A new building at Boise’s Wassmuth Center for Human Rights with quotations carved in stone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An obituary article by Florangela Davila at The Seattle Times on August 29, 2002 discusses Bill Wassmuth: Rights activist took on Aryan Nations. Earlier this month the new Philip E. Batt building opened, as described in an article by Mia Maldanado at the Idaho Capital Sun on October 8, 2024 titled “The next era for us’: Idaho’s Wassmuth Center for Human Rights to open doors of new building. As shown above, there are four quotations in tan panels on the west side which are visible as you drive by on Ninth Street. They are:

 

“Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy, and sustainable human development.”

Kofi Annan

  

“Teaching young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”

Maya Angelou

 

“Love one another as I have loved you.”

Jesus  [John 13:34]

 

“I am still learning.”

Michaelangelo

 

There also is another quote:

 

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are truly good at heart.”

Anne Frank

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The south side has another quote:

 

“What if I’m the one? What if I’m the one who could make a difference in the lives of others?

Heidi Thompson (Scentscy)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The east side has yet another quote on a bench outside the entrance, by the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial:

 

“When love permeates our interactions, we become slow to judge and quick to forgive. We take the perspective that everyone has value, everyone can belong.”

Orville Thompson (Scentscy)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the top of the southeast side is another quote:

 

“There is hope”

Anne Frank

 

The Maya Angelou quote is not right, a Facebook page instead says:

 

 “It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”

 

I blogged about the Anne Frank memorial more than a decade ago on January 16, 2012 in a post titled Quotes for the day from a wall in Boise.

 

America’s biggest fear by states – just in time for Halloween

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Near Halloween each year there are silly fear surveys, like one from Casino.ca titled America’s Biggest Fears Study: What Spooks Each State. They surveyed 3000 Americans asking questions on their biggest fear. The number of states with each of eight fears is shown above on a bar chart. Death was most common, in 17 states, followed by Heights in 8, Snakes in 7, then Enclosed Spaces and Public Speaking - both at 4 and Failure and Spiders - both at 2. The text incorrectly says Snakes were the biggest fear in six states.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another bar chart shows what activities Americans fear. Using a Ouija Board was first at 27%, followed by at tie at 21% for Visiting a Graveyard at Night and Walking Through a Haunted House.

 

Are the results by states significant? Not very. If we divide 3000 people evenly among 50 states, there are only 60 per state. The Margin of Error then is plus or minus 11.5%! That’s pretty awful compared with the 2.8% for a sample of 1000.

 

In the tenth Chapman Survey of American Fears for 2024, public speaking only was ranked #59 of 85 fears at 29.0%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday Chapman University released results from their tenth Chapman Survey of American Fears, which asked 1008 adults about 85 fears. There is an article by Carly Murphy on Chapman News for October 23, 2024 titled Corruption, Nuclear Threats, and Economic Instability Dominate National Fears in 2024.

 

Public speaking was not in the Top Ten, or even the Top Fifty. It only was ranked #59 of 85 fears at 29.0%. The most common fear was Corrupt Government Officials at 65.2%, followed by People I Love Becoming Seriously Ill at 58.4%, Cyberterrorism at 58.3%, People I Love Dying at 57.8%, and Russia Using Nuclear Weeapons at 55.8%.

 

The main web page is Fear Survey 2024. There is a pdf article which discusses the Key Findings and Top Ten Fears. And there is another pdf article with a list of fears ranked by percent. There is a third 106 page pdf article with the detailed Methodology. When I checked the percent list against the methodology, I found one typo for Becoming Seriously Ill – listed as 42.0% where it instead should be 43.5%.  

 

As usual, the fears were listed as the sum for Very Afraid and Afraid. If we add the 36.6% for Slightly Afraid, we get a total of 65.7%, which is still about ten percent below the often-quoted 75% for fear of public speaking.

 

The sign was modified from a picture at the Library of Congress.  

 

How not to write a blog post (or speech) using a quotation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the Gem State Patriot News blog for October 13, 2024 there is a post by Dr. John Livingston titled Different Bubbles, Different Realities. It is an excellent example of how NOT to either start or end a blog post or speech - and also how to thoroughly botch a quotation.

