My name is John Spaith and I am originally from Columbus, Ohio. I came out to Redmond, WA to work for Microsoft in 1999. +5 years ago I joined Toastmasters and became very involved in it.  I’ve held most club officer positions, helped form new clubs, acted as Area Governor (i.e. served as management overhead for 6 clubs), and had some success in our speech competitions, the highlight being the 2005 District Evaluation winner.  I am also a wanna historical re-enactor of Marcus Tullius Cicero, a contemporary of Julius Caesar and one of the great orators of all time.

One of the reasons I’ve started this blog is that while our TM manuals are (mostly) quite good, they tend to be dry.  I’m a smart ass so I try to make this stuff more fun.  Also there’s a lot of tribal knowledge about running a club, managing your TM career, and speaking in general that I just picked up because I’m in such a strong club but that many folks stumble upon more haphazardly.  I also like going to watch non-Toastmasters speak and I’ll evaluate them for speaking/logistics/leadership/etc lessons they do well and not so well, with the focus for life outside Toastmasters.

I’m pretty good for an amateur, but any decent professional speaker will run circles around me. I’m a much better evaluator than a speaker or leader, which is why I don’t have qualms about this blog.  In short, I just try real hard.