This year, Division C is feeling creative. We want to create a super community with our corporate and community clubs in Central London. Let me introduce you to a few of our clubs here:
Bayes Toastmasters hosted an Open House on Monday 24th October. I had the honour of being the Toastmaster of the evening and got to wear my witches cape for the Halloween inspired theme! Well done to Vanessa Pochette (President) and Craig Moss (VP Education) for planning this event.
Early Bird Speakers boasts one of the highest members in the Division and has been busy submitting education awards across all levels. As the name suggests it meets in the early morning – the morning people are getting stuff done! Members leave the meeting energised for the day and feeling creative.
City of London Toastmasters raced ahead with new members at the beginning of this year, winning the Smedley Award in August and has signed up the most new members. Well done all! VPPR Cristina (Tina) Plamadeala has been getting creative on social media showing off her marketing skills. Tina has also helped to make some creations for the Division – example shared below. Thank you so much Tina!
Division C is joining the race to hit 5000 unique members. Our goal is to gain a net 100 members and we are well on the way with our vibrant and creative clubs, plus new additions to the family.
Last month we welcomed back KPMG Kommunicators into Area C58. We are very excited to have this club and thank you to Ga Lok Chung for his work in putting this together. The club has already completed eight ice breaker speeches over 20 first-timers taking on meeting roles. Well done to all the new Kommunicators!
This month we will be joined by another exciting new corporate club PA Consulting London. I have had the pleasure of attending their demo and launch meeting recently and look forward to attending more meetings over the next few weeks.
As the third trimester of the Toastmaster year comes to a close, Division H is celebrating another busy, successful year.
A big thank you to the Division H Leadership Team and all members within Division H for working hard to have successful clubs and areas within the Division so far. We are a close-knit team, we keep the communication flowing, and the results are visible.
On 8th January, we held an interactive training session as part of our Winter TLI (Toastmasters Leadership Institute). We included a panel discussion from clubs in the Division sharing their best practices.
We achieved another record attendance and received raving reviews throughout, with an average participants’ feedback of 4.5/5. All those that attended found great value in the training provided. A heartfelt thank you to those who attended and provided feedback.
Many of our clubs are very active.
Congratulations to Brighton and Hove Speakers for having the highest number of new members within the Division to date; and winning the Talk up Toastmasters Award by adding five more new members since February.
Congratulations to Beckenham Communicators and Speakers of Croydon, too. They won the Early Bird Renewal Incentive with more than 12 members renewing in February.
Division News – Club Highlights
We are inspired and celebrate our clubs’ achievements! These are just some of them!
New Charter: Sussex Online Speakers chartered on the 1st of October 2021, now they have an upcoming Speechcraft starting in March!
GatwickCommunicators held an Open House on the 21st of February and created a compelling series of marketing videos you can view here.
Arun Speakers are now running hybrid meetings, along with Kent Speakers and Battle Speakers.
Worthing Speakers Club has achieved 10/10 DCP points in February and is on track to become President’s Distinguished for three consecutive years
Speakers of Croydon recently concluded its annual Speechcraft resulting in every participant joining the club. Presently on course to being President’s Distinguished.
Speakers of Croydon also hosted an Evaluation workshop in February led by Chris Murphy from Tunbridge Wells Speakers and winner of the 2020 UK national Evaluation Contest and runner-up in 2021. The club is moving to a better and more well-presented venue for in-person meetings. Make sure you visit them!
Croydon Communicators and Liberty Speakers are planning a joint Speechcraft. Both clubs are on course to achieve Distinguished status.
Liberty Speakers held an Open House event in January with excellent reviews in the community, especially the business sector.
Croydon Communicators recently moved to a new home for its in-person meetings. Check them out.
Purley Speakers is on course to be President’s Distinguished! They received outstanding reviews from the community using Meetup to attract guests at its swanky new in-person meeting home. An Open House event is at the planning stage.
Kent Speakers recently held a joint meeting with their local Rotary Club, and great fun was had by all!
Overall, there are many exciting changes in the Division, so watch this space and keep in touch!
Are you looking for more practice?
Battle Speakersis looking for new members and will focus on hybrid meetings, join them; it’s a great way to get a second club and more practice. Check their website
Did you know?
Division H has had three Area Directors win “Area Director of the Year” since the District was founded! See yourself!
Division H has consistently had its members serving on the District Leadership Team.
Last year (Guler) and this year Debbie, both from Division H stepped up to take the demanding role of District Conference Director.
Dates for your diary
On 26th March is the Division H International Speech and Evaluation Contest – please register here to attend: REGISTER
The winners will then represent Division H at the District Contest during the D91 Conference 6-8 May, 2022. They will join Dan Magill, Humorous Speech contest winner and Marcus Tomlinson; Table Topics contest winner.