 

Dr. Livingston begin with one botched line of a quote but then doesn’t tell us who, what, when or where:

 

“EARTH GETS ITS PRICE FROM WHAT EARTH GIVES US….’ “

 

That actually comes from James Russell Lovell’s 1848 poem titled The Vision of Sir Launfal. One version of The Prelude to Part First actually says:

 

“Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;

     The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,
     We bargain for the graves we lie in;
At the Devil's booth are all things sold
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
     For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we earn with a whole soul's tasking:
     'T is heaven alone that is given away,
'T is only God may be had for the asking;
There is no price set on the lavish summer,
And June may be had by the poorest comer.”

 

John said FROM rather than FOR. Then he pontificated about equity and equality.

 

And later he listed another two lines where he mixed up LIE and DIE (and omitted another line in between):

 

“A BEGGER IS TAXED FOR A CORNER TO LIE IN
WE BARGAIN FOR THE GRAVES WE DIE IN”

 

He got the following pair of lines almost correct:

 

“AT THE DEVIL’S BOOTH ARE ALL THINGS SOLD
EACH OUNCE OF DROST COSTS ITS OUNCE OF GOLD”

 

He finally got around to misquoting about bubbles, missed a line, but at least mentioned the author’s name:

 

“ ‘BUBBLES WE BUY FOR A WHOLE SOULS ASKING
TIS HEAVEN ALONE THAT CAN BE HAD FOR THE ASKING’ James Russell Lowell”

 

Worse yet he concluded:

 

“Donald Trump lives in the bubble of the American family, worker, farmer and businessman.

  Kamala lives in the bubble of the expert ruling class.

  Two very different bubbles I say.”

 

But Trump was president, putting him at the very top of our ruling class. He has nothing to do with American workers or farmers. And he is listed in Forbes 400 – The 400 Richest People in America at #319 with a worth of $4.3 billion. He pals around with Elon Musk, who is #1 with  $244 billion, and got advised to pick J. D. Vance by Peter Thiel who is #116 at 9.2 billion.

 

The bubble images came from here and here at Openclipart.

 

Triumphs late in life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I am a seasoned citizen, I enjoyed reading the 2024 book by Mo Rocca and Jonathan Greenberg titled Roctogenarians: Late in Life Debuts, Comebacks, and Triumphs. Starting on page 182 there is a section titled Sam and Betsey Farber: A Gripping Story. After Sam sold Copco (which made enameled cast-iron cookware) he and Betsey retired and moved to France. Betsey decided to make an apple tart, but found peeling fruit with an old peeler upset her arthritis. 

 

She and Sam decided to produce hand tools that would be more comfortable. They worked with designer Patricia Moore and wound up using a thermoplastic elastomer called Santoprene to make tools like the green Oxo Good Grips peeler shown above. (Also see the 30 second YouTube video). There is an article about it by Mark Wilson at Fast Company on September 24, 2018 titled The untold story of the vegetable peeler that changed the world.

 

The book begins with a chapter on Fast-Food Legends that starts with a section titled Chicken: Harland David Sanders began his KFC empire at sixty-six. The fifth chapter, The Writers has a section beginning on page 89 titled Peter Mark Roget: Finding Just the Words about how he published his famous book of synonyms (a thesarus) at an age of seventy-three.

 

 An image of an older peeler design came from Wikimedia Commons

 

 

More about active listening

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matt Carpenter was Toastmaster for the October 16, 2024 of the Pioneer Toastmasters Club in Boise. His theme was active listening. I was Table Topics Master, so I had to come up with a half-dozen questions about that topic. I emailed Matt that I had blogged about active listening in a post on August 8, 2021 titled Learning to listen actively. In that post I had linked to a two-page pdf article from the Office of the Ombuds at Boston University from October 2016 titled Active Listening. I suggested that Matt might use it as a handout, and he shrunk both pages and put it on the back of the meeting agenda. The first page lists four categories:

 

Paraphrasing

Clarifying

Reflecting

Summarizing

 

Each is discussed succinctly in a table listing What It’s Called, How to Do It, Why Do It, and Examples of Active Listening Responses. Toastmasters International has a level 3 project on Active Listening in their current Pathways educational program, but it is more vague than the Boston University article.

 

Then I decided to search for more recent information about active listening. There is a 2023 book by Heather R. Younger titled The Art of Active Listening: How people at work feel heard, valued, and understood. She has a 9 page pdf article titled The Cycle of Active Listening: Action planning guide with bonus quiz. She describes a loop with five steps (as shown below):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recognize the Unsaid

Seek to Understand

Decode

Act

Close the Loop

 

Her approach also is discussed at a Carnegie Mellon University article under Civility Initiatives titled What is active listening?

