Item of interest

Toastmasters to meet both in person, online

Hot Springs Toastmasters will hold its weekly club meeting at 7:45 a.m. Saturday, both virtually by Zoom and in person at an outdoor-indoor facility in Hot Springs that provides room for social distancing.

Meetings normally are one hour long. For more information, including the meeting location, call or email via the club website, https://7643.toastmastersclubs.org/, call 620-9943 or 262-1664, or use the “find a club” option on the Toastmasters International website, https://www.toastmasters.org/.

The online meeting cannot be accessed through either website.

Participants are welcome to bring or wear a mask, a news release said.

“The club has been meeting online since late

March, instead of its ‘normal’ meeting location at National Park Medical Center, 1910 Malvern Ave. Currently, we are doing the hybrid meeting style, which includes offering online Zoom attendance, as encouraged by Toastmasters International. Should we find a need for fully online attendance a given week, announcements will say so. When a meeting is in a hybrid format, enabling online attendance as well as in-person, we’re using laptop, hot spot and added microphone capability,” the release said.

Toastmasters is a supportive, inexpensive way to learn speaking and leadership skills. Training resources for speechmaking are part of Toastmasters support available to members. Toastmasters International’s materials and programs also offer leadership development. New members are offered mentoring, either assigned or a chosen match. Meeting roles rotate from one week to the next.