Pedro Casillas (District Director)
At the D91 Autumn Conference to be held at the Hilton Hotel, Gatwick Airport on 4 November, we will be holding our first District Council Meeting for the 2017-18 Toastmaster’s year (the agenda for District Council can be found on the D91 website).
The District Council is made up of Club Presidents, Club Vice Presidents Education, Area Directors, Division Directors and District Leadership Team members and its purpose is for the D91, District Leadership team (DLT) to share our plans and goals with members and to ask that they be accepted. We will, for example, be presenting the D91 Budget, which we will be believe will help the whole of the District to continue to grow and prosper. Other items include a review of the District Success Plan and a chance to hear from all District Leaders.
Ahead of District Council we would like all Club Presidents to review all Agenda items and all the documentation which can be found on the link above so that you will have a better idea of what it is that you will be asked to vote on.
We understand that not all Club Presidents and VPE’s will be able to attend on 4 November, but your vote can will still count and can be assigned by Proxy. This means that if both officers cannot attend, they may designate, in writing, any other active member of their club to act as a proxy or proxies for their club by using this form.
We do hope you will be able to attend on 4 November, but if this is not to be the case, then please make every effort to read through all the Agenda items and assign your proxy!”
Andy Hammond (PQD)
Area Directors are busy with their first round of club visits, and the reports submitted so far demonstrate the superb quality of our clubs. Congratulations to Areas 11 and 32 for being the first to submit 100% of their reports. These visits are important in ensuring that clubs receive any support they may need to continue to provide members with the excellent development opportunities they deserve.
The last autumn conference is almost upon us. It offers members a fabulous mix of workshops, humorous and table topics contests, and a key note address from our Region Advisor, Aletta Rochat. There is also the Council meeting, which is members’ chance to be involved in how your District is managed. You may have noticed I said the last autumn conference. Toastmaster International has decide that in future there will be one conference a year, in the spring. We will be consulting members on our options, for example which contests to hold and when. Look for further details later.
You will hopefully have seen my email with the exciting news that the new Pathways programme is scheduled to be available to members in March next year. I encourage all of you to have a look at the information available on the Toastmasters website. The first thing you can do to start preparing is to log on to the Toastmasters International website as this will be a requirement to access the new programme. We will be posting more information on the D91 website as the roll out approaches.
Florian Bay (CGD)
Remember why you joined Toastmasters? Likely it was to grow in confidence and to be able to speak in front of an audience. Audiences are what we need, what you need; in order to grow as a speakers and this is why it’s so important for our clubs to grow.
I’m excited to announce that up to 7 new clubs will join our ranks in October. Bloomberg just chartered a very dynamic club with 63 members in their swanky London offices! Toastmasters has now joined forces with Eastenders, in our new Barking club; the first in the District to meet on Saturdays! World leading marketing agency Mindshare, professional services firm KPMG, medical software company Meditata and prestigious investment bank Morgan Stanley; are launching their own clubs too. Finally Gatwick Communicators is about to take off from Gatwick airport!
All of the new tools that the Club Growth Team has created so far have been described as “Extremely useful, launching the club wouldn’t have been possible without them” by several club founders. Launching a club in our District has never been easier! You too can do it! Get in touch to find out more.
A new initiative this year are ‘open house meetings’. Any club can organise one in order to grow their profile, bring new guests to the club and re-engage current and past members. Specific guidelines for clubs have been drafted, any club organising an ‘open house meeting’ will also receive a free box full of meeting and marketing supplies. Finally, the District will also contribute up to £100 towards room hire costs. Interested? Get in touch!
HELP WANTED! IT programmers and developers! Are you someone with extensive IT, web development and programming experience? Yes? Please give me a shout, to help the Club Growth Team develop a ground-breaking tool to support clubs in our District.