Due to popular demand TESOL Kuwait, a new affiliate of TESOL International, has just opened its second interest section for local educators with an interest in ESL and public speaking: TESOL Toastmasters. This new idea, combining these two international nonprofit organizations, for a common goal is the first ever of its kind. The new IS will take the form of a Toastmasters club only for TESOL Kuwait members who seek to up-skill in public speaking and leadership skills through the Toastmasters program and will follow the constitution and by-laws of TESOL Kuwait as well as the rules of Toastmasters. The club will be chartered in autumn 2013 and will elect officers at that time.

How did it come about? The TESOL Kuwait affiliate has been operating only since November 2012 and grew to over 400 members in less than 8 months. Last December, TESOL Kuwait president Yvonne Johnson invited her former colleague, Don Prades, Distinguished Toastmaster and senior instructor at the American University of Kuwait, to present a workshop on impromptu speaking at the inaugural meeting at the Gulf University of Science and Technology in Kuwait. Very soon members were keen to learn more about public speaking, and a demo meeting was offered at the TESOL Kuwait May open meeting (alongside eight other professional development workshops) with a hugely positive response from members. Mr. Prades was later invited to the TESOL Kuwait board meeting to speak about the novel collaboration, after which TK board members voted unanimously for the motion to form this new interest section.

TESOL Kuwait board member and enthusiastic Toastmaster Camille Bondi will organize the new Toastmasters club with support from her fellow Toastmasters in Kuwait, Distinguished Toastmaster Don Prades, Toastmaster Bobbie Hoxit, and Toastmaster Wafaa Salman, and in Dubai, Christine Coombe, a former president of TESOL International and Distinguished Toastmaster herself. Watch this space!