Next Saturday I will be participating in the Arizona Walk4Hearing to raise money in support of people with hearing loss.

I have been wearing hearing aids since 1996. The devices served me well for 22 years. But in 2018 I struggled to hear the speakers in a Toastmasters Club of which I had been a member for 20 years. Toastmasters is an international organization that helps people improve their speaking skills.

As my hearing declined, I realized that people with hearing loss would have trouble participating in Toastmasters. So I founded a club to accommodate them: Audible Talkers Toastmasters. The club is open to everyone INCLUDING people with hearing loss. All of our meetings are online.

It is through the Hard of Hearing members of the Audible Talkers that I learned about the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) and the Arizona Walk4Hearing.

Christy Abrams, Peggy Staples, Minerva Gutierrez and former member Chelle Wyatt have taught me a great deal about accommodation measures. To ensure our members with hearing loss can actively participate in the club, all our meetings are online and use captioning. Written transcripts of the speeches are provided to our Hard of Hearing members the afternoon of the meeting. Video recordings of the speeches are uploaded to YouTube and captions are edited to increase their accuracy.

Guest are welcome to attend a meeting. We meet the first and third Monday of each month from 6:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. Arizona time. Our next meeting will take place on Monday, November 6th at: zoom.audibletalkerstoastmasters.com