HISTORY OF BLARNEY CLUB #janpodpomo

Speech given online to an audience from USA, Ireland, Thailand, Indonesia, Kuwait & India -  on Sunday 26th January 2025
#janpodpomo

(978 words)
50 YEARS A GROWING
speech by Paul O'Mahony given at Cork Toastmasters Club on 26th January 2025
____________________________________________________


26th of January 2025 …26th of January 1975 …

On this day in 1975, my home Toastmasters Club, Blarney Toastmasters in Cork Ireland, was founded, set up, chartered.


Because I was teaching sociological theory and research methods to high-flying civil servants in Dublin, I wasn't at the meeting. In fact, I hadn't even heard of Toastmasters in 1975. 


My friends, had you heard of Toastmasters in 1975? Please, please raise a hand if you had heard of Toastmasters that year.  Or had any of your family ever met a Toastmaster in 1975?  Were you a public speaker that year?


I'm going to call public speaking any situation in which you're communicating meaningful stuff to one person, a small group, or perhaps a whole conference.


Isn't it a bit of a pity, and unfortunate, that you can go through your whole adult life without ever hearing about the service that Toastmasters gives?  Nobody knows how many people in the world have never heard of Toastmasters.


Toastmasters and very welcome visitors to One Country One World,

Last Tuesday, I met Paddy Regan in Cork. Paddy was a member of Toastmasters 50 years ago. We met at a Toastmasters Club which is called Cork Toastmasters.


It was the first time I'd seen him since 2009 and 2010 where we met at a literary festival in a small Irish town called Listowel in County Kerry - a place that Larry would know very well and has probably visited a few times in his life.


Paddy and I got talking. Paddy said to me, "Paul, do you have any idea how Blarney Toastmasters was set up?"

"No, no idea.  I just know it was set up a very long time ago. How was it set up?"

"It was set up by Cork Toastmasters Club."

“What?" says I.


"Do you know that, many years ago, there was a rule in Toastmasters that said that once a club had 40 members it couldn't have any more.” This is what Paddy told me.  It couldn't have any more.  It had to set up another club.


Cork Toastmasters is the oldest club in Cork, one of the oldest clubs in Ireland.  It turns out that members from Cork Toastmasters Club set up Blarney Toastmasters Club as the second club. Eight years after it was founded, Cork Toastmasters sets up Blarney Toastmasters.


You won't believe why this is incredibly important this week.   Because on Tuesday, a couple of days time, Blarney Toastmasters Club is going to hold Part One of our 50th anniversary… 50th anniversary.  Part One is going to be online because we are now a hundred percent online club.

We used to be, as the vast, vast, vast majority of Toastmasters Clubs, we used to be a local community club.


I joined it in 2015.  When the pandemic came we went online, on Zoom - like every Toastmasters Club that was still going, (although some did it on Teams).


But we've stayed online.


One of the reasons we've stayed alive on the internet is because we have this weird name, Blarney Toastmasters. There are people who have absolutely no idea what Blarney is, or where it is, but they know the word Blarney.  The place Blarney has got a castle.  It's a huge tourist attraction in Ireland.  We decided it would be a good thing to bring Blarney Toastmasters to the wider world -  50 years after 1975. 50 years standing on the shoulders of giants with a club that has a rich and impressive history, and through which thousands of people have been influenced.


That's what it's like these days.  An online celebration … all sorts of people ranging from people who are brand-new to Toastmasters to past International Presidents, District Directors…


I would love you all to come.  

I invite you all to come. 

Our Club President has authorised me to invite you all to come on Tuesday.


It will be at 7.30pm Irish time, 2.30pm New York time - I think it's going to be 11.30pm Bangkok time. Forgive me if I've made a mistake, but that's it.


One of my big issues is how am I going to be Toastmaster of the day at this celebratory meeting. We've decided to dispense with the General Evaluator (with respect to our general evaluator). We've decided to dispense with Evaluator. We've decided to dispense with two of the roles, Grammarian and Ah-counter - and simply have a meeting with two visiting prepared speakers, one of whom is going to talk about “What Toastmasters International like in 1975”. He's well, well, well known among a tiny number of people in the entire world - but he is indeed a terrific historian of Toastmasters.


Secondly, a speech from an American Distinguished Toastmaster who's going to join Blarney Toastmasters Club in February.  He was involved in researching and advising the Board of Toastmasters International whether it should set up online clubs back in 2012, 13, 14. The very first official club that Toastmasters International recognised was in 2016, the first online one.


How on earth am I going to do it?  Any of you who have advice for me, I would - as we say in Ireland - bite your hand off.  I would love that.


It's been a great opportunity today to kind of practice, albeit in an extended way, a little bit of what I might say at the meeting on Tuesday.  I think I'll give myself about two minutes on Tuesday and then let 50 voices speak.  Because it'll be all impromptu speech speaking.   It'll be all about people, what Blarney means to people, what stories they might have about the club - and stuff like that.

Once again, I invite you to come on Tuesday. 

I will put the invitation in the chat.  Back to you, Madam Toastmaster.
(978 words)

_____________________________________________