Page 28 - voices-2022-06

GLEANINGS FROM THE GROVE

All Aboard at the D.E.P.O.T.

Paul C. Fanning, DTM

When I think of the word DEPOT, my mind many moving parts and functions all working
immediately turns to my hometown of Dutch to make it a whole.
Flat. To enter the confines of the township, you I dreaded this time of year in the Toastmasters
had to drive down “Depot Hill” past the ruins world as a Club officer. I was caught once singing

of the old depot itself that had blown up around a parody of the song “It’s The Most Wonderful
1906 when a Southern Pacific engine’s boiler Time of the Year”—at least the tune to my new
exploded—taking out the entire depot, the tracks, words of the most awful time. Why? Simply
the Wells Fargo & Co’s Express office, and anyone because we were changing officers, the new

standing near the explosion. program year was beginning, and we were still
What is left of the depot today is a small stack seeking a member or two for our Distinguished
of bricks, poking through the dirt, that formed Club status. All sound familiar? Of course, it does!
one corner of the building. The depot was never That is why you and your Club need to take the

rebuilt, the town withered and died, becoming right exit towards the D.E.P.O.T.
a ghost town in the 1930’s. We, in Toastmasters, have two tools to
While not an official stop anymore, trains measure the progress of our Club and to set goals
would still drop off or pick up passengers on and provide direction for the coming program

their way to Reno northbound or Sacramento year. Thus, you are perhaps asking yourself
southbound at the now vacant lot through the what does depot have to do with all of this?
late 1940’s. The depot had been a busy place Toastmasters is always full of acronyms—DTMs,
where gold bullion from the mines, merchandise TLI, VPPR, and the list goes on.

from the east or San Francisco arrived daily, I am proposing that you and your Club take
passengers, the “locals” sitting about and watching on one more to help your Club be successful in
who was coming and going milled about. Yet the the 2022-2023 program year. Yes, there will still
purpose of the depot ran smoothly—a group of be the Club Success Plan and the Distinguished

28 ONE COMMUNITY