Page 18 - May 2019 Voices

ON THE PATH

The Lost Art of

Handwritten Notes

James Wantz, DTM

I treasure handwritten notes. I love receiving I received that email from a club member. I use
letters, notes, and cards from friends more than postcards to write notes to the speakers in my

I love receiving emails. A handwritten note says home club. We encourage the writing and passing
to me: ‘I took the time to write this with my own of notes, but I found that the little feedback slips
hand - to think out my thoughts - to put them handed out to members never gave me enough
on paper - and then to get them to you. Total room to say what I wanted to say. I switched to

awesomesauce.’ postcards and now it is a regular thing I do.
The downside is that handwritten notes and I remember that meeting well. I was not
snail mail take soooo long to get anywhere. feeling well, and I did not write cards to any of
Email is so much more efficient - takes little time the speakers. When one speaker asked me if I

and can be sent to everyone (spam, spam, spam wrote a card on their speech, I said I had not but
spam). Sometimes an email lets me know how would provide them with feedback via email
subpar it is as a lasting form of communication. once I got my thoughts together. Apparently,
Take, for instance, the following email: that was not going to work out - I’d set the bar

high for notes and was called on the carpet when
“Hi James, I didn’t deliver.
Your eloquent feedback handwritten on Once I finished laughing at myself—and
a beautiful card is a treasure that I have apologizing to my club member—I wrote and

longed for. If you do get to collate your mailed the feedback card immediately.
thoughts, I’ll prefer it in your usual style I learned the power of handwritten notes in
and not via email. :) my very first Toastmasters club—Tabula Rasa
Thanks!” Toastmasters in 2008. Our club mentor

told us that writing notes to other

18 ONE COMMUNITY