new Toastmasters' group is forming

from the Douglas County Sentinel:

Jones-Wingate spearheads formation of Toastmaster's Club in Douglas County
by Helen McCoy/Staff Writer


Beatrice Jones-Wingate is leading the effort to start a Toastmasters Club in Douglas County. A demonstration meeting, hosted by Toastmasters International, will be held Saturday from 10 a.m. until noon at the Douglas County Public Library on Selman Drive.

According to local businessman Jimmy Haddle, there was a Toastmasters Club here some years ago, but he can’t remember exactly why it died. He was a member then and is excited about the prospect of a new club.

So is Jones-Wingate.

“I am so excited, you have no idea,” she said. “On Saturday, they will probably have to glue me to my seat.”

The new club will have to form an executive committee to fill the offices of president, vice president of education, vice president of membership, secretary, treasurer and parliamentarian.

Jones-Wingate is a Distinguished Toastmaster, a high rank within the organization she joined in February. 1995.

She is also blind.

She said she was inspired to join Toastmasters after friends went to a conference in California where a blind man, an administrative law judge, was the keynote speaker.

“I want to be a motivational speaker,” she said, adding that to be paid to do it would be the proverbial icing on the cake.

She has been busy the last few days, sending e-mails to people interested in getting more information about Toastmasters.

Toastmasters International is a non-profit organization that teaches communication and leadership skills, according to its Web site.

Jones-Wingate said it teaches much more.

“It is an organization where you can truly improve yourself,” she said. “To be perfectly, honest, I don’t need lessons in speaking. I probably said ‘hello’ to my mother when I was born.”

But she said members have the opportunity to meet different people, in addition to learning leadership skills and enhancing speaking ability. Jones-Wingate said it “causes you to strive to achieve, to go from one level to another.”

To be sure, there are different levels of achievement. Jones-Wingate said when she joined, members starting in the first manual had to deliver 10 speeches, then move to the next manual with another 10 speeches, eventually qualifying for bronze and silver status in Toastmasters. To become an advanced Toastmaster, the gold, members have to achieve a goal other than speaking. In her case, Jones-Wingate taught a group of home-schooled children Toastmasters principles.

Jones-Wingate has gone through the ranks, working her way from one certification to the next, from being an officer in her former Toastmasters Club to being an area governor, overseeing other clubs.

As part of Toastmasters, she organized a group of members she called the Angel Network for her leadership project. These people helped physically-challenged members in Toastmasters who needed assistance.

As far as physically-challenged, the term hardly applies to Jones-Wingate. While she became totally blind from sarcoidosis 25 years ago, the 75-year-old woman has done more as a blind person than a sighted one, she said.

Before losing her vision, Jones-Wingate was secretary to a New York state supreme court justice in the Bronx County criminal division. Her blindness forced her into retirement, she said.

Since she became sightless, Jones-Wingate went back to school in 1984 with a tape recorder and no Braille and graduated from California State (Fullerton) at the age of 54 with a masters degree in sociology and a 3.21 average grade.

She became certified as a mediator, a tutor, an HIV health counselor, and was past president of the Orange County (California) Parliamentarians.

She even became certified as a producer in 1999 and produced her own television show, “It’s About Words,” which she also hosted.

“Whatever else I am, I am so fortunate,” Jones-Wingate said.


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