#toastmasters

Today I turned 74.

Now, if you’re 24, that probably sounds ancient. If you’re 74, it sounds suspiciously young. Turning 74 got me thinking about what life looked like when I was 24.

At 24, if a bar in New York City closed at 4 a.m., I considered that a personal challenge. Today, if I’m out at 9:30 p.m., my wife Ellen calls to make sure I haven’t been kidnapped.

At 24, I traveled through Europe with a backpack, a Eurail pass, and about $400 to my name. Somewhere along the way I met two Belgian girls, and for several glorious weeks we traveled together. My biggest problem wasn’t finding a hotel; it was trying not to fall in love with either one of them. The world seemed impossibly new that summer. Every train station was an invitation. Every stranger was a potential friend. Every wrong turn became a story.

At 74, I still travel to Europe. The difference is that now I know what a hotel reservation is. And if the room doesn’t have a private bathroom, I’m not calling it an adventure—I’m calling it grounds for a refund.

At 24, I landed a job as a clerk on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange through a combination of confidence, charm, and outright bluffing. About an hour into my first day, the boss tapped me on the shoulder. “You don’t know what the hell you’re doing, do you?” “No,” I admitted. He stared at me. “I’ll give you three weeks. Shape up or you’re fired.”

A year later I asked why he hadn’t fired me that first day. He smiled. “Because what you did is exactly what I would have done.”

At 24, I rode a motorcycle through New York traffic. At 74, I no longer ride a motorcycle. Not because I’ve become wiser, but because my wife has.

At 24, I lived in a tiny studio apartment in Brooklyn Heights. One morning, walking home after an all-night adventure, I turned a corner and literally bumped into Norman Mailer. Norman Mailer! One of the most famous writers in America. At 74, I no longer bump into famous authors on the street; I see them at lectures from the back row, usually while wondering whether the parking meter has expired.

And here’s another difference. At 24, I was paying a psychoanalyst in Manhattan to help me figure myself out. At 74, I’m still doing the work—only now I’ve discovered that self-understanding is not a destination. It’s a daily practice.

What strikes me isn’t that my life is smaller today; it’s just different. At 24, I collected experiences; at 74, I collect meaning. At 24, I wanted excitement; at 74, I want connection. At 24, I thought wisdom was knowing the answers; at 74, I’ve learned wisdom is knowing the questions.

And yet, some things haven’t changed. I still love a good story. I still love meeting interesting people. I still believe that around the next corner something unexpected might happen.

The difference is that at 24 I expected adventure to arrive on a motorcycle. At 74, I know it can arrive in a conversation, a friendship, my daughter’s laugh, a book, or a quiet moment when life suddenly makes sense.

When I was 24, I couldn’t imagine being 74. And now that I’m 74, I can honestly say something surprising: I wouldn’t trade places with that young man. Well—maybe for one weekend. Just definitely not the morning after.

It was unfortunate that we could not meet World Champion of Public Speaking Mark Brown in person during DTAC 2026 at District 127 in Dubai on 17th May 2026.Yet thanks to technology, his towering presence on the giant digital screen felt almost surreal; like George Orwell’s Big Brother, except instead of surveillance and fear, this particular screen delivered wisdom, encouragement, and a baritone…

One of the things that makes Toastmasters International so effective is its emphasis on recognition. Progress is celebrated, participation is encouraged, and members are motivated not just by completing speeches, but by contributing to the overall success of the club.

At Southern Dutchess Toastmasters, we’ve built on that idea with our P.A.C.E. program—Participating and Achieving Competence and Excellence. It’s a simple concept, but it has had a big impact. Members earn points not only for giving speeches, but for taking on all the roles that make a meeting run: Toastmaster of the Evening, evaluator, timer, Table Topics Master, and even smaller contributions like sharing a joke or stepping in when needed. Over the course of the Toastmasters year, those points accumulate, and members who reach 100 points earn recognition at the club level. The program reinforces something we strongly believe—growth comes from showing up, stepping up, and being involved in every aspect of the meeting.

That led to a natural question: instead of handing out a generic award, why not create something that actually reflects the spirit of the program?

With the tools available today, it turns out that’s not only possible—it’s surprisingly accessible. I started by using AI to design a medallion-style award that would feel meaningful and specific to our club. The key was not just asking for a design, but guiding the process with a few practical constraints. Since the goal was to 3D print the award, I limited the design to four colors, used bold shapes, and avoided gradients or fine detail that wouldn’t translate well to filament printing.

After a few iterations, I had a clean front design featuring “P.A.C.E. Award 2025–26” and a symbolic path leading upward, and a back design that visually represented communication, leadership, teamwork, and timing—core elements of what we practice at every meeting.

Once the design was complete, the next step was turning it into something physical. Using Bambu Studio, I took advantage of their keychain creation tool, which allows you to import a flat image and convert it into a multi-color printable model. It maps each color in the image to a separate layer, creating a 3MF file ready for printing. I created separate models for the front and back, added a built-in hook at the top, and sized the piece to about 3½ inches in diameter so it would function as a wearable medallion. The intent wasn’t really to make a keychain—it was to attach a lanyard so recipients can actually wear the award, giving it more presence and a sense of occasion when it’s presented.

