WOW – The past year has been full of unexpected moments

by Sithari Edirisooriya, New Horizons Toastmasters Club Secretary 2020-2021

For New Horizons Toastmasters, it was a year of meeting challenges and rising to the occasion. When District 3 announced the Club WOW challenge last year, I thought the timing was perfect. We were already having a challenging time as a club transitioning into a virtual setting. Members were having to learn a new format while keeping the meetings fun. What better way than a challenge amongst all the clubs to keep us even more motivated?

I was Secretary at the time and had the added title of event planner for our club. Therefore, I was in charge of planning the Club WOW event we would submit for the month. At first, I didn’t know where to begin. I searched online for “fun activities to do on Zoom.” I saw a table read, which is an activity where people read through a script from a television show or movie. I thought that would be fun and allow our group to be creative. I chose a few TV show scripts that took place in one location (so that the Zoom backgrounds could all be changed to that location) and we chose the Seinfeld Parking Garage episode. Each person also brought a prop that corresponded with their character’s dialogue. We won the Club WOW for that month.

Our club was so excited, we decided we wanted to submit an entry for every month. This became quite challenging for me.  I came up with ideas by searching online to see what fun things people were doing over Zoom and thinking of creative ideas to see if they could be implemented in a virtual setting.

Over the last year our club performed a murder mystery night, an alien abduction, a Whose Line Is It Anyway? Improv, a talent show, and many other fun table topics. We ended up winning four Club WOW months and the Club WOW of the Year. We have an award that we give out at each of our meetings: “Zing Award.” It goes to whomever brought the zing to that meeting. This challenge brought the Zing to all of our meetings.

See All the 2020-2021 submissions: https://aztoastmasters.org/club_wow/

New Horizons Website: https://www.newhorizonsarizona.org/