 

There is yet another article by Mary at InPowerCoaching on May 10, 2023 titled Effective listening skills for working on a technical project and to build a collaborative culture. She discusses a method by Julian Treasure called RASA, which stands for:

 

Receive

Appreciate

Summarize

Ask Questions.

 

RASA also is discussed in a five-page pdf article from Julian Treasure. And there is a 29 minute Think Fast Talk Smart podcast by Matt Abrahams at the Stanford Graduate School of Business on November 7, 2023 titled Communication Means Paying attention: The Four Pillars of Active Listening.

 

There is an exhaustively detailed 43-page article by Lindsey P. Gustafson, Aric Short, and Neil W. Hamilton at the Santa Clara Law Review for 2022 titled Teaching and Assessing Active Listening as a Foundational Skill for Lawyers as Leaders, Counselors, Negotiators, and Advocates. They describe how to evaluate understanding of listening via a rubric (evaluation guide) with four sub-competencies as follows:

 

First sub-competency: Active listeners assess and accurately allocate resources necessary to the conversation

 

Second sub-competency: Active listeners work to create a shared understanding with the speaker by considering both the speaker’s and the listener’s lenses and how they may differ

 

Third sub-competency: Active listeners work to increase shared understanding with verbal and nonverbal cues

 

Fourth sub-competency: Active listeners move to a response only after fully exploring and understanding the speaker’s meaning

 

Finally, in 2020 there is an entire book by Debra L Worthington and Graham D. Bodie titled The Handbook of Listening.

 

My cartoon combined two on listening and an ears frame from Openclipart.

 

Don’t give either a knockout presentation or a killer presentation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why not? Because an unconscious or dead audience can’t take anything away. Please avoid overblown language.

 

I found an article at American Express on September 18, 2023 by Bruna Martinuzzi titled How to Structure a Knockout Presentation. There is another article at Black Enterprise on August 2, 2024 titled Give a Knockout Presentation That Leaves Your Audience Impressed. Back on September 24, 2011 I blogged about Should you give a knockout eulogy?

 

There also was yet another article at George Brown College on May 17, 2024 titled How to make a killer presentation. And there is a post at the Benjamin Ball Associates blog on January 5, 2024 titled How to give a killer presentation. Another post at the Garr Reynolds blog on August 20, 2024 is titled 13 Ways to Make a Killer Online Presentation. There is still another post at the Poll Everywhere Blog on October 1, 2024 titled 10 Tips for a killer presentation that won’t bore your audience.

 

An image of a knockout was modified from one at the Library of Congress. An image of a man pointing a revolver came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

American Table: The foods, people, and innovations that feed us (from the Smithsonian) is a fascinating book on foods

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recently found a fascinating 2023 book at the Meridian Public Library from the Smithsonian by Lisa Kingsley titled American Table: The foods, people, and innovations that feed us. If you were looking for speech topics about food, then this is an excellent place to start. Beginning on page 27 there is a section titled THE UNITED EATS OF AMERICA with the following divisions and state foods. There is no preview at Google Books, so I am providing links, mostly to Wikipedia pages, for these forty regional foods:

 

NEW ENGLAND AND THE MID-ATLANTIC

Connecticut: Steamed cheeseburger

Delaware: Scrapple

Maryland: Crab cakes

Massachusetts: The Fluffernutter

New Hampshire: Grape Nuts ice cream

New Jersey: Pork roll, eggs, and cheese sandwich

New York: New York-style pizza

Pennsylvania: Pepper pot soup

Rhode Island: Hot wieners with coffee milk

Vermont: Maple creemee

 

THE SOUTH

Georgia: Boiled peanuts

Louisiana: Crawfish etouffee

Arkansas: Chocolate gravy on biscuits

Mississippi: Delta-style hot tamales

 

THE SOUTHEAST

North Carolina: Vinegar-sauced BBQ pork

Tennessee: Meat and three

Florida: Cuban sandwich

Virginia: Ham biscuits

West Virginia: Pepperoni rolls

 

THE MIDWEST

Illinois: Italian beef

Indiana: Sugar cream pie

Iowa: Loose-meat sandwich

Kansas: Chili and cinnamon rolls

Missouri: St. Paul sandwich

Nebraska: Bierocks (Runza)

