Summit County

Park City Toastmasters to start evening meetings August 9th

KPCW | By Leslie Thatcher

Published August 5, 2022 at 12:32 PM MDT

Park City Toastmasters will start holding two meetings a month on Tuesday evenings at 5:30 at the Park City Library

After 20 years of meeting early every Tuesday morning, starting next week, the Park City Toastmasters will begin offering evening meetings too

Park City Toastmasters has been providing supportive and positive learning experiences to members by helping to develop communication and leadership skills through public speaking. For the last 20 years, local members have been meeting every Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. at the Summit County Library. Due to interest from community members who can’t make it then, Toastmasters president Debbie Sebek says they’re going to start offering about half of their meetings on Tuesday evenings on the third floor of the Park City Library.

“We have a lot of people very interested in the club,” Sebek said. “Young moms that need to be with their kids at home in the morning at 7 a.m. A lot of senior people that are not interested in waking up that early but very interested in the club. Everyone has loved the social afterwards. That's a really great learning time. And in the mornings, we do coffee, but many people have to hurry off to work. And we wanted to just have a more casual time of day to have the meeting.”

Starting next week, August 9, evening meetings will be held on the 2^nd and 4^th Tuesdays of the month The morning meetings will continue meetings on the first and third Tuesdays. If there’s a 5^th Tuesday, Sebek says that will be held at 7 a.m. But from here on out, all morning meetings she says will only be held virtually.

“We’ve been doing a hybrid meeting. We’ve had not as many. Most people are more interested in the virtual. And we’ve been paying higher fees for that space we’re in and you know more and more people because they have to hurry off to work, or just stay in virtual. So, we’re going to keep it virtual only and then have the live in the evening.”

It costs about $15 a month to participate. The Vice President of Education Gregg Davison says you get a lot for your money.

“The gist of it is this,” Davison said. “If you're scared to speak, Toastmasters is for you. If you're excited to speak, Toastmasters is for you. And there's different levels of self -learning as you move forward. But no matter what, you're going to be in front of people, working on your skills and getting powerful supportive feedback.”

For more information about Toastmasters, you can find a link in the web version of this story.