COVID-19 Update

 COVID-19 Update -

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, we will be meeting on Zoom until further notice. If you are interested in attending a meeting as a guest, please click the Contact Us item within the  
Main Menu tab on our website and we will email you the Zoom login information.

Select this link to access out Club website:  Cedar Hill Toastmasters 

Cedar Hill Toastmasters Members

Thanks for your interest in our club.  We hope to hear from you soon !

Happy New Year from Cedar Hill Toastmasters !

At the beginning of every New Year many of us make resolutions. For example, losing weight, exercise more often, eating healthier, spend more time with our loved ones, just to name a few.

If one of your resolutions is to become a stronger communicator and leader, you should consider attending one of our Cedar Hill Toastmasters meetings as a guest. When you do, you will quickly realize that our club provides a friendly and supportive environment designed to assist you in becoming a better speaker and leader. 

As a member, you are provided educational materials that will help you develop your leadership and communications skills in the form of projects.  Each project is designed to develop a specific skill that serves as a foundation for future projects. Think of it as building a home. You can’t Sheetrock until you first pour a foundation, build the frame, install the plumbing, electrical and of course, pass inspection.

We also provide a mentor program where new and experienced members can receive guidance and advice from one or several of our mentors. 

Plan on stopping in for a visit soon. You will be glad you did.

Happy New Year from all of us at Cedar Hill Toastmasters!!

Cedar Hill Toastmasters has a New meeting location

Cedar Hill Toastmasters has moved our meetings to a new location !

We will now be meeting at:

Middlewoods of Newington
2125 Main Street
Newington, CT 06111
First Floor, Community Room

We will continue to hold meetings on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of each month. 7PM

Directions to our new meeting location can be viewed by selecting the Meeting Information / Directions tab located on our club WEB site.   Cedar Hill Toastmasters WEB site

We are excited about our new location and hope you can join us for a visit !

Step out of your "comfort zone"

Many of us live the majority of our lives in something known as our “comfort zone”.  We tend to do things that are very familiar and don’t require much extra effort. It’s like how water always travels the path of least resistance. 

This is natural, but it’s also beneficial to “step out” of our “comfort zone” from time to time. Doing so helps us gain knowledge and at the same time, build confidence. This is also true as a member of a Toastmasters club. 

During regular meetings, members give presentations on projects taken from various manuals. After every presentation, the speaker receives an evaluation from a fellow member. The evaluation highlights the good pieces of the speech and also provides examples of areas for improvement. This valuable information provided during the evaluation validates the good habits of the presenter and identifies items to improve upon.

Although a member’s first few speeches can prove challenging, members become much more comfortable as they continue presenting speech projects. They naturally become more confident and speeches can eventually become part of their “comfort zone”. 

Twice a year, clubs hold speech contests. They are speech competitions that allow members to “step out” of their “comfort zone” in a friendly, but competitive environment. Member speeches are judged with awards given for 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place. The competition’s 1^st place winners move onto the Area contest where they compete against the 1^st place winners from other clubs.  

Challenge yourself to become your very best

These contests allow members the opportunity to challenge themselves by creating a presentation that may win at the club and possibly the area level.

At Cedar Hill Toastmasters, we held our fall speech contest on Thursday, September 21^st. Several great speeches were presented. Congratulations to all our contestants!

Our regular meetings will resume on Thursday, October 5^th.

We hope to see you there!

Paul Horvath

Cedar Hill Toastmasters Club

2017-2018 Vice President Membership

Help along your journey to becoming an accomplished Communicator and Leader

Most individuals would like to improve their communications and leadership skills. When speaking with people, we hear a number of reasons why they would like to sharpen these skills.

Many are moving into work positions that may require additional responsibilities including increased leadership. These positions usually require an individual to perform presentations at various levels within the company or organization.

Some people wish to become better speakers to feel more comfortable speaking at life events outside the workplace. For example, giving a toast at a wedding, speaking at a fundraising event, performing a eulogy for a deceased friend or relative,  just to name a few.

Whatever drives you to become a better communicator and leader, we can help.

When you decide to become a member of our club, you will not be alone. You will quickly realize that all our members support one another in order to achieve goals.

We also offer a mentor program for our members to help them along their individual Toastmasters journey. Just as a ship navigating on the sea uses lighthouses for guidance, a new or longtime Toastmasters member can take advantage of a mentor for guidance in order to achieve their goals.

Our mentors are club members who have been with Cedar Hill Toastmasters for many years. They have given numerous presentations and have held leadership roles within and in most cases outside our club environment.

The mentor program is provided on a voluntary basis. Whether you choose to have a mentor when becoming a member is your decision. You can also request a mentor at anytime during your membership.

Remember, it's all about you.

We want to make sure you have a strong and supportive environment for your journey to becoming a proficient communicator and leader.

Please feel free to visit us at one of our upcoming club meetings!

Meet our new Cedar Hill Toastmasters officers

Our new club officers for the 2017-2018 term were inducted during our last meeting.

From left to right:

Larry Wood - President,  Marie Jeudy - Vice President of Public Relations,  Eric Krausz - Secretary.

Kevin Finn- Treasurer,  Paula Zajac - Sergeant at Arms and Paul Horvath - Vice President of Membership.  Charmayne Harris - Vice President of Education (not present for photo) 

Congratulations to all newly elected officers !

Meeting Minutes - June 6

Cedar Hill Toastmasters rock! We had 21 people in attendance at this meeting, including several guests. 

Our Sergeant at Arms, Paul, began the meeting with a short introduction and gave the floor to Larry, the Toastmaster of the evening. Since there was a considerable number of guests, Larry explained all the roles throughout the meeting. Mohamed gave the word of the day "cajole." Several speakers met the challenge by using the word. Joanna delivered not only one but three jokes and she got everyone laughing. 

We had three speakers - Elizabeth, Joyce and Joel. Elizabeth gave a speech entitled "Family Ties" from the Entertaining Speaker manual as she spoke about her life situations, often funny but true, which helped her to strengthen the bond with her son. Next, Joyce delivered a speech from Communicating on Television manual. Her speech "To Toastmasters Clubs of America" was an invitation to use filming of Toastmasters meetings to help members improve their presentation skills. The final speech was Joel's travelogue of his latest trip to two notable tourists spots - Milan, Italy and Barcelona, Spain. 

Eliot as a Table Topics Master announced a summer theme for the table topics session. The participants were given a subtopic and their challenge was to create a question within this subcategory and then answer it. 

Lyn as General Evaluator led the Evaluation portion of the meeting. Martha evaluated Elizabeth's speech and John evaluated Joyce's speech. Ramon delivered the Timer's report and Kevin was the Grammarian. 

Larry concluded the meeting by getting some feedback from the guests and then turned the meeting to John, our club President. John reminded about the mentoring program available to all the members. Also, he expressed his gratitude to the club for serving the role of Cedar Hill club President during this Toastmaster year. 

Paula took the roles for the next meeting to be held on Thursday, July 7. 

Respectfully submitted, 

Martha Danielewicz
Secretary 
Cedar Hill Toastmasters