District Director

Part Two

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Happy New Year

I would like to wish all members a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2024.

We are now about to start the second half of our Toastmasters year and if you have not already done so, I would urge you to revisit the personal and Toastmaster goals you set out at the start of the Toastmaster year back in July, and to measure your progress against those goals. Some of you will be behind where you thought you would be at this time of the year, others will be on track to achieve the goals and others of you will he’s so far ahead of your goals, perhaps you need to set new targets for the second half of this Toastmasters year.

100 years, building stronger for the next 100.

As many of you are aware 2024 is the centenary of Toastmasters international. Since Toastmasters was founded in 1924 by Dr Smedley, many generations have benefited as we are today. Together we can help Toastmasters start its second century strongly by helping to build new clubs and encourage guests to become members, by offering energetic club meetings and demonstrating the benefits of membership to others.

We need your stories – Thanks Toastmasters

Many thanks to Tom Baily and Remko Timmermans for their “Thanks Toastmasters” articles in October and November last year. We are looking for more related articles. We all have remarkable stories to tell and the share with both members and non-members. Thanks to the back-end development work by the D91 Public Relations Manager, Nikita Parks, we can now tell which articles are read most and, in both October, and November these real-life stories were the most read articles in the newsletters. They were also widely read on the internet and on our Social Media pages. Both members and potential members can relate to these stories and help clubs attract new members and retain existing members, which is why I would like anyone with a wonderful experience of Toastmasters to share their story with the rest of us and more widely on our social media pages. Please share your story by emailing Nikita at nikita@d91toastmasters.org.uk , you article should be under 500 words long, less than a 5-to-7-minute speech.

Club Growth and Membership building

Analysis has shown that every year since D91 was formed 10 years agon, that January and February are the time when most new members join Toastmasters. I would encourage clubs to promote meetings on Social Media channels including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Eventbrite and in the local newspapers. In February we will be starting the Talk Up Toastmasters campaign, where clubs receive a ribbon from Toastmasters International to attach to your club banner if they recruit five or more new members in February and March.

Pathways update information.

During the first part of the year a new user interface will be launched for six of the current Pathways. The changes should make the recording of Pathways completions and level awards much simpler for club officers and members alike. Mo and I who are attending District Officer training in the next two weeks, togther with Steve who will receive updates from Toastmasters head quarters, will report back with more information regarding the changes and the dates the new Learning Management System (Basecamp) is introduced. Those members who are currently doing one of the five pathways which are not being updated will still be able to continue with the current version of their path but will not necessarily see all the changes that the other paths do. More information can be found here and here.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone who’s a member of District 91 Toastmasters. I also extend these greetings to members of your family, and friends. We’re fast approaching the halfway point of our Toastmasters year. It seems incredible how quickly it has gone. Experience tells me that the second half of our year seems to pass even more quickly than the first half. It is now time to consider what progress you have made towards meeting your personal goals for this Toastmasters year, and what changes you may need to achieve them. This applies to everyone: our individual members, our clubs, areas, divisions and indeed our district, as we all “Stroll to Smedley”.

Pathways updates

Those of you following the Pathways listed below:

  • Effective Coaching
  • Innovative Planning
  • Leadership Development
  • Strategic Relationships
  • Team Collaboration

should have received an e-mail from Toastmasters International HQ earlier this week about important changes to Pathways and specifically these paths. With the new system the paths listed will no longer be available for purchase and will not be fully updated to match the rest of the pathways education programme.

You will still be able to access these paths and they will remain on your personal profile and education record if you have completed them. The remaining paths will benefit from having many new features including a new improved digital evaluation tool an updated experience giving and receiving feedback and for some club officers it will mean that they no longer need to approve your pathway level completions in both Base Camp and Club Central, helping to reduce their workload. Full details can be found about the new version of Base Camp which is being introduced next year by the Pathways Update page or the Education Programme FAQ page.

District Executive Committee (DEC) updates

Last week the District Executive Committee met for the second time this toastmaster year. At the DEC our District Alignment Chair Barbara Saph outlined the criteria she must follow together with the rest of the committee when deciding how many Clubs each Area should have, how many Areas each Division should have and how many Divisions there are in District 91. Barbara has already started to work on report for next year and will give her first report during a February committee meeting. No final decisions are made until a District Council meeting in May 2024, when all clubs in good standing have an opportunity to vote.

