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.
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
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
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.
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!
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
Publication deadlines mean that I am drafting this article on the 30th April, rather than in May. It also means that as District we are “nearly Distinguished,” with 66 clubs having already passed the Distinguished milestone, we need two more to become a Distinguished district. When I look at the Toastmasters International dashboard, I also see that many other clubs are working hard to reach this goal and are tantalizingly close. I know from my three years serving as a club officer how difficult and how much hard work and planning is needed for a club to reach Distinguished or higher status. It is a great achievement and leading a Distinguished Club helps officers’ point to successfully running a team on their CV, to their employer or LinkedIn profile, hopefully meaning that members gain an economic benefit outside of Toastmasters. Please also remember that a member of the D91 Pathways Champion team can help club officers with data cleansing to ensure that clubs have claimed all or their DCP (Distinguished Club) points, just get in touch with me if you need this additional support.
On the City of London Toastmasters LinkedIn page, they recently wrote “receiving awards and recognition for our performance serves as a powerful motivator, inspiring us to continuously improve as speakers and leaders”. The text was accompanied by a video showing members having a great time being applauded by their fellow members as they received Pathways certificates from the Club President. This is one of the reasons why we ask clubs to register members on Pathways and to track their progress.
If you are a new member, don’t miss this great learning opportunity. Please do log-in to the Toastmasters website (toastmasters.org) and using the profile button to register on a Pathway. Choose anyone from the 11 on offer. If you need help deciding which one to choose, then to take the online quiz which matches your interests with a path. Registering and following the guidance in Basecamp will help you become a better speaker quicker than if you create everything yourself from a “blank page”. I know when I am thinking about a design/communication problem I find it much easier to be creative when I have a brief to work to and it is the same for many other creative people. Using the training materials available in Basecamp will save a lot of time and effort, with the added benefit of making you a better speaker quicker.
Several clubs have said that they are concentrating on membership recruitment this year and not on Pathways recruitment. Unfortunately, this does not help clubs in the long term. An analysis of the last set of renewals shows that clubs with a high percentage of non-active Pathways members, are the clubs who lose most members when it comes to renewals. The help build membership clubs should have members who are fully engaged with Pathways and celibate their success in the same way City of London Toastmasters club do as its help with membership retention. If you are a new member, then please do ask your Vice President of Education or Membership to take you through the process of registering.
The District 91 contest finals will be taking place during the annual conference between 12th and 14th May. We have 32 outstanding speakers competing all marshalled by four fantastic conference chairs. If you have not already done so, please purchase a ticket and support your Divisional finalist. Several past district finalists have said how they gain a great deal of confidence when they see familiar faces in the audience. To support your divisional champion either in person or online, please purchase your ticket at the D91 Conference website at https://conference.d91toastmasters.org.uk/buy-your-tickets-here/
Diane Richardson,
Program Quality Director, 2022-2023