thank you for serving as our Immediate Past President. After serving a term as president, I realize how much work you put in when you were president, so thank you for that and for offering me your consul this past year.

Patrizia,

I really appreciate the enthusiasm that you brought to the officers group. I fondly remember when you and I were at the American Information Evening at the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt. We talked quite a bit when you were president 

Everyone, can I get a big hand for the 2013-14 Club officers!  To all of you and to all of you, I thank you for helping to make this an unforgettable year.

George Schultz, the creator of Peanuts said, “Why can’t we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn’t work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos”

Gilda Radner said, “I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next”

Dr. Seuss said, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

I’d like all of the 2014-15 Officers to come up here. I hope that you’ll all support the officers and help them to achieve the goals that they will seek. I’d also like you all to seriously consider being an officer in the future, when you’re asked or you can even volunteer.  It is an indescribably rewarding experience.  We get out of Toastmasters what we put into it, so I challenge you all to put your hearts into it, you won’t be disappointed.

Helen Rowland said that, “A man never knows how to say goodbye; a woman never knows when to say it.”

That being said…Dale Evans said, “Some trails are happy ones,

Others are blue. It’s the way you ride the trail that counts…Happy Trails to you, until we meet again.“

Everyone, please welcome the 2014-15 President of Word Weavers, Patrizia!

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I’ve been very honored to have been able to serve as the President of Word Weavers this past year.  I would encourage others out there to think about being officers in your Toastmasters clubs and other organizations.  The world is in need of good leaders, this is an excellent opportunity to practice and learn leadership.  

Note:  All of the quotes listed above were found at Quote Garden.

Picture credit:  The picture above can be found at the Word Weaver Flickr group.