So come and cheer these champions at the District Conference.
Check out the link to the District Conference, get your tickets now and discover how you can help make this another engaging event. D91 Conference
Division H Members Wall of Fame
We love to celebrate our members who have so far completed a Level 5 Pathway awards this toastmasters year:
Guler Cortis, Speakers of Croydon / Purley Speakers
Emmanual Karamagi, Speakers of Croydon
Matt Clark, Croydon Communicators
Islay O’Hara, Tunbridge Wells Speakers
Catherine Cannon, County Communicators
Dave Simpson, Worthing Speakers
Phoebe Weston, Arun Speakers
Triple crown awards so far include
Alan Chapman, Beckenham Communicators
Juli Chapman, Beckenham Communicators
Robin Lulham, Eastbourne Speakers
Adrian Moore, Speakers of Croydon
Debbie Williams, Speakers of Croydon
We look forward to adding more names to the list as members achieve their educational goals.
Happy Chinese New Year to those who celebrate with their loved ones!
I’m glad that our District would like to feature clubs and areas within Division L. Division L consist of 5 Areas and 23 clubs. Area Directors are committed to serving the clubs in their areas. Please do feel free to reach out to me, John or Area Directors. As we are here to serve you.
Asst Div L Director – John Akers
Area 16 Director – Brighton Gono
Area 45 Director – Anoop Ramanathan
Area 47 Director – Sushil Shah
Area 56 Director – Georgina Mylona
Area 61 Director – Angelie Bharwaney
Like many members, I’m personally a big fan of Toastmaster International as it has had a positive impact on my life. The more I participate the better I am. The more I share, the more I learn & grow.
The integral part of the club is our members. Members constantly balance work and life i.e., the number of ‘active’ members in the clubs fluctuate hence I encourage clubs to plan regular membership building events like Open House, Speechcraft, etc. I’m pleased to share recent success on this front: –
“Manor House Speakers held a well-attended Open House event recently. It was very successful and resulted in the recruitment of several new members.”
“London Communicators Club ran an open house in-person meeting attended by 22 guests, 2 new members joined on the day.”
“Harrovian Speakers Toastmasters held in-person open house meetings. Rupa Datta, our very own Program Quality Director presented the First Class award won by the club in 2020/2021. In a subsequent meeting,7 guests attended the event and they enjoyed it so much that 2 of them are in the process of becoming a new member!”
“TJX Expressions Speakers held a Share and Learn session, their version of an Open House and over 35 people attended.”
“Angel Speakers are planning an Open House event to attract new members & grow the club. Watford speakers planning in-person Open House too!”.
Many congratulations to the HOD Speakers Club who celebrated its 20th-anniversary open house, it was well attended and 7 of the club’s former Presidents participated in the event. Also present was a (pre) District 91 speech contest champion and the people present heard how a number of members supported his journey to the Cincinnati convention. They also heard a pre-recorded message from Margaret Page. The founding President asked all present to reflect on the number of lives the club had touched and changed over the last 2 decades!
When not supporting her own club which she started in January, the other 20 clubs in Division A or visiting Toastmasters events around the world, Antonia focuses on her business as a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Breakthrough Business Coach for Women Entrepreneurs. She stood for Parliament in 2017 and 2019. Learning foreign languages is her lifelong interest as well as being on the water, preferably on a motor cruiser.
Antonia’s Toastmasters journey began in 2009 in a Flemish club in Belgium, Toastmasters Hasselt, where she was a founder member and gave her Icebreaker speech in Dutch. She later became President, a Charter Member of Toastmasters Fonske Leuven and Club Sponsor of Toastmasters Maastrict. On returning to the UK in 2012, she joined Solent Speakers in Fareham where she also became President before Area A1 Director in 2018/19.
See what the clubs in Division A have been doing during September and October
Basingstoke Speakers
Basingstoke Speakers had a joint meeting with Noida toastmasters of District 41, India on 12 September. The meeting was very successful and we hope to have many more joint meetings in the future. Why not watch our meeting recording.
Haritosh Srivastav DTM, VPE, Basingstoke Speakers.
TEDxSouthampton 2021
Russell Streeter ACB ALB, A1 Area Director and member of Solent Speakers in Fareham, will be speaking at TEDx Southampton in May 2021 deferred from 11 November 2020.https://tedxsoton.com/
This all-day event will feature creative, thought-provoking inspiration around our theme of Human to Human Connection in all its forms and includes a focus on Innovation, Connectedness and Personal Potential.