The other main business of the meeting was Rupa announcing that she had formed the District Leadership Committee and is now looking for candidates for leadership positions next year 2024 to 2025. If you are interested in becoming a member of the DLT or division director next year, please get in touch with Rupa as soon as possible. Rupa will be issuing further information later this month.

Club growth

We’re always looking out for new opportunities to start new corporate or community clubs in District 91. If you have any ideas where we could start a new corporate or community club, then please let either Club Growth Director Mo or I know. A quick reminder for those interested in gaining a Distinguished Toastmaster award that starting a new club is one of the key stepping stones to earning the award.

Once again, I’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and remind everyone that Happiness Brings Success.

Diane Richardson
District Director 2023-24

Slicing the Cake

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Insights from the October renewals

Thanks to the work done by the District Leadership Team (DLT) to improve our communications and send you, our fellow members, information that is relevant to you, we have gained some new insights on members’ Pathways journeys when they leave Toastmasters. It also allows us to connect better with each member rather than sending out a mass email to everyone. Just as with a cake to eat a whole cake is probably too much yet everyone would like a slice that satisfies their needs at the time.

Of the 1,265 members who left District 91 at the end of September, 871 of them had enrolled in Pathways, however, more than 1,000 members left without gaining a single Pathways award. This shows that members are not engaging with Pathways even though they have signed up. I would encourage new members to start their Pathways journey soon after they join a club. Experience has shown that members who enrol and are active in Pathways are the members who gain most from their membership. Whilst seeing other members speak or give an evaluation can be helpful, the best way to get better at anything, public speaking, cricket, home baking etc. is to take part in a safe club meeting environment. Think of your club as a training ground before you go “onto the pitch” giving a speech or presentation at work or at a friend’s wedding.

In a related issue. To help build a picture worldwide across Toastmasters International, long standing Aylesbury Speakers member Selina Griffin is conducting research that is trying to build a predictive model looking at using Pathways data to find Toastmasters that appear at risk of leaving so we gain a better understanding of why members leave. This is part of her PhD research with the Open University. She is working with Dr John Lurquin a member of staff at Toastmasters HQ. All information will be anonymised, and John will be selecting potential interviewees. 

Thanks Toastmasters Campaign – goes real!

You have hopefully seen the Thanks Toastmasters campaign ads in past couple of years, which clubs can download and use for their own publicity. In this month’s newsletter we have another real-life example of Thanks Toastmasters, a video from Remko Timmermans, a member of Didcot Speakers on how Toastmasters has helped him in his career in rocket science. Last month’s newsletter article on how Toastmasters has helped Tom Bailey become a Barrister, was the most read article. Nikita is looking for further examples of current or past members who are willing to make a short video or draft a short article explaining how Toastmasters has helped them achieve their career or life goals. If you know of anyone then please ask them to contact Nikita. The articles will be shared in the D91 Website, newsletter, and other social media channels.

Happy Anniversary – Campaign

A benefit of introducing the new CRM programme is that we can now more easily find members who have a membership anniversary. In the last few weeks with the help of the D91 Public Relations Manage, Nikita Parks, we have sent out congratulatory emails to members who are celebrating their 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th or even their 10th or 30th membership anniversary. It is a way for the DLT to thank members for their continued membership and support of Toastmasters International and D91 and their local club.

New Administration Manager

Unfortunately, Aayushi Jain DTM has had to step-down as our District Administration Manager. However, I am delighted to announce that Janet Alkema DTM has agreed to become our new Administration Manager with Immediate effect. Janet is a very experienced Toastmaster and has been a Division Director twice, the first time for Division A in 2019-20 and last year as Division D Director. I am sure you join me in wishing Janet all the best in her new role.

Diane Richardson
District Director 2023-24

Recognising Excellence in 2022 – 2023

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On 30th July this year, we hosted your District’s Hall of Fame over a social event on London’s Southbank. The full list of those individuals and clubs recognised at this event can be found here.

For several years, we’ve recognised individual clubs with the ‘Club Excellence’ award; a recognition that goes beyond the dashboards. Clubs are recognised for some of the more intangible elements that show success aside from membership and training numbers. Examples here are contributions of members beyond the club such as in leadership positions, conducting wider Toastmasters education programs and the overall ‘feeling’ someone gets if they visit such a club.

Why not visit one of the clubs listed and discover the magic?

We also recognise clubs who have suffered a little but bounced back over the course of a Toastmasters program year with the Phoenix Award.