Ohio: Cincinnati chili

North Dakota: Knoephla [soup]

Oklahoma: Fried-onion burger

South Dakota: Chislic

Wisconsin: Friday night fish fry

 

THE SOUTHWEST

Arizona: Navaho tacos/fry bread

Texas: Viet-Cajun boil

 

THE MOUNTAIN WEST

Colorado: Rocky Mountain oysters

Nevada: Prime rib

Idaho: Basque croquetas

Utah: Funeral potatoes

Wyoming: Trout

 

THE FAR WEST AND PACIFIC

Alaska: Reindeer dogs

Hawaii: Spam musubi

Washington: Geoduck

 

Some of the Wikipedia pages are rather sketchy compared with those in this book, like that for Idaho’s Basque croquetas:

 

“….The state is now home to the largest population of Basques outside the Basque Country. That community has a tremendous impact on the culture of Idaho’s largest city, Boise, where at restaurants, bars, markets, and numerous festivals, Boiseans enjoy the tradition of pinxtos (PEEN-chos), or Basque tapas. Some of the most popular include tortilla, a quiche-like omelot of potatoes, onions and pimento peppers; bocadillos, a selection of mini sandwiches; and perhaps the best-loved one of all, croquetas, breaded and fried morsels that have thick and creamy fillings such as chicken and cheese with piquillo peppers, or bechamel combined with salt cod or chopped Iberico or Serrano ham. While similar in form to classic French croquettes, which are potato-based, classic Basque croquetas rely on a thick white sauce to form small balls or cylinders that are rolled in bread crumbs and deep fried. The resultant bites – a hot and crispy exterior that yields to a rich, creamy, flavorful center – are irresistible.”

 

The description for: Knoephla (North Dakota) begins:

 

“The story of North Dakota’s knoephla soup has a through line that connects it to that of Nebraska’s runza – the immigration of Germans to Russia during the 18 th century and their subsequent immigration to the Midwest in the late 19 th century. Knoephla soup, eaten all over the state and almost nowhere else, is a creamy chicken soup made with celery, carrots, potatoes, milk, and dumplings called knoephla, from the German knoepfle, meaning ‘little knobs’ or ‘little buttons.’ The German element in this comfort-food soup is the dumplings, which are similar to spaetzle – chewy noodles made with flour, salt, water, and eggs – but the other components were likely borrowed from other cultures over time.”

 

And the description for chislic (South Dakota) says:

 

“Cooked meat on a stick is certainly not a novel concept, but a certain type of cooked meat on a stick is uniques in America to South Dakota – and like Nebraska’s runza and North Dakota’s knoephla soup, has its roots in the food of German immigeants who came to the state from Russia in the late 19 th century. Chislic, simply put, is cubes of meat – traditionally lamb or mutton but sometimes beef – that are deep-fried, seasoned with garlic salt, and served on skewers with saltine crackers. Chislic is likely an anglicization of the Turkic word shaslik, referring to something on a skewer. (‘Shish,’ as in shish kebabs, means skewer). According to Marnette Honer, executive director and archivist at the Heritage Hall Museum & Archives in Freeman, Soth Dakota, chislic was introduced to southeastern South Dakota by Johann Hoellwarth, who came to Dakota Territory from Crimea sometime in the 1870s. With very few trees available on the plains from which to obtain wood for grilling the meat – as was the traditional way Tatar cooks in Russia prepared it – South Dakota cooks fried the cubes of meat in the tallow of the sheep they butchered. While in Russia the meat was marinated in onions and other seasonings for hours, in America garlic salt came to be used. Saltine crackers supplanted the flatbread. From Freeman , chislic spread in a circle of about 30 miles surrounding the town, often referred to as the ‘Chislic Circle,’ though today it is served at bars and restaurants throughout the state.”  

 

Spiedies are grilled meat cubes that are similar to chislic.

 

The image for knoephla soup was captioned from one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Chopping a number down to size by using the right unit conversion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On October 7, 2024 there is an article by Sally Krutzig at the Idaho Statesman titled Half of Boise Foothills wildfire contained as blaze reaches nearly 10,000 acres. It said the fire then covered an area of 9,892 acres. Those units are how our federal government reports fires, like on theirInciWeb site.

