Years in the making, months ideating, and a few weeks of intense mobilisation…and just like that, it’s over! Or is it?
On Thursday 19th June, we held our inaugural corporate summit in District 91. What’s a summit? Our emcee for the morning explained this beautifully:
“Well, the difference between a summit and a meeting is that Summits are by invitation only and have a specific topic. You gather the most influential people and the specialists on a particular topic you want to address and they share/collaborate on how to move forward. So, in essence, every summit is a meeting, but not every meeting is a summit!!”
The event was hosted at Dartmouth House in Mayfair, London – a half day event to include networking and some lunch. I was first introduced to this venue and the associated organisation by two Toastmasters some four years ago! That in itself shows the power of our network and that it takes time to build partnerships.
I have to say that I am overwhelmed at the support I got for this project when I announced that we had the greenlight – from the immediate summit squad to the general cheerleading from those who simply wanted to come along and support in anyway they could on the day. Let me start by thanking that squad – three wonderful ladies who said ‘I’m in’. They put up with me most Sunday mornings for 25 mins in the preceding weeks, and frankly, got the job done. They were Guler Cortis, Deborah Stevens, and Janet Alkema, DTM. Give a job to a genuinely busy person – they get to the point and it gets done!
We ran a taster meeting within the event – a bit like a traditional demonstration meeting or Open House format for those of you that are familiar. Careful attention was needed to make it relevant to the workplace and not get too distracted with regular jargon we may use in everyday club meetings.
We also ran a panel discussion called ‘Beyond the Boardroom: The transformative power of Corporate Toastmasters’ – all four members had different
experiences of being involved with Toastmasters in a company setting and it was impossible not to learn something from this discussion!
The purpose of the event was to help us develop and maintain corporate partnerships. Most events that you’ll see advertised are internal facing or are likely to attract existing members and potential individual new members. The corporate summit is more a step towards us providing more relevant events for corporate clubs and those within the organisations that make the decision to have Toastmasters rolled out there.
The nature of the event meant that I needed to secure support and sponsorship from the District Trio to pull it off so thanks to Steve, Debbie and Seema for backing this.
A delightful day was had by all and in true Toastmasters style, I’m now in the lessons learned phase and capturing 360 evaluations. I do hope there will be another one next year and a blue print is being produced for what to do. The potential for corporate partnerships in our District is huge and that means there’s more work to do here that doesn’t happen with a one-off event.
I’m fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to bring together skills I’ve developed towards something I’m passionate about, where I recognise the gap and that I’ve no doubt Toastmasters as an organisation wants for us to do more of. With that I go back to our Founder Ralph Smedley’s vision – to ensure as many people as possible have the opportunity to improve themselves, we need to continue to look outside.
My final named thanks has to go to our District PR Manager, Allen Paul, DTM – between the postcards that were sent out as invitations to target companies and our crazy video making antics – it’s true, ‘we learn best in moments of enjoyment.’
Rupa Datta
Past District 91 Director
Corporate Summit Chair
Last Updated on 25th June 2025 by Allen Paul