Of course, the ability to print in multiple colors is what really makes this work. That’s where a printer like the Bambu Lab P1S with an AMS (Automatic Material System) comes into play. The AMS handles color changes automatically, producing a crisp, multi-color result without manual intervention. Not long ago, this kind of printing required a lot of tinkering and expertise, but today it’s become much more approachable—and the cost of entry has dropped significantly.

What came off the printer was more than just a token award. It was a custom-designed, four-color P.A.C.E. medallion that members can wear, display, or keep as a reminder of their achievement. At that size, it has real presence—it feels like something earned. And while it could double as a keychain if someone wanted, its primary purpose is as a wearable award that stands out during recognition moments.

So why go through the trouble of making your own awards? Because recognition is more powerful when it feels intentional. A custom piece like this reinforces club identity, creates a sense of pride, and turns a simple acknowledgment into something memorable. It also sends a subtle message: participation matters, and it’s worth celebrating in a meaningful way.

Could other clubs do something like this? Absolutely. With a bit of creativity, some thoughtful design constraints, and tools like AI and Bambu Studio, it’s entirely possible to create awards that are both affordable and unique. Pair that with a capable multi-color printer like the Bambu Lab P1S, and you have everything you need to bring those designs to life.

If you've ever tried to send a beautifully designed HTML email to your Toastmasters club only to have it arrive looking like a jumbled mess, you're not alone. This is the story of how I worked with Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant, to build a professional newsletter design from scratch — and the surprising technical hurdles we had to solve along the way.

Starting With a Vision

My goal was simple: create a newsletter that looked like it belonged to a real organization. Something with consistent branding, readable on any device, and easy enough to update before every meeting without being a web developer.

I started by describing what I wanted — the Toastmasters color scheme of deep red (#772432), gold (#f2df74), and navy (#0d3b5e) — and asked Claude to build a design system around those colors. What came back was a card-based layout with section header bars, colored borders, and a structured grid for things like officer rosters and event listings.

The first version used dark red backgrounds with light text. I looked at it and immediately knew that wasn't right — dark text on a light background is simply easier to read, especially in an email context where you have no control over the reader's screen brightness or environment. I asked Claude to flip it to white backgrounds with red borders and gold header bars, and that became the design foundation we built everything else on.

The Gmail Image Nightmare

Here's where things got interesting.

I had been hosting all my images on FreeToastHost, the platform our Toastmasters club website runs on. Images looked perfect when I previewed the email in my browser. They displayed fine in Apple Mail and iOS Mail. But Gmail users saw nothing but blank spaces where the images should have been.

After some troubleshooting we figured out the culprit: Gmail routes all external images through Google's own proxy servers before displaying them. FreeToastHost's servers were apparently blocking or not responding to Google's proxy IP ranges, so Gmail silently dropped every image. The frustrating part was that the images themselves were fine — they loaded perfectly in a browser. It was purely a Gmail proxy issue.

The fix was to host the images on Google Drive instead. But that turned out to have its own twist — the old direct link format that you find referenced all over the internet is broken. Google quietly deprecated it. The format that actually works is:https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/d/YOUR_FILE_ID

You extract the file ID from your Google Drive sharing URL — it's the long string of characters between /d/ and /view — and drop it into that format. Once we switched to that, the images appeared correctly in Gmail on both desktop and mobile.

Building for Mobile and Gmail

Email clients are notoriously inconsistent about how they render HTML. The biggest trap is using modern CSS layout tools like flexbox or CSS Grid — they work beautifully in browsers but get ignored by Outlook, Gmail, and Apple Mail.

The solution is to go old school: table-based layouts for anything multi-column, and every single style written as an inline attribute directly on the element. No style tags, no CSS classes. It feels like coding in 2003 but it's the only approach that works reliably across every major email client. Claude handled all of this automatically once I explained the requirement — every iteration came out with fully inline styles and table-based layouts, ready to paste directly into any email platform.

Building Two Versions

Once the design was solid I realized the same newsletter wasn't appropriate for everyone. A prospective member who has never heard of Toastmasters doesn't care about club officer slates or District events — they want to know what's in it for them.

So I asked Claude to build a second version of the same email, same design, completely different content strategy. Out went the officer grid, the district events, the internal announcements, and the meeting link. In came a "What You Will Gain" section with specific benefits, a plain-English explanation of what actually happens at a meeting, and a clear call to action for first-time visitors.

The result was two polished on-brand newsletters — one for members, one for prospects — that I can update each month with minimal effort.

What I Learned

Working with an AI on a project like this is less like hiring a developer and more like having a very patient collaborator who never gets frustrated when you say "I don't like that, try it differently." The back-and-forth process of describing what I wanted, seeing a result, and refining it produced a better outcome than I could have designed on my own.

The technical knowledge Claude brought to the table — knowing which CSS properties survive in email clients, how Gmail's image proxy works, the correct Google Drive URL format — would have taken hours of Googling to find independently.

If you're a Toastmasters club officer who has been sending plain text emails or relying on generic templates, I'd encourage you to try building something custom. The learning curve is lower than you think, especially with an AI helping you work through the details.

Southern Dutchess Toastmasters meets the 1st and 3rd Monday of the month in Wappingers Falls, NY. Visitors are always welcome.