Haritosh Srivastav delivers a Toastmasters speech announcing his return to India after arriving in Indiana in April 2017. He thanks Pioneer Toastmasters club members by name, including Nora, Mark Walton, Tom Doherty, and Dr. Allen, and says he will stay connected virtually despite leaving.
Okay, our second speaker this evening is going to be Haritosh Srivastav. His speech is called "The New Journey," and his speech is by management category, and it's going to be delivering the bad news, about 5 to 7 minutes. Mr. Toastmaster, fellow Toastmasters, and honored guests, I'm not going to take you through 4.5 billion years journey, but I'm going to take you 2 years back. It was in the spring of 2017, precisely 10th April 2017, when I first landed in Indiana. I was a Toastmaster back in India, but never expected what's gonna be. I googled about what could be a good club. I thought this one is gonna be the closest one. I had a lot of discussion with my wife whether I should go there, how's it gonna be like. It's gonna be be all American. I am a person of Indian origin. How's gonna feel like? I was uncomfortable, to say the least. But I took a bodacious step of coming out of my apartment, finding out the route, and coming to that community. I still remember it was a hot day like today, and I was parking my car on the parking area. I saw a lady, a very pleasant lady who was having very warm welcome for me. I asked her, "Is it gonna be, is it the Toastmasters?" and she said, "Yes, please come in." From that point onwards, I had been hooked to Pioneer. I attended probably 8 to 9 times as a guest until I was forced to join and actually got, me and my wife got 3 months of free membership. We all like freebies, right? To say the least, I have been connected to Pioneer from the day one. It has been a journey, and I wanted to announce today, due to some personal and official and visa issues, I'm going back to India next week. In my last 2 years, I had immense growth, immense opportunities opportunity to network, it was opportunity to communicate, and I think I owe a lot to Pioneer for that. Now I would like to take name of a few key people. I'm probably going to be indebted to them from forever, starting with our immediate past president Nora. Nora has been the first person that I met when I came to Pioneer, and from that day onwards to being the Pioneer president of the Pioneer, to being now gonna be immediate past president. She has been the first person I reach out if I have any questions, if I have any help required. She has been so diligent to get the keys for the community room every Thursday. Nora, I know you are not here, but that doesn't decrease the value of what you do for our club and ourselves. Next person I want to talk about is Mark Walton. Mark has been my mentor for all throughout, even though he was not officially mentor, but whether it is something that we want to improve in the club, whether it is I am preparing for the club level, area level, or division level speech contest, Mark was always there. Some of his ideas I've actually implemented. I've got lot of kudos which I actually owe to Mark. Tom Doherty, he's been there to encourage all of us I would say he is the best cheerleader of the club. Whether you are doing a good job or bad job, Tom is there to help you. He had a great idea of thinking about the ESL members, English as a Second Language members, and we did have some brainstorming and we wanted to work on that. I'm not gonna be here, but I'm sure somebody will take that up because I think that has got a lot of value. Warrenshar, he is an epitome, to say the least. Every time he comes to the club, whether it is a poem, dijour, whether it is a Toastmaster, whether it is a speech, we all look up to him to be like a Toastmaster like him. I wish I would be like him when I become of the age he is. Dr. Allen, actually I've never told you, you resemble a lot from my grandfather. So from the time I used to see you, I used to to remember my grandfather. He passed away about 10 years ago, but I still used to get that vibes of, you know, there is somebody who is elder to me and who's going to give me the right advice. My executive committee team, Rohit, Shui, Anna, and others, they have been phenomenal. The way Pioneer has achieved the President Distinguished, I think it is all of them who did a lot of work. Jerry, I know I've been nagging you a lot in terms of my speech preparation, and I owe a lot to you when you came over and helped me. And your connection with India and Indian people actually made a lot of us very comfortable when we come here, and I'm not going to forget that. I'm sure in the, in the emotion flow that I am now, I am forgetting a lot of names. But I'm very proud of what our club have achieved, what I have learned over the years, and I'm gonna be there forever for them, even if not physically. If you guys need me, I'll be there virtually. So here is my new journey which starts. I'm gonna head back to India next week. If things turns out well, probably I'll be back in couple of years, but if not, final is He's going to be in my heart forever.
