Can you believe it’s already April?
With three months left in the Toastmasters year, there’s so much to do yet. And so much potential to cross the finish line in a burst of awesomeness if you and your clubs are willing to answer the call to action.
The big ask: How can we found four clubs before the end of June? That gets us the clubs we need for that component of being a Distinguished District. Have you checked out our new affinity clubs (Once Upon a Speech, Loremasters, Time Travelers and the brand new Educators clubs? They’re worth a look!) Joining these clubs before June gets them to charter strength.
The bigger ask: How can we get two new or returning members into every club? Last year, we were a couple of hundred new members short. We’ve been shrinking as a District every year (or we wouldn’t be being redistricted) and what we could use is a few new people and/or a few people to be reminded that Toastmasters is worth the time and energy. Share the dream, get them to join the team!
The ridiculously huge ask: Do you know a place that has an uncharted potential to be a Toastmasters club?
The easy ask: What would it take to make sure your club gets one more DCP point? Several clubs are at 4 out of the minimum 5 points, and it might take only a speech or two for someone to finish their current level. I say ‘easy’ because we’ve got most of what we need to be Distinguished already.
The easiest ask of all: Don’t forget to spend your District Bucks. There’s over $8,000 waiting for the clubs to spend before the end of May, and we lose it if we don’t use it.
Our goals for the year are 107 clubs (we are at 103 as of March 15, when I’m writing this) and 4102 membership payments (we’re at 2736 at the time of this writing, but we should be somewhere in the 3400 range by the time you’re reading this). There are three big lessons I’m learning this year.
Leadership is not a liability – it’s a labor of learning and love.
An unanswered question I have this year is ‘how do I get people to take on more responsibility?’ Asking until someone says yes doesn’t make them instantly qualified; following up with guidance and training is the key. The questions I have been asking this year are “What do you want to learn from the experience of being a leader?”
But there’s only one of me, and a lot of you. And so I want to think about what it would take for you to volunteer if you’ve been sitting on the sidelines so far. What would motivate you to lead?
Inspiration comes from thoughtful actions, not from reactions.
I know many people are motivated by deadlines looming, but doing things early means it’s done, and the time is freed up for other things. “I’ll do it later” is the opposite of planning. Emergencies don’t wait until after a deadline is done, and there are things we can do today that might get dropped in case of emergency. But there’s only one of me, and a lot of you. So I want to know (and I might be
featuring a list of inspirational quotes in my last newsletter or at the last DECM): What have you seen or done in Toastmasters this year that inspired you to act?
There are three big lessons I’m learning this year.
Delegation is the scariest word in my vocabulary. Not because I have to trust people to do things where I can’t, but because I can.
I want to take a moment to appreciate everyone who stepped up to work on the various Area and Division speech contests in the past couple of months. I saw a lot of you making contests happen on frenetic timetables and shoestring budgets. It takes a lot of people to run these things, and many of you made it to multiple competitions as staffers. I hope we inspired some of the audience to take on those roles for next year!
But there’s only one of me, and a lot of you. And so I want to know who has inspired you to step up and who Leads Up for you. We’d like to make the Biggest Ask of all of them – for them to be next year’s leaders.
But I especially want to thank the folks who were our Area Directors and Division Directors this year; most of you are doing great things and I’ve been hearing good things about you. Your impact is felt, and your actions representing the District have been a year of tests and unexpected twists. I know this year isn’t what I expected it to be like. Not even remotely close.
But now I’m looking for folks who want to pick up the torch and carry it into our new Districts 205 and 206. I want to finish strong, take our best shot at being Distinguished, and hand off our halves of the District off to make our new Districts proud to have us. I hope to see many of you at the final District 57 Conference next month!
P.S. If you’ve got better-than-a-smartphone video equipment to shoot the contest video and portable speakers that you can bring to the Conference, please drop me a line at Jeffrey [at] d57tm . org – we could use your help and hardware!
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Jeffrey Young
