Liubov was President from 2023-2025.  

Leading Chamber Toastmasters Club through two extraordinary years has been an unforgettable journey. When I stepped into the President role in July 2023—during wartime in Ukraine—our club faced  challenges: low membership, burnout, and uncertainty about the future.

But through shared resilience, creativity and teamwork, we transformed. International collaborations, engaging meetings, and the dedication of a renewed officer team helped us rebuild. Together, we achieved the President’s Distinguished Award—this is the result of teamwork with one vision, which makes the club unique and strong.

My biggest lessons? Failure builds resilience, and teamwork shapes legacy. I’m proud to have served and now pass the torch to a new inspiring leader.

Thank you Liubov  for  your resilience and teamwork!

Andrew was President from 2022-2023.  
Read about his journey and inspirations  throughout the year.
“The heart of this club has always been its community. Even when the winds of change were cold and bitter you knew that there would be a welcoming hearth to come back to on Wednesday. My memories are mostly tied to a large amount of cross-club cooperation we had and a launch of a mentorship program. The team in charge at a time was amazing and made all of this possible, in the first place. I have completed my first ever Pathway so it was nice too 🙂 Online times are always a bit hectic, so a lot of decisions have been rather tactical, than strategic. Flexibility was the key and there was a lot to learn from the experience. I still think was a really good idea to “play” with the meeting structure and wish more clubs would give it a shot.”

Thank you Andrew for  your flexibility and expirience!

Victoria was President from 2021-2022.  
Due to her inspiration, good work of all team and fellow’s toastmasters our Chamber Toastmasters Club received an award in the nomination: 
- Exquisite Public Relations Awards for Ukrainian clubs
- DCP Phoenix Awards for Ukrainian
- Presidents Distinguished Clubs Awards for Ukrainian Clubs.

Read about her journey, inspirations and most remembering events during the year.
“It has been a cool experience. It shows you that you can be a change you want to see.
I’d say this experience teaches you to get things done and to be resourceful. It showed me I would make a nice project manager.

Birthday celebration - approaching former presidents and listening to their videos about what made Chamber special during their cadence”
Thank you Victoria for all of your wonderful ideas and inspirations!

Ivan was President from 2020-2021.  
His energy and impact on the club was impressive. Read about his journey in his own words below.

“Being a President of the Chamber Toastmasters club was a big privilege and pleasure for me, at the same time leading a club during the Covid was quite challenging. We have conducted both online and offline events, our community has grown twice and  70% of members have prolonged their time with Chamber. Nevertheless, I felt true love and support from my team. I kindly appreciate a support and work of my team: Konstantin Prysedko, Olya Bezverkha, Sofia Avramidi, Dennis Daniels, Margo Simanko and others. During a year we have significantly improved our communication and leadership skills, meanwhile we became close friends and made world a better place. We have planted more than 50 trees, conducted 2 cleaning events in a coastal zone near Dnipro river, organised dozen  events related to leadership and ecology. Moreover, every Sunday at 7:00 a.m. we doing running, yoga and CrossFit training sessions in the Botanical garden and Olympic stadium in Kyiv. I personally have received many insights on techniques of motivation for a team of volunteers using psychology and Socionics. Also, I have learned how to be a leader and a friend at the same time, how to provide a critical feedback individually and how to appreciate achievements publicly, how to organise dozen events and have fun while doing this together with friends.”. - Ivan Maltsev 

Thank you Ivan for all of your hard work!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanxmaltsev 

Yurii was President from 2019-2020.
His contribution and guidance helped the club transition to an online club in the face of Covid19! And in the first time in 20-years club’s history all 4 club’s achievements were collected: “President Distinguishes” status, Smedley Award, Talk Up Toastmasters Award, Beat the Clock Award.

“Being a President is an interesting and a tough journey. On top of your own educational goals you are also responsible for Club’s well-being (number of onboarded newcomers, convenient venue, etc). I enjoyed the fact I was helping other people to grow. And as a takeaway I got people-management experience: motivating Officers and members without a monetary bonus (or punishment) is absolutely non-trivial activity! Also I was happy to be a President because I was able to implement almost all my ideas aimed to improve club’s life”. - Yurii Opanasenko 

Thank you Yurii for all of your hard work!

Elina has been a vital member of the Chamber community since 2015.

Read about her journey in her own words below:
“Initially I joined Toastmaster to develop basic public speaking skills.  Whilst my performance on stage improved a lot I had no time to celebrate my success - the leadership path of Toastmasters took me by storm. I started with officer roles like VP PR, VP of education. 
Thanks to my writing experience,  I successfully got admitted to London school of journalism, and in two years got my diploma.
While serving as a president I understood how to work within a team and how to manage this group of volunteers without paying salary to them. 
Those developed soft skills helped me to get promotion at my work as a legal specialist in pharmaceutical company. 
Yet I was hungry for more opportunities within Toastmasters and applied for area director position to manage six Ukrainian clubs. This was quite challenging, but a rewarding year, which taught me to build my team, trust people and to delegate”. -Elina Paliy

Elina has been instrumental in influencing the strength of Toastmasters in Ukraine. Thank you, Elina!

Ivan Atamenenko was Chamber Toastmaster President from 2016-17.

His efforts are much valued and appreciated! Read what he gained from being an officer in his own words:
“Being the president taught me a lot. Most importantly, that a president is nothing without a team. The ability to trust the team, abstain from micromanaging and delegating tasks while making sure the responsible person has received enough support before they are assigned a task - these are my takeaways from my incumbency, to name a few. Being a president is not a bowl of cherries, they have to take difficult decisions and the choices are not always between good and best, so the presidency at CHAMBER Toastmasters club has taught me to think twice and take responsibility for my decisions.” -Ivan Atamanenko

Thank you Ivan!