Russell is a finance leader with nearly two decades of experience in insurance and financial services. His outlook on life has been dramatically shaped by his family’s experience of childhood cancer. Russell’s talk is a powerful and emotional story about Human to Human Connection when a family member is seriously ill. He shares the important lessons he has learnt and discusses the vital contributions that everyone can make in such circumstances to save lives.
Salisbury Speakers Discussion Panel Experts
September 18th saw Salisbury Speakers host the 3rd in a series of panel discussions this year. This one was an exciting discussion on the subject of homelessness, with Salisbury MP John Glen, Salisbury Trust for the Homeless Project Leader Louise Davis, and Liz Dore, (Salisbury Speakers Member) of South West Advocacy Network, the new organisation she has just set up in Salisbury.
A series of questions were posed including ‘What lessons can we learn from the pandemic?’ and ‘” what will the end of the eviction ban mean for homelessness?’ A lively discussion followed, concluding with questions from the audience. Salisbury Speakers member Richard Livesey hosted the meeting very professionally, asking panellists to reflect on each others’ contributions and moving smoothly from one question to another.
Previous discussions were: September 7th ‘Perceptions of Influence in the Age of Social Media’, again hosted by Richard Livesey with panellists: previous Salisbury Speakers member Wendy Searle who famously made a record-breaking skiing solo to the South Pole in 2019/20 together with Richard Belle, a local Social Media expert and Barbara Saph, DTM Salisbury Speakers member.
Finally, an in house panel of Rob Dewing, Alexandra Gillies, who works with sustainable tourism in Africa and Liz Dore discussed ‘Do You Think Plastic Should be Banned?’ on August 3rd.
Taking part in a panel discussion is very different to presenting to an audience, especially via a video conference but Salisbury Speakers are expecting to hold more of these during the year and will welcome members from other clubs.
Chaseside Speakers host the World Champion of Public Speaking
Area 42’s only corporate club, Chaseside Speakers, a JPMorgan club, started their year off with a bang with a keynote speech from last year’s World Champion of Public Speaking, Aaron Beverley, a JPM employee from the States.
Distinguished Toastmaster Haritosh Srivastav
interviews Aaron Beverly.
Watch Aaron’s winning speech.
Chaseside is using the online format to its fullest by also joining forces with another D91 JPMorgan club to run joint meetings to boost the number of members at meetings and are looking to possibly extend the meetings to even further afield and branch out to other clubs for Global meetings.
David Matoe Club President is keen to have guest speakers and workshops to add variety and interest to meetings so would love to hear from anyone who has something they can share with the club.
Bristol Central Speakers
At Bristol Central Speakers, we wanted to keep our high-energy and collaborative club culture alive even in the new virtual world. Taking advantage of the fact that any club in the world is now only a click away, BCS hosted a joint meeting with a club in Osaka, Japan. Separated by 8 hours in time, we showed up excited to meet the members of Naniwa Toastmasters.
We quickly learned to add ‘San’ after everyone’s name and joked about not being disqualified for going overtime (Osaka rules!). It was an incredibly rewarding experience that showed us how we’re all so similar even though miles apart.
The feedback from our club members has been fantastic. This idea of a joint club meeting is all thanks to BCS’ Secretary, Polly Thompson, and has inspired us to keep exploring the world via Zoom. Who knows where we’ll (virtually) land next.
Solent Speakers
Solent Speakers (A1) ran an Evaluations event on 29 September starting with an “Enlightening Evaluations” workshop from 2016 D91 Evaluations Champion, Ga Lok Chung, teaching us valuable techniques including the COD and GLOVE methods. We then heard three very different speeches and offered a round-robin evaluation of each
Lucinda Harman DTM “Finding Freeman in Confinement”, a TEDx rehearsal
Beatrice Freeman, L5 Preparing to Speak Professionally “Including the Neurodiverse: My Experience”
Dagmara Elminowska, L1 Evaluation & Feedback 2 “The Problems of Being Tall”
Shilling Speakers in Area A1 hosted a workshop with Luis Dorbecker DTM from Mexico called “In Front of the Camera” to help people with better lighting, framing, backgrounds, camera height etc. It was particularly aimed at anyone taking part in Toastmasters contests. You can see the recording at https://youtu.be/gaSPfwovYPc
Division A Conference & Contests
Saturday 7th November 09:45-14:15
The Division Finals of the Humorous Speech Contest and Table Topics will include eight participants in each as Division A has four Areas. Alongside, there will be keynote speeches from Gavin Meikle DTM on the hidden depths of Pathways and TEDx Speaker and multi-award-winning Deepak ‘DJ’ Justin from D82 with “Unlock the Sherlock: The Art of Cracking a Winner of a Speech”.