Due to the nature of our organisation, we celebrate milestones and length of service largely through education achievements. For example, to become a Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM), individuals must complete several projects and leadership service over a period which make it quite a milestone when achieved. I know this year’s team have a renewed emphasis on length of member service and anniversaries.

Reflecting on my own Toastmasters career journey, I got stuck in very early on simply due to a combination of my own curiosity and others opening doors for me. As a result, I wanted to pay this forward by recognising new members who had dived straight in and added value outside of their club in their first 12-18 months of membership.

After the May elections, many individuals start to wind down. This year, we felt compelled to recognise a District Officer who kicked it up a gear in the final stretch with the District Mission Award. This year, to the best of my knowledge, was the first time District 91 issued the Communication and Leadership Award. This award recognises someone who has made significant impact in a community under these categories and need not be a Toastmasters member.
Spreading the footprint of what we do is a collective responsibility. Two members were handpicked by our Public Relations Manager for their consistency of effort. A key function or mission of the district is to ‘build new clubs’ and as we stepped out of the pandemic 6 new clubs (all corporate!) were recognised with the Pioneer Award. This is testament to the fact that companies see the value of our program for their employees.

Every now and then we get asked if there are criteria for the main awards i.e., Toastmaster of the Year, Division Director of the Year and Area Director of the Year. The simple answer is – yes! There are checklists that act as a guide for these and often it is quite clear at some point in the year who the recipient will be. In some cases, the deciding factor may be because of something an individual has contributed (often quietly) to the cause or overall mission.

In my deliverance speech at the May Hall of Fame, I referred to the fact that I searched high and low for the checklist for the District Director’s Award. This one is understandably quite subjective, and you can find out why here.

I didn’t get off Scot free, though. There’s a certain type of speech known as a roast in which the subject matter is often someone leaving a role. When it became clear that this was about to happen, I was incredibly nervous however couldn’t help but choke up at the affection that came through not one but four roasts! One was delivered by immediate past District Public Relations Manager, Chris Arning and can be watched back here.

I once again thank the 2022-2023 District Leadership Team for their service, commitment, secret scheming to put this on, and for their friendship – a lovely byproduct of working intensively in a team for 12-15 months.

As ever, thank to event photographer Chris Bovell from Blaqpix for capturing special moments. You can view the photos here Password: Limin

Rupa Datta
Immediate Past District Director 2023-24

District Director Newsletter – October 2023

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October thoughts from District Director, Diane Richardson

Dear members, 

We are now a quarter way through our Toastmasters’ year, and let us congratulate ourselves for the achievements our clubs have made so far this year. I am delighted that many of our clubs have been successful in recruiting new members and in registering Pathways education awards.

We held our first District Council meeting where our Club Presidents and Vice Presidents of Education voted with our District Executive Committee for all Area, Division and District contests to take place as hybrid events this year. I have already attended two very well organised and managed club contests with new members stepping up and entering their contest often with enormous success. This is especially pleasing as it shows that new members feel comfortable enough in many clubs to take what many outside Toastmasters perceive as being a huge risk or challenge. This speaks highly to how many clubs have a welcoming, open, and friendly atmosphere which encourages people both to join and then take part in club meetings and contests.

I know that several Area and Division Directors are planning their contests either for later this month or in November, which gives everyone a wonderful opportunity to network and to support their club members as they strive to reach the next level of the Humorous Speech and Table Topics contests.

Your District team has also submitted and received approval from Toastmasters International HQ, our District Success Plan, budget, marketing, and communications plans. This is a major milestone. It means our District can become a distinguished district at the end of the year once again.

I am pleased that Steve has been running the District Officer Training over the course of the summer as Programme Quality Director. 95% of our Area and Division Directors attended training. It was especially interesting that the last-minute training which Steve organised, attracted District Officers from District 95 (Germany and Scandinavia), and allowed us to exchange ideas, to learn from them and for them to learn from us. This highlights the importance of encouraging members and Club Officers to visit other clubs to network and increase the speed of their personal development as members learn to speak in front of new audiences or share best practices between clubs.

It is also pleasing that Mo, our Club Growth Director, has had successes in this first quarter, with two new clubs, Sustainable Speakers and Medidata EMEA, chartering. Several clubs that had been suspended have now become clubs in good standing again. I know that Mo has a strong pipeline of club leads and prospects and is asking for your help with demonstration meetings for potential new clubs and as mentors for recently chartered clubs.

I hope that you enjoy the contest season currently underway.

Best regards

Diane