Program Quality Director

Stroll (Back) To Smedley 2023-2024

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In December 2022 we created a predictive model of where clubs would finish in the Distinguished Club Programme in June 2023. This became “Stroll to Smedley”, emphasising that steady progress throughout the year is preferable to a last minute dash. The model proved right to within 1 DCP point for 65% of clubs, 43% exceeded their prediction and 29% fell short. However, as a District, the overall improvement enabled us to achieve Smedley Distinguished status for distinguished clubs. Well done and thanks to everyone who took part in the “stroll” and got us over the line.

We’re repeating the stroll this year, starting a month earlier, and the table below shows our first prediction. We have seven months in which to pick up our strolling pace and do better! The principle is simple: every club is compared to its DCP position on the same date the year before and is either the same, ahead, or behind. If the trend is maintained, the club will attain the same DCP outcome, do better or poorer accordingly. Each of the ten DCP metrics is tracked, although it is the club membership strength that confers or denies eligibility. This is a team sport! 

In the table below, clubs that are in the left column are currently on target to improve on last year, and those in bold may become distinguished this year with a modest increase in strolling pace. Clubs that are in the right column are currently expected to fall short of their attainment last year, and those in italics would be advised to pick up their pace to retain their distinguished club status.

You’re invited to join us for the stroll. Please help us make our prediction turn out to be unduly pessimistic! We can do this!

Update: 11th January

Now we have passed from December to January, a perfect “stroll” would involve having at least 2 Level 1s, 2 Level 2s, 1 Level 3, 1 Level 4/5/DTM and four new members. If you haven’t planned your Open House event yet or geared up for our “Talk Up Toastmasters” campaign, now would be  a great time to start it. It’s also a great time to start your membership renewals campaign if you’d like to win our “20+80 Challenge“. Keep your membership building going to be able to win our “Net Growth 8” incentive. Why not look at our incentives page to remind yourself what’s on offer?

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Christmas is Coming

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Christmas is Coming - Steve Vear

Time has this amazing thing of just escaping without you even realising it. I love Christmas and cannot wait for the end of December to be here when we’re celebrating with our friends and family.

Steve Vear, DTM
Program Quality Director 2023-24

PS – We have started the process of separating our external and internal communications on YouTube to enable us to benefit from YouTube’s algorithms to promote our external content and enable potential members to find us. You may find our channels here.

Program Quality Newsletter – October 2023

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By the time you will be reading this article, we will be well into contest season as clubs around our District are taking part in the Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contests. Contests offer us an important variation to our club agenda – one of the runners up in the International Speech Contest recently reflected that the only way to really improve is to compete and to stand alongside other contestants to learn from them and to strive to do better.

It is true that this is one of the ways that we can improve – but the truth is that Toastmasters is a personal journey. Some people join to develop public speaking skills, some join to develop leadership skills, some join to try and win contests, and sometimes people just join for a new social network.

I want to tell you about my personal trainer Joe. Joe is a really capable and confident guy in the gym environment. He is at home around the gym, he knows how every machine and bit of equipment works. He works with clients like me all the time and helps them achieve their goals. But Joe decided that he wanted to become a better speaker. Not just because he had listened to me ‘talk up Toastmasters’ in many of my sessions with him, and not just because he was getting married soon but because he wanted to improve.

When Joe visited the club, he would soon join, he was met with warmth, encouragement and soon saw for himself what the Toastmasters program could offer him. We recently had a conversation about how the Pathways program has supported him and how it feels genuine excitement about planning his next speech. Joe is also competitive and does not mind the odd bit of recognition and has said he wants to achieve a Triple Crown.

Why did I tell you about Joe?

It is because just using one member as an example, he visited because a Toastmaster member encouraged him to try it. He joined because of the quality of experience that his club offered him, and he enrolled on Pathways and discovered what a fantastic journey it really can be.

Have a think about who you can encourage to visit your club, how you can contribute to the quality of your club – and do check whether you or members of your club has correctly enrolled on Pathways – 800 of our members are still missing out!

For those club or district officers that are responsible for putting on contests this time of year, first of all thank you for your efforts in this important area, but please don’t forget to check the latest edition of the speech contest rulebook to ensure we don’t have any problems along the way.

If you do have any questions about contests – please do not hesitate to get into contact!

Best of luck to all contestants and I look forward to seeing the Area winners at a Division contest soon!

Steve Vear DTM

Program Quality Director

Program Quality Newsletter – September 2023

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“Time is the fire in which we burn”.

How is it possible that we are now in the third month of this programme year? I don’t mind admitting that I have been a lifelong Star Trek fan and the speed of everything in the district at the moment reminds me now of a quote that I often use when I am doing the timekeeper role at my club:

“Time is the fire in which we burn”.

The thing with time is that it can be both a healer and stealer.

