District Leadership 2023-24

Courage and Encouragement

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As excitement grows for the next half of our contest season, I want to start by wishing all contestants the verry best of luck. Whether you are entering the evaluation contest, or indeed setting out on your journey to become the next World Champion of Public Speaking, I hope that you learn and grow from the experience!

I am sure that you have had this reminder given to you so often that you will find my next words incredibly boring – but please do remember the eligibility requirement for speakers and functionaries of the International Speech contest. This is especially important if you are responsible for running a contest at club, Area, Division or District level. Please do consult this year’s Speech Contest Rulebook.

Very soon the deadline for elected roles in District 91 will have passed. But what about if your next opportunity to take the next step on your leadership journey doesn’t involve an elected position? You may have noticed that I said leadership journey, and not Toastmasters leadership journey. Why? Because all too often it’s s easy to forget the very clear and powerful transferable leadership skills that an organisation like Toastmasters international can give.

Your Area Council will soon be looking to elect the next Area Director, your club will be holding elections for committee positions in the next few months, and if that doesn’t give you enough chances to put your best foot forward, the District is always looking for people to take on small and not so small tasks.

But I am not pointing this out just to try and attract you to a leadership responsibility within Toastmasters. I want to you to think about the role you can play in encouraging the next leader. Almost of all of my roles within Toastmasters, whether it be at the club or District level, happened because someone asked me, or encouraged me to think about stepping up.

Have you met someone new to your club who is curious and capable, who could be your next secretary to wet their appetite? Is there a reluctant Vice President Education in your club who really should be the next President but needs YOU to ask them to run, or for you to tell them how great you think they would be.

What about someone from another club that stands out as someone who has done all committee roles who you would like to see role model things across your area. What would they say if you asked them to be the next Area Director?

In a voluntary organisation, sometimes it just takes a direct approach, a confidence boost – a cheerleader to step forward to nudge the next leader into the spot light….. who are you going to push into the spotlight? If you don’t want the light to shine on you – imagine the feeling of being able to shine the light on someone else and then think ‘look who I found for us. Shine that light now – and make someone feel amazing.

Congratulations to all our members who have achieved educational awards this month – and thank you to all those club officers who have been attending club officer training in the previous weeks, I do hope that you found the experience worth while.

Don’t forget that conference tickets are on sale for Bristol – it is going to be such a great weekend and I hope to see you there.

I’ll let you go now, you have a spot light to plug in!

Steve.

Steve Vear, DTM
Program Quality Director 2023-24

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.

Taking stock

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Last January I was lucky enough to be sailing across the Atlantic on a two-month career break. It was then I decided that I was ready to return into a District Leadership position and decided then to run for an elected position, which of course leads me to be authoring this article in the Office of Program Quality Director. For me, January gave me an opportunity to step back and take stock of where I was (geographically I was many miles away of course, but you know what I mean) and where I wanted to go next on my journey. I have always found it a worthwhile experience to both reflect on and celebrate the past as well as to plan for and try and get excited for the future.

I wonder what January, the mid-point in our Program year will mean for you? Are you one of the hundreds of members who have achieved an educational award this year, are you a contest winner who is looking forward to our District finals in May 2024, or are you simply just enjoying your Toastmaster experience for all that it has to offer? One of the added benefits of Toastmasters which we don’t really talk explicitly about is the wonderful new connections and hopefully friends that we gain as being part of this community. I remember an ex-member of Basingstoke Speakers once telling me, that they joined Toastmasters to gain confidence – and what they gained was not only confidence but friendships that will stay with her for a long time. So, while Toastmasters International might measure our ‘Quality’ in terms of a dashboard and District goals, I am sure that we all have our own very personal ways of measuring the quality of our Toastmasters membership and all the experience it has to offer.

Toastmasters International has been sending regular communications about the upcoming changes to the Pathways system, launching a new LMS system and informing us about paths that will not be moved over to the new platform. I would encourage everyone to remind yourselves of these changes here to ensure you stay up to date with the most recent changes.

As we get ready to go into our next contest season in almost no time at all, why don’t you start thinking about whether you want to start your journey to become the next World Champion of Public Speaking? If you are a member who have gained a minimum of two levels in Pathways or are a Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) then you are eligible to enter your club contest, which could lead to the Area, Division and District Finals. There is then a Regional stage which is judged via video submission before then reaching the World Semi Finals at the international Contention in California in August 2024. While of course it is true that very few people get to call themselves the World Champion of Public Speaking, it really could be you! Don’t talk yourself out of it and get planning that speech now! It is important to highlight of course that as well as the International Speech Contest, we will be running the popular Evaluation contest alongside it – so as I always say, Toastmasters has something for everyone.

Finally, I want to take a moment to thank Amy Jones DTM, this year’s conference director and her team of conference leads who have been working hard in the background to put on a wonderful District Conference in Bristol on the first weekend in May 2024. I can’t wait to share with you news of a special guest who will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary with us!

In a recent leader’s letter article I reflected on the fact that as leaders we are never alone and there is always someone on hand to support you. This is the same for our individual Toastmaster journey – if you have questions, are looking for support or even are on the lookout for your next Toastmaster challenge, don’t ever hesitate to contact me directly or your local member of the District Executive Committee who will be on hand to help you.

Whatever the rest of your year has in store for you – enjoy it and remember – you don’t know what the best version of yourself looks like and neither does anyone else!