By Jed Lanyon
Toastmaster area director Nola Sharp is celebrating a triple crown of awards over the past year.
Ms Sharp’s Toastmasters club in Wandin came close to being named the Toastmasters club of the year after being nominated for the award recently.
Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational organisation that teaches public speaking and leadership skills through a worldwide network of clubs.
The organisation has more than 350,000 memberships spread over 16,000 clubs in 141 countries.
Ms Sharp won a humorous speech contest trophy at district level (includes Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia), earned the award of Wandin’s outstanding Toastmaster of the year and was named as a distinguished Toastmaster, the highest award a Toastmaster can earn.
Ms Sharp said, “It came as such a wonderful surprise as I had failed twice before.”
She believes she could be the oldest person to win a speech contest trophy at 75 years old.
“I’ve been a toastmaster for 12 years now. And in all that time I’ve been competing because it’s something I enjoy.”
“It is a very safe place within our meetings… Everyone that is in that meeting wants a person to do well and is interested in what they have to say.
“Everybody is unique and has a different way of living and way of expressing themselves… no meeting is ever the same.”
Ms Sharp has taken on the role of Toastmasters area director once again and described the role as her way of giving back to the organisation that she loves so much.
Visit https://d73.toastmasters.org.au/ to learn more about Toastmasters.
