The sun was out and the temperature was around 70 degree, so Ann and I thought it would be a perfect day to take a hike. Little did we know how difficult which, in turn, made this hike a great subject for my next Toastmasters speech.

Toastmasters is an organization that operates clubs worldwide promoting communication, public speaking and leadership. At our last meeting this past Monday, there were only a handful of us(5 in all) there and speeches were few and far between.

When it was my turn to speak, I brought the notes that I had prepared, introduced myself and then began speaking about this hike that we took at Steep Rock Preserve in Washington,Connecticut. Though the scenery was beautiful and the sound of the rushing water of the Shepaug River was pleasant to hear through the entire 3.3 mile hike, the biggest challenges Ann and I faced were the massive rocks that appeared quite often on that first leg of our hike. This made the trail we had been walking along seem more like an obstacle course, but we made it to the midway point by helping one another when things got difficult. Yes, we were like teammates helping another when things got tough.

When we had finished this hardest part of our hike, we had reached a small footbridge. There was also an old railroad tunnel with moss all over the outside of it that we walked over to and then through. Yes, they were simple things, but it was beautiful to see them up close, on a perfect spring day. I spoke about Ann and I going through this small tunnel, taking a couple of pictures and then heading back to cross the bridge, then walking back to the car on a road which was flat, boulder free and simple to walk on compared to the previous path we had just taken.

The speech was to be between six and eight minutes and mine, sure enough turned out to be a little under seven minutes. Different people from the group evaluate the speeches and person who did my speech liked my speech subject and body language. things I could work on, according to her, are not laughing at my own jokes(no, seriously!),cutting down on my speech notes and making it simple. I’m not sure what that means.