It’s good to do a different job now and then. People get slow and sleepy in the same role for too long; they need a new challenge to wake them up and make them stretch.

You see this principle in government (“Cabinet shuffle! Finance Minster: you’re now responsible for Education; Fisheries and Oceans? You’re now on Defense”), in couples therapy (“Role-playing time: Bob, you be Linda, Linda you be Bob”), even in the movie business, where actors often decide they want to direct, and gaffers decide they want to act – if only so people will stop calling them by that silly name.

It works in Toastmasters, too. Or at least you did this week, when a number of VanCore members stepped out of character and took on roles that were new to them. Megan chaired. Sun Hee was jokemaster. And Connie, who as club president is the brains of the operation, was “greeter,” which amounts to a move from the grill to the till. All flourished in their new gigs. And all grew a little as speakers by using those underdeveloped muscles.

VanCore is benefitting these days from another kind of nice mix: veterans and newcomers. Guests continually drop in, and this week we voted in new member Patrick Diep.

It’s hard to know what category to put Niki in. She’s no longer a newbie but not quite a veteran. But she’s fast becoming a dynamic speaker. Niki is also more candid than your average bear, and this week’s speech took us on a tour through her personal and even spiritual landscape. Niki’s investigations into various world religions have led her to this conclusion: We may all look like unique individuals, but so connected are we in the web of life that any differences between us are purely illusory. In other words:

“You’re me, and I’m you.”

Which ought to make the next cabinet shuffle a bit easier.