The Four Flags Toastmasters is conducting its membership drive into the new year 2018. The local Toastmasters Club encourages people in the Niles area to make it a New Year’s resolution to join Toastmasters to increase leadership skills and confidence as well as public speaking ability. The group meets at 6 p.m. on the first and third Thursdays of the month. They also meet every Thursday from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. at the Niles Township Hall.

Rhonda Gipson-Willis is the CEO of Skylight Leadership. She is a speaker and best-selling author, radio personality and speaker. She considers herself dream catalyst and coach. Gibson’s story is the first in a series about Toastmaster participants.

Why did you join Toastmasters?  

I was making a transition from the social work field and wanted to start my own business. I wanted to be a proficient communicator, so needed the additional support and practicing in speaking Toastmasters would give me.

How has Toastmasters helped you in your career? 

It gave me more confidence. I was a pretty good speaker, but Toastmasters allowed me to become better. I got rid of bad speaking habits, such as ‘um’ and ‘uh.’ You learn to stop yourself ahead of time. If you can speak well, it automatically puts you on a higher level. To have credibility, you have to speak well.

What are you doing now? 

With Skylight Leadership, we do leadership development, coaching, workshops, training and speaking. We teach team building, conflict resolution, and building trust. I have a radio program ‘Moments With Rhonda,’ three times a day, five times a week on Niles Station 99.1 WSMK. People have said I sound so professional, so spontaneous. But Toastmasters Table Topics, developing two-minute off-the cuff talks on random subjects, helped me do that.

Table Topics, with its two-minute spontaneous talks every week, helped me develop my thoughts quickly and express them with a beginning, middle and end. I had Table Topics to lean on, when I had to develop radio programs with only 57 seconds for a segment.

How has Toastmasters helped you in your life? 

In effective listening.  An effective trainer must be a good listener. I have always been a pretty good listener, although my husband might beg to differ, but when I have had to evaluate speeches in Toastmasters, I had to shut down what was going on in my mind and really listen to what the speaker was saying.

Toastmasters is welcoming new members and encouraging people in the Four Flags area to make joining this Toastmasters Club a New Year’s resolution for the year 2018. For more information, email, FourFlagsToastmasters@gmail.com., or go to toastmastersclubs.org  for more information.