 

I think most people have difficulty visualizing a large number like 10,000. But we can chop it down. The Wikipedia article on an Acre says a square mile is 640 acres. That 9,892 acres converts to just 15.46 square miles. That’s a bit more than a 3 mile by 5 mile rectangle. And the much larger Lava fire west of Lake Cascade covers 97,585 acres or 152.5 square miles – corresponding to slightly more than a 10 mile by 15 mile rectangle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What about even larger areas? Most of the country can think by comparison with the land area for our smallest state of Rhode Island (shown above on a U. S. map) - 1,034 square miles. Here in Idaho we could report it in terms of the land area for Ada County – a similar 1053 square miles.

 

Back on July 12, 2016 I blogged about How to make statistics understandable.

 

The cartoon man with an axe was adapted from this image at Openclipart.

 

A book on creativity from Grant Snider - profusely illustrated by comics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Via interlibrary loan (from the Boise Public Library) I obtained and am extremely enjoying reading a thoughtful 2017 book with comics by Grant Snider titled The Shape of Ideas: An illustrated exploration of creativity. Grant is an orthodontist and an artist. He has a web site called Incidental Comics. The book cover has a hole shaped like a light bulb. And the book has ten sections with the following titles: 

 

INSPIRATION [Page 9]

PERSPIRATION [Page 22]

IMPROVISATION [Page 36]

ASPIRATION [Page 50]

CONTEMPLATION [Page 68]

EXPLORATION [Page 88]

DAILY FRUSTRATION [Page 102]

IMITATION [Page 114]

DESPERATION [Page 128]

PURE ELATION [Page 138]

 

Here are links to a dozen comics appearing in the book, as presented on web pages at his Incidental Comics site:

 

The perfect idea [page 12]

How to get ideas [page 23]

Mind game [page 47]

Paths to success [page 54]

A place for ideas [page 77]

Outside the box [pages 90 and 91]

Apartment living [page 96]

Creative blocks [page 105]

The art of living [page 119] also the title for his 2022 book

Chasing happiness [page 133]

My biggest fears [page 134]

Creative thinking [page 136 and 137]

 

His list for My Greatest Fears has the following fifteen, but public speaking isn’t one of them:

 

Dead birds

My student loan debt

The soul-stealing moon

Insomnia

Large Dogs

Blood cults

Cynicism

Heights

Hyperintelligent post-human dwarves

Taking the wrong bus

Unintentional plagiarism

Disembodied floating skulls

Hantavirus

Failure

Feral wolf-children

 

On September 19, 2024 I blogged about his 2022 book in a post titled A manifesto on what you should pay attention to – from a book on The Art of Living profusely illustrated by comic strips. And on September 28, 2024 I blogged about how In 2020 Grant Snider published a profusely illustrated book – I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf.

 

My big idea lightbulb was adapted from this image at Openclipart.

 

A thoughtful comic by Grant Snider on finding your voice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At his Incidental Comics web site there is a thoughtful comic by Grant Snider on September 2, 2016 titled Finding Your Voice. There are sixteen panels, titled as follows:

 

Speak softly.

Carry a big megaphone.

Speak reasonably.

But stay open to nonsense.

Speak uniquely.

Find your own voice.

Speak confidently.

Beware the echoes of self-doubt.

Speak simply.

Words are easily twisted.

Speak passionately.

Let your words be illuminated.

Speak moderately.

Don’t get drunk off the sound of your voice.

Speak your mind.

Then listen.

 

The same comic also appears on pages 62 and 63 of his 2017 book The Shape of Ideas: an illustrated exploration of creativity. On September 28, 2024 I blogged about how In 2020 Grant Snider published a profusely illustrated book – I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf.

 

My cartoon was adapted from one at Openclipart.

 

Coal production in the United Kingdom was like having removed and burned a three-inch layer of material from the entire area

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Randall Munroe’s xkcd web comic on September 30, 2024 is titled UK Coal. He turns the total coal production of 25 billion tonnes into having removed a three-inch layer of material from the entire land area. That’s an excellent example of What’s In It For Me (WIIFM) – turning a gigantic number inro something you can picture. On July 12, 2016 I blogged about How to make statistics understandable. But on February 7, 2023 I also blogged about An xkcd comic on a size comparison that is unhelpful.

