Holiday Season Food Drive

Hello Friends, 

Thanks for coming back each day. My commitment to you is to continue daily blogging and sharing positive thoughts based on my experience that hopefully you will find uplifting. I sincerely appreciate the time you take to read my blog and send me kind emails and text messages.

Please allow me to express my deepest condolences to the family and friends of the 4 year boy who died in the hospital yesterday after being hit by a motor vehicle near a school in Mississauga, Ontario. As a parent, I can only imagine the agony of the pain inflicted on parents and relatives. They will be in my thoughts for a long time. May his soul rest in peace and his memories shine a light for his parents, family members and friends!

On Monday, November 11, 2013 (Remembrance Day) I officially launched my High Performance Leadership project titled Holiday Season Food Drive to benefit the Salvation Army of Brampton. My goal is to collect at least TEN 3.0 cubic feet (18 x 18 x 16) boxes of non-perishable food items to be delivered to the Salvation Army of Brampton by mid-December. I have enlisted the kind support of Toastmasters Clubs in the cities of Mississauga and Brampton to help collect non-perishable food items.

My Holiday Season Food Drive is gaining momentum among Toastmasters clubs and their members in the two cities. The members of my home club, City Centre Toastmasters Club, are extremely supportive of my efforts. They started donating non-perishable food items the day after the official launch of my Holiday Season Food. Members of City Centre Toastmasters Club will continue their donation at our meeting next on Tuesday, November 26, 2013 and at our final meeting for the year on December 3, 2013.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of presenting one of my humourous speeches as guest speaker at TD Creekside Toastmasters Club in Mississauga’s financial district. The members donated two large environmentally friendly reusable grocery bags full of non-perishable food items. I also had the opportunity to listen to wonderful Ice Breaker speech from Lisa, a member of the club. Lisa ended her speech extolling the virtues of Canada’s multiculturalism, freedom and inclusiveness. Please allow me to express a hearty congratulation to Lisa for completing her Ice Break, she spoke eloquently and all though she expressed thoughts of being nervous she appeared confident and managed to inject moments of humour and use of gestures in her speech. I would also like to express my gratitude the members of the TD Creekside Toastmasters for their generous support and encouragement of my Holiday Season Food Drive.

Over the next two weeks I have invitations to visit Point of Tale Toastmasters and Speak To Inspire Toastmasters in Brampton and Sheridan Bruins, at Sheridan College in Mississauga. This morning I also received this wonderful message from Diana Alandete, the founder and sponsor of Leaders' Corner Toastmasters Club:

Hola Mark,

Thanks for your email and for the great work you are doing collecting food for the Salvation Army of Brampton.

I would like to include 3 clubs that I am associated with to help you in your High Performance Leadership Project. I would like to invite you as a guest speaker to visit each of the 3 three clubs I am associated with to talk to our members about your great project.

I will start talking to  members this coming Monday, that way when you come, they know about the food drive, and I will also mention it to our other club the following Saturday.

We will talk soon to arrange the dates.

Chao for now,

Diana.

Friends I share the above to use the opportunity to invite you to find a Toastmasters club near you and of course, if you live in the cities of Mississauga and Brampton use your visit to participate in my Holiday Season Food Drive. As I have stressed over my past two months of daily blogging your development, growth and success is important to me. For almost 15 years I have benefited from my involvement in Toastmasters and I would also like you have a similar experience. 

Toastmasters International’s mission is to empower individuals to become more effective communicators and leaders. For your personal development and growth is one of the World’s best communication and leadership programmes. My home club, City Centre Toastmasters in among 14,350 clubs in 122 countries around the world that provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth. In District 86 alone there are over 200 active clubs and more than 5,000 members.

Again thanks for your support and encouragement. Have a great day!

Mark McKenzie is a leading Subject Matter Expert in financial services regulation and supervision as well as a professional motivational speaker, corporate trainer and youth mentor.  He can be contacted by email mastbmckenzie@gmail.com or by telephone 647-406-4622. Read my blog http://mastbmckenzie.blogspot.ca/ and always write me a comment and share. Follow me on Twitter @mackynacky. Connect with me on www.youtube.com, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.