On Friday February 11, 2011 a Suburban full of Toastmasters set out on a journey around the greater Oklahoma City area to give due recognition to businesses and individuals that are great supporters of Toastmasters.
Toastmaster Lark Doley, DTM Region III Director from Toastmasters International was visiting us from Texas. It was a pleasure to meet her Friday morning in the lobby of the hotel where she was staying. She is so very friendly that it is easy to like her charming personality.
District 16 Lt Governor of Marketing, Ed Engelke, his wife Janice, Lark Doley and I decided that we would proceed to our first destination early. Since it was also the place where I am employed. I had some paperwork I was going to pick up that would help Lark with the rest of our visits and it also gave us some time to contact a few of the members in the building for a quick chat before the presentation.
9: 25 a.m. I let the Executive Secretary to the President of Oklahoma Farm Bureau know that we had arrived and were waiting in the board room for his arrival. Mike Spradling arrived at the designated appointment time and we made the introductions. Two of the club members were able to attend: Alexis Thompson and Meghan Padgett, they are also employees at Oklahoma Farm Bureau. We all talked for a moment then moved to the front of the room where we had the club Toastmaster banner hanging. Then Lark gave the presentation of the award to Mike Spradling as we all watched. Mike being the gracious person that he is turned the talk back to Toastmasters and how OFB appreciates that Toastmasters is helping the OFB employees and the community to become better leaders and communicators. Just when we thought we were taking OFB, Mike turns and thanks Toastmasters. lol… And this is only our first stop! lol
Oklahoma Farm Bureau
We load up the “bus” and head North towards our next appointment. Lark told me several times before we left the hotel; if you know of any place that we should make a “cold call” just pull up to their building and we will give them Toastmasters materials. Well as I was driving North I spotted a building that said Delta Dental. I said, hang on we are going to make a stop, because I know people in the building and I know that they don’t have a club and they need one! Everyone laughed and said okay here we go! We drove around the parking lot looking for a place to park and when we found one I said, ok here is the deal. I know that at least five people have been involved with Toastmasters. Four people were members of my home club and the other a member of a club that has folded. I know that they have busy schedules and it is hard for them to leave the office so I think they need a club here. Lark said, okay I have a pack we can leave, lets go inside. So we went in and I asked for the person I knew at the front desk and we left the pack for them. I need to follow up with them this week. It was fun doing that cold call. But I think it was fun, because I kind of knew the people! lol.
Our next appointment wasn’t for another 50 minutes so we made a stop at a Starbucks to get a caffeine charge. lol This also gave us time to discuss how the next call would go. Since the next appointment was also an inquiry for a new club we discussed how Lark would explain how Toastmasters would help them, the costs involved etc. I was glad she shared with us the plan, it was easy to understand how things would work before hand and we looked professional when we walked through the door. I learned a lot on that visit. I do hope that they will form a new club. I’ll share more when I know more.
12:00 p.m. Since it was now lunch time we decided to take a quick lunch close to our next appointment. District 16 Governor Bob Campbell had joined us on the last appointment and we made our way to the Olive Garden on Memorial Road. We all agreed that soup and salad would be a quick, lite lunch. Hopefully we could eat and get out the door for our next appointment, we didn’t want to be late! We discussed our morning appointments and the plan for the next appointments. Thankfully the food arrived – the soup was super hot! – and we were able to leave on time. By the way, Thanks Bob for lunch!
1:00 p.m. appointment Cox Communications. There is an office on North Pennsylvania that I think is the support office for Oklahoma City. We were escorted through secure doors and down long halls to the meeting room where we met up with Frank Jackson the Club VP of Education, Jonathan Hall, Project Manager and others from Cox Communications. A very nice group of people. Cox is very supportive of the club and it shows by the group that showed for our meeting. Again Lark made the presentation and photos were taken. We loaded up for our next destination, but Bob departed on a secret mission, he would join us later.
Cox
2:00 p.m. appointment Boeing, now for those don’t know, Boeing is in Midwest City and we were on the North side of Oklahoma City! Thankfully traffic was light and the Boeing office wasn’t too far from an interstate. We arrived before our appointment, yeah! And we were greeted at the door by Karen Mata, Software Engineer and Boeing Plane Speaker’s President. It was wonderful to see her at the door with a big smile on her face. Since Boeing is kind of off the beaten path she knew that we were there for the meeting. Shortly after we arrived Nancy Anderson Director of Engineering and Mission Assurance for GS&S arrived in the meeting room. We decided that the foyer had a nice backdrop for photos and asked if we could move out there for the presentation. Lark gave the presentation to Nancy and photos were taken. It was nice to see Nancy again as it had been 2 years since I’ve seen her. I was one of the mentors for Boeing Plane Speakers. We finished thanking them and loaded up the “bus” again.
Boeing
2:45 p.m. Integris Hospital – Baptist, yes cutting it a little close, I’ll tell you why in a moment.. So we had to hurry from Midwest City to North Oklahoma City again. But we were lucky, traffic was light and we were able to find a good parking place. Bob Campbell was back from his secret mission and meet up with us in the lobby. We proceeded to the basement atrium, just off of the cafeteria. By the way the food in the cafeteria is really yummy, good place to eat, not like most “hospital” food. Jim Porterfield was already in the atrium waiting for us, he was early. Introductions were made and while we were doing so, more people started to arrive. Joe Acosta, Billy and a couple more members arrived. It was hard for me to keep up with all the names. lol Jim was so very nice, just like many of the others that we thanked, he said thanks back to us for the work we do to improve others. Time to load up the “bus” again…
Integris Hospital
3:30 p.m. Oklahoma State Capitol, Governor Mary Fallin. We made it through security, up to the second floor, I stopped by the Governor’s office and said to the receptionist we are here, do we wait right next door? The door is locked and they said the blue room? She said yes so I went back out into the hall and we waited and we waited. Finally Bob’s phone rang and it was one of Governor Mary Fallin’s people asking “did we get lost?”… well sort of.. lol.. we were standing outside of the wrong door! So we walked down another hall to the correct “blue” room and waited a moment then the Governor and a couple of her staff arrived. Governor Mary Fallin is so nice and she is funny. This time Bob had a special presentation for her and gave her a plaque (this was what his secret mission was about). We talked for a while and took photos. It was an awesome encounter.
Gov Mary Fallin
I’m so glad that I got to be a part of Toastmasters Giving Recognition on Friday. It felt good to give thanks to each of the people we met and I hope that they understood the sincerity that was given with each presentation. It was a lot of work coordinating the day, but well worth every effort.
Thank you Ed for giving me the opportunity to help you. I had a wonderful day.
