Rose City Toastmasters to celebrate 10th anniversary

Published 1:03 pm Tuesday, March 7, 2023

On April 3, the Rose City Toastmasters Club will be celebrating their 10th anniversary with a special open house ceremony in honor of their founder and former president, Walter Marria Jr. 

Felicia Hunter, the president of Rose City Toastmasters, said that she began participating with the club back in 2015 and it has sharpened her skills, such as public speaking, into finely honed tools for her professional career. 

“I have been a toastmaster since 2015,” Hunter said. “When I first started out I found that it was a great organization, I knew that right from the beginning and it definitely has helped me improve my communication and leadership skills.”

She said that holding their 10th anniversary event was exciting, especially so with April 3 being the same day the club was chartered.

“Our 10th anniversary is going to be on April 3 this year and the neat thing is that’s when the club chartered, it was chartered on April 3, 10 years ago,” she said. “And I think that is just so exciting.”

The event, held in honor of Marria, will be a unique version of the club’s usual open house events.

“The club was started by Walter Marria Jr.,” Hunter said. “The celebration is going to look like an open house. We do an open house at least twice a year where we put it out there for anybody in the community, in our surroundings, to come and give us a look, come try us out, come take a peak at what we have to offer to you and see if that’s something of interest to you.”

Held at the Chamber of Commerce in Thomasville for their special anniversary, in lieu of their normal venue, Hunter said that the doors would be open at 6 p.m. for all who were interested. 

“What’s going to be special about it this year is that we’re not going to have the open house at our normal meeting venue,” she said. “We’re going to expand it out and have it at the Chamber of Commerce in Thomasville.”

Hunter said Marria deserved the kudos the event intends to share for all the work and effort he has invested in recruitment, organization and building the foundations for this local branch of the Toastmasters Club. 

“We are honoring such a great man, we’re celebrating a great organization that is not only local, but international,” she said. “Walter is a distinguished toastmaster that is the highest honor that a member in a toastmaster club can become, a distinguished toastmaster.”

With other impressive members in the club as well, Hunter said that she was excited to see people come out and see for themselves what the Rose City Toastmasters Club had to offer.