Hello Fellow Toastmasters,
It’s been a busy and productive month filled with club officer training, preparations for the contest season, and much more. As we look ahead, I’d like to focus on key updates to help you prepare for what’s coming next.
Pathways Update
The below message from Toastmasters International highlights an important transition ahead that I want to bring to your attention:
Base Camp Outage (October 9th-25th, 2024):
To facilitate the transition to a new system, Base Camp will be inaccessible from October 9 until October 25, 2024, for critical platform testing. If you’re currently working on a project or plan to during this period, please download any necessary materials or wrap up outstanding tasks beforehand. Below are key items that will not transfer to the new system, so make sure to act if these apply to you:
- Feedback on Base Camp: If you have feedback you’d like to keep, whether it’s constructive criticism or words of encouragement, take a screenshot or save the text elsewhere.
- Documents in My Documents: Download any uploaded files you wish to retain. Once the new Base Camp is live, you can upload them again.
- Assess Your Skills Activity: This feature will be redesigned in the new system. If you’d like to retain your responses, take a screenshot or save them separately.
- Understanding Your Leadership/Communication Style Projects: The answers to these questionnaires won’t be transferred. Be sure to capture your results if you’d like to keep them.
- Story Collection Tool (Engaging Humour Path): Save any information recorded here by copying and pasting it to another document before the transition.
- Meeting Roles: Save a record of any meeting roles you’ve logged in Base Camp.
- Completion Certificates: Certificates won’t transfer, so download copies of any you’ve earned.
Additionally, to ensure your educational progress is fully up to date, please ask your club officers to approve and submit any pending Level completions via Club Central before October 9. T
The new system promises to be more user-friendly and will feature training videos to help you navigate the changes.
Contests
For those of you who missed the recent webinar on contests with our District Chief Judge, Arnaud Sartre, you can catch up by watching the recording here:
In the meantime, here are some general FAQs that may help clarify any queries you may have:
- All contests at Area, Division and District Level will be held in person only.
- A Note on Eligibility: A contestant competing in, for example, the Table Topics contest is not eligible to hold a contest official role (e.g. judge) within the same contest type in which they will be competing. They would not be able to compete if they were a judge for the same contest type in a different area. It would be fine if they were competing in Table Topics and a judge for the International Contest. However, if a contestant were the judge for the same contest type that they would be competing in, they would be disqualified from competing as they no longer meet the eligibility requirements listed on page 7 of the Speech Contest rulebook.
- Here is the latest contest rule book for 2024-2025 : https://tinyurl.com/D91-Contest-masterclass
- Remember, in Toastmasters, every contest is guided by our core values of integrity, respect, service, and excellence.
Click here to see all the upcoming webinars we have for the year. Register for our webinars for October. They run weekly on Sundays at 5pm – 6pm.
6th Oct: What is Speechcraft – https://tinyurl.com/D91-what-is-speech-craft
13th October: How to use Concur – https://tinyurl.com/D91-HTUConcur
20th October: Conflict resolution – https://tinyurl.com/D91-conflict-resolution
27th October: Growing membership – https://tinyurl.com/D91-Growing-membership
Incentives and Congratulations
| Brighton & Hove Speakers Club
Cardiff Toastmasters Excalibur Speakers Hallmark Speakers Harrovian Speakers Toastmasters Infineum Milton Hill Speakers Kent Speakers Club Legacy Speakers Brixton Lewisham Speakers Club London Cardinals London Olympians Speakers LSBU Public Speakers Club
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PMI UK Toastmasters Club
Polish Your Polish Riverside Communicators Salisbury Speakers Shilling Speakers Surbiton Speakers Sustainable Speakers Online The Speakers of Croydon Club Wembley Stadium Speakers Winchmore Hill Speakers Wye Knot Speakers
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For clubs who would like additional general training, please connect with your Area Director to arrange further sessions. In the meantime, here is a link to Club Officer Tools—which has further information on roles, tutorials, resources, and more for club officers.
Link: https://www.toastmasters.org/leadership-central/club-officer-tools
Save the Date – District 91 Conference 2nd-4th May 2025
Mark your calendars! The winner of each Division contest will compete in the District Contest at the District 91 Conference in May 2025. This exciting event will take place in London, with the venue to be confirmed soon. If you’re interested in supporting the conference, perhaps as part of a High-Performance Leadership project, please get in touch. There will be plenty of roles available for those who want to get involved and make the event a success. In the meantime, check out this video of me looking at venues – the fun has started!
Thank you for your ongoing dedication and enthusiasm. Let’s continue working together to make this a remarkable year for District 91.
Warm regards,
Debbie Williams
Program Quality Director, 2024-2025
District 91