 

The Explain xkcd page discusses how the coal is not evenly distributed. Consider that a seam might be 60 inches thick – twenty times the average. Then subsidence after mining can be a significant problem. There is a web page at GOV.UK titled Coal mining subsidence damage – a guide to your rights.

 

How will you celebrate Halloween this year?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on March 20, 2018 I blogged about finding Speech topics from around your neighborhood. Yesterday I walked down West Estrella Drive and saw the front yard shown above. That’s quite a display of skeletons. It might scare some children.

 

There is an article by Christin Perry at Parents on September 20, 2024 titled How Parents Can Help Children Overcome Their Fear of Halloween.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was thinking about how we used to celebrate Halloween. I would tape the felt pumpkin shown above in the window next to the front door to indicate we expected children going around for trick or treat. We would prepare by getting a 30-pack of assorted full-size candy bars from Costco. We quit doing that when COVID-19 hit.

 

Free 2023 e-book on Public Speaking as Performance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a free 148-page e-book from 2023 by Mechele Leon, Renee Cyr, and Jonah Greene titled Public Speaking as Performance: Practicing public speaking in the theatre & performance. It has four parts and sixteen chapters:

 

Prologue: Part I

Thinking about Public Speaking - Chapter 1

Actor Tools for Public Speaking - Chapter 2

 

Context: Part II

Speaking Occasion - Chapter 3

Audience Analysis - Chapter 4

Ways of Delivering Speeches - Chapter 5

From Page to Stage - Chapter 6

 

Speechwriting: Part III

Writing for Listeners - Chapter 7

Purpose and Thesis - Chapter 8

Structure and Organization - Chapter 9

Introductions and Conclusions - Chapter 10

Ethics in Public Speaking - Chapter 11

Language in Speechwriting - Chapter 12

Presentation Aids - Chapter 13

 

Purposes: Part IV

Informative Speeches – Chapter 14

Persuasive Speeches - Chapter 15

Special Occasion Speeches - Chapter 16

 

The authors all are in the Department of Theatre & Dance at the University of Kansas. Mechele Leon is a professor and the other two are graduate teaching assistants.

 

On December 22, 2020 I blogged about Be your very own Santa Claus by downloading free e-textbooks about public speaking and mentioned another 2019 e-book from the University of Kansas by Meggie Mapes titled Speak Out, Call In: Public speaking as Advocacy.

 

My cartoon of an actor was adapted from this one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

In 2024 membership in Toastmasters International finally began to grow again, after having dropped for three years in a row

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been reading the October 2024 centennial issue of Toastmaster magazine, which has an article by Paul Sterman on pages 10 to 15 titled A Century of Toastmasters International. Reaching a centennial is very impressive for an organization. On page 26 there is another article titled Toastmasters Today that begins by stating:

 

“The numbers in this statistical analysis show an uptick in Toastmasters growth and a pattern of continuing diversity.”

 

The infographic says there are 272,000+ members – a growth of 2.2%. But it doesn’t say how many clubs there are. So, I went to the Statistics and Data Hub and looked up the Fact Sheet for July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024 which informed me that there were >13,800 clubs for a growth rate of -3.0%. What happened when the pandemic hit? Regular members don’t get told, but officers can find out. I looked up the CEO Reports for 2022 and 2024 and found the following data:

 

Year    Members   # of Clubs 

2018   357,718       16,672

2019   358,078       16,856

2020   364,212       16,204

2021   300,206       15,875

2022   282,055       14,749

2023   266,564       14,271

2024   272,338       13,846

   

From 2020 to 2021 membership dropped by 64,006 or 17.6%! And from 2019 to 2020 the number of clubs dropped by 652, or 3.9%. I found a chart showing Toastmaster International Membership Growth (1990 to 2020) so I added the data tabulated above, and used Excel to produce the chart for this century, from 2000 to 2024 shown at the top of this post. Membership now is almost at the same level as back in 2011.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I could not find a similar chart for the number of clubs, and looked up data from various web pages at the Toastmasters web site like one for 2011 and another for 2014. The chart shown above summarizes the situation from 2007 to 2024. In 2023 we had fallen back to barely above where we were a decade earlier in 2013. Note that multiplying the number of clubs (13,846 for 2024) by 20 members/club gives 276,920, which is pretty close to the membership of 272,338.        

  

Our organization was significantly wounded by the pandemic. Knowing that, we can work on recovering.