It might be a good time to consider what were your Toastmasters goals when the year started? What were your professional goals and what were your life goals? Where are you and what course correction might you need to make to ensure you can achieve what you want to achieve? Don’t ever underestimate the progress you can make with your goals just by breaking them down step by step and taking time to celebrate the small wins.

I am writing this newsletter article while sitting in Nassau at my first ever Toastmasters International Convention. It has been an unbelievable reminder about the sheer size of our organisation and how many people across the world enjoy the benefits of membership. Our board of directors confirmed that next year Pathways will be transitioning to a new LMS (Learning Management System) and at the same time we will take the opportunity to reduce the number of paths transitioning over and focus on the ones that prove most popular to members across the world.

We have recently completed the first round of Club Officer training, and I want to thank the hundreds of you who came to one of the training sessions provided by either your area or division director – or even another district. Whether you were being inducted into a new role or receiving some useful reminders about the duties of your office, well done for giving up a few hours of your time for the good of the members in your club.

Speech contest season is now here, and I wish all participants in the Humorous and Table Topics contests the very best of luck. The final of all our District level speech contests will be taking place at the district conference in May 2024!

Talking of conference: we need your help! At the time of writing, we don’t have any nominations for Conference Chair.

Do you have an interest in running events? Do you think you could build and inspire a team to run a weekend where we will celebrate 10 years as a district? If anyone is even thinking of stepping forward, please do not hesitate to contact me – or even if you would like to nominate someone I should ring and present this amazing opportunity: please do let me know.

Finally, I want to finish with some well-deserved recognition. This month, Debbie Williams, Immediate Past Club Growth Director has been awarded her Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) award. This is the highest award that Toastmasters International can give in the educational program. It represents not only humourous speeches but also proof that the member has gone well ‘beyond the club’ and has made a significant contribution for the good of our organisation.

Many, many congratulations, Debbie Williams DTM.

I will see you in October (well at least through the newsletter).

Steve Vear MBE DTM
Program Quality Director, 2023-2024

Select Distinguished and Signing Off For Now

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Select Distinguished

A thank you to you all for your hard work and dedication during the past 11 months.

This has meant that the district has already 77 Distinguished clubs, thus becoming a Select Distinguished district for club quality this year. With a month still to go we may become Presidents Distinguished or even Smedley Distinguished if another 16 clubs reach distinguished status or higher by the end of June. Presently, we are the district ranked first in Europe for the percentage of distinguished clubs and 6th in the world. If your club has still to become a distinguished and are wondering if it is worth it, I can relate my own personal experience as an Immediate Past President. I still remember the delight I had when opening a envelope from TMI with a Distinguished ribbon recognition which is now sewn onto the club banner as memento of the year.

This reflects well on the district 91 members who have successfully been doing speeches and then recording the speech completion in BaseCamp and their club officers completing the record keeping by recording their members’ progress in both BaseCamp and Club Central.

To the end of May as a district 721 members have achieved 1,121 Pathway Level awards. Eighty-four members have won a Triple crown so far this year again a testament to individual members’ hard work.

The Pathways team lead by Massimo Guadagnino are still looking to help clubs become distinguished this year by working with club officers to check data and if necessary, help them to “cleanse” data in preparation for the new year starting 1st July, helping clubs to start the new year in the best shape they can be.

The Year to Come

Since the District Council meeting during the District Conference, I have had the opportunity of speaking with Steve Vear who will be next year’s Program Quality Director. His plans for the year ahead are very exciting. These include continuing some of this year’s initiatives and others are brand new and very exciting! I look forward to him announcing them shortly and I know Steve is keen to share his ideas with you and to continue to serve clubs helping them with their continuous improvement as members take on new personal development challenges, such as doing their first HPL (High Performance Leadership) project or working on a new Pathway level and tackling projects they had not previously done similar to me when I gave my first ever 20 minute prepared speech as part of my third level 5 Pathway.

Whatever your aims are for the year ahead I hope that you exceed them and please remember happiness brings success; not the other way round!

Signing Off

Being the District 91 Program Quality Director this year, has been a great learning opportunity for me and I would encourage others who are thinking about taking on a leadership role in Toastmasters to grab the opportunity to develop your own leadership skills. Finally, I’d like to thank the others in my PQD team this year, Massimo Guadagnino, Jacqui Hogan, Rick Cooper, Julie Chapman, Nikita Parks, Nadya, Janet Alkema, Ken Essien and finally our Chief Judge Chris Walker.

I look forward to supporting you and your clubs next year as your District Director, with Steve Vear as PQD, Mo Dawodu as Club Growth Director, Valerija Slavina as Finance Manager, Nikita Parks as PR manager and Aayushi Jain as Administration manager.

Diane Richardson,

Program Quality Director, 2022-2023