Lyon Toastmasters Unlimited

Look in the mirror, you will find the next influential person for LTU. You can continue this journey….
Join us on one decade birthday of LTU

From being a scientist in Iran to becoming LTU’s president in Lyon.

After graduating in Physics, Zahra Vaghefi decided that her true passion is in business rather than science! So she moved to France to pursue new adventures!! She started to study for an MBA in Lyon. She joined LTU right before the pandemic in February 2020 to improve her public speaking skills. After serving one year on Excom, She started her presidency in July 2021!! And has transformed the club from online to Hybrid in order to provide the same experience for all members (Even the ones all the way in New York we recruited during the pandemic )!!
“Quickly, Toastmasters became more than just a club for me to learn public speaking but a group of friends who I could learn from and dare to make mistakes!! Serving as LTU’s president has been the greatest joy of my life and an unforgettable experience that I’m learning so much from!! I'm honored to be able to celebrate LTU's 10-year anniversary during my mandate which is a very important milestone for the club ”

Sami Chidiac, Lebanese Colombian with a pinch of Canadian. He studied Mechanical Engineering in Concordia University Montreal where he joined the university’s Toastmasters club in 2015.
After moving to Lyon for work he joined LTU to meet people and jumpstart his social life in this new city. “I joined LTU to make friends and improve my public skills. Today, I have a second family and have improved not only my public skills, but my leadership and communication skills as a whole. Surrounded only by very inspiring, interesting, ambitious and amazing people, every member of LTU has contributed greatly to making me a better person and speaker.
To give back to the club, I decided to take the reins as president in 2020-2021. Despite the challenges due to the pandemic, this has been one of the best and most memorable experiences of my life so far. I learned so much about leadership. I had promised to get our club the President Distinguished Award during COVID, and it’s an accomplishment I am very proud of. (Thank you amazing Excom team!)
To learn even more about Leadership, I accepted to replace the Area Director that same year and had the amazing chance of working with all 6 presidents of the region. Another unforgettable experience.
Lastly, thanks to a Pathways level 4 project and the encouragement of the members, I started in October 2021 my own podcast: The Expats in Lyon podcast and discovered a new hobby/passion I never knew I had.
All these achievements are great, but the biggest achievement for me in the past 3 years remains the people I’ve met, the friends I’ve made, the second family I have. I know I wouldn’t have come across these people if it weren’t for LTU.”

The reason behind my membership at LTU is that I needed to develop some presentation / speech skills for my work. Being very introverted did not help me in my career or life, so I thought that LTU could help me. Before joining, I had neither presentation skills nor technical skills for Powerpoint, OBS or Videos. My selected pathway was 'Dynamic Leadership' and I failed at my first Ice breaker speech. But, I did not give up, and delivered a second Ice breaker. In 2021, I competed for the French Speech contest and won!! Then I represented the club for the Area (1st place), Division (1st place) and District (1st place) which is the highest level for the French Speech Contest!!
With LTU, I am happy that I was able to develop some skills (public speaking, powerpoint, video...). And beside these skills, I have now a growing interest in writing. Hopefully, with some work, something will come!

Meet Anastassios Sebastien Kouroupis A French/Greek cocktail with one measure of optimism, two measures of humor and improvisation with an ounce of philosophy.
“Inspired by Alexander The Great, Epicure and other ancient Greek philosophers, I chose to see life as a big playground where we get to choose our problems and our games. I love organizing events to meet new people, electronic music, reading books and big lengthy discussions with friends. With a mechanical engineering background and the help of toastmasters I managed to create my company in real estate and live a new life full of challenges and passionate experiences. To me LTU was my cornerstone for personal development, meeting new friends, learning who to lead and help others: “the most joyful thing about toastmasters is watching the new members improve their public speaking skills. It’s a very moving thing to witness because it also means that you have become a better leader and it's proof that if you want to change you can do it”. “

From Jazz singer to toastmaster speaker, Claude Eugénie is kind of our toastmaster's Auntie!
She joined our club in 2014 and with her beautiful voice and charisma has won 6 awards for the club, at a district level with one being the 1st district winner in humor's speech.

She has been a mentor for so many of our club members. Because she loves to go beyond her limits she even participated in a dutch speaking contest and learned dutch in only 30 days just for the contest.
From project manager to Youtuber she helps entrepreneurs manage their thoughts and ideas so that they can make better speeches and manage their work for the best.
In 2021 she also invented a new role in our online toastmasters' meeting: The role of music master!
After 10 years we're glad LTU had such an amazing auntie as president and such a genuine member.

Just like any father, Leon is always here to the rescue!! Whether it's to mentor young toastmasters or if it is to play the role of Judge for contests!! At LTU, we can always rely on Leon to have our backs!! Ex-software engineer, turned business developer, turned entrepreneur, has been a member of LTU since 2012 and has helped many people to become better speakers!!

All members of LTU call her Queen of the club. Carol Bausor, The Founder of the club has indeed had the most contribution in the success of LTU… Let’ see what she has to say about LTU :
“10 years already? Two Thursdays a week, always busy …. With so many people whose lives have been impacted by our club. . 10 years of warm human contact, friendship and learning…. Of realizing that our potential truly is Unlimited.”
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📣📣📣📣Lyon Toastmasters Unlimited, celebrates its 10 year anniversary this year!! 🍾🍰 And we couldn’t be happier!! 🎉🔥🥳🎂🥂🎊
LTU has impacted a lot of lives over the past decade and continued to thrive despite all the challenges!! We have members who are Champions🏆🥇, we organized a HAPPY IN LYON District Conference with 300 participants in 2014 🤩, another District Conference in Marseilles in 2019 🎙 , and since the pandemic🦠, we have successfully navigated the move to online conferences!!🌍👩‍💻
In September we tentatively moved back to onsite meetings and have been organizing hybrid meetings in a big room at the Mairie de Lyon 6ième.📡👨‍💻

⏱ The countdown to LTU’s Birthday celebration starts tonight!! stay with us as we reveal the question marks ❓ every night and stay tuned for many more surprises to come!!💥

Take a walk down memory lane with us as we celebrate on February 3rd 2022. Please share your memories with us using and don’t forget to tag us!! We have surprises for the best memories ;)

Lyon Toastmasters Unlimited is back!

We are meeting in person and starting the new season of Toastmasters with a renewed excitement

Join us on 16th September at 7PM as TM Sissi hosts the meeting with her theme "Back from Vacation"

Join our meetup group here: https://www.meetup.com/Toastmasters-Lyon-Unlimited-bilingue-FR-EN/