Thursday, SpeechMasters celebrated their 10th anniversary. There were fantastic speeches, new and old members, a guest appearance from a top executive of the company, lunch and cake.
Congratulations Speechmasters! Here’s to another 10 great years!
If anyone else has a celebration they’d like announced, let us know.
Club dues are due October 1st.
Most clubs could use a full month to get it together. The first week they’ll announce it. The second, a few will remember and then you still have a couple of weeks to follow up with those who forgot.
They’ll get more points for the Jack Rabbit Dash if they can turn in their dues by September 15th.
If they’re a corporate club and the corporation pays some part of the dues, they may need a little more time to request the check, etc.
As you guys have already been told, clubs need to be holding their contests starting in August.
If they want to see the rules or judging forms for Tall Tales, we have them posted on our resources page.
We also have a DEC meeting coming up in about a week. At that time, we’ll want to finalize all the area contest dates. If you’re an AG, you’ll want to figure out how many of your clubs are competing in the next week so you’ll know if it would make sense for you to plan a contest together with another area.
We were discussing evaluations and judging recently. It was suggested that we might increase participation in the contests if we make a point about judging.
Having judged well over 20 contests in the past couple of years, I’ve overheard a variety of responses from contestants after the fact. Many take it as well as could be expected. Sometimes some folks feel like the judging was biased or that they really should have been the one to win.
If you look at the way the judging forms work, you’ll see it’s a weighted tally. So theoretically, a contestant who got all 2nd place votes could win if there were no other contestant who consistently was picked as 1st. That’s why we don’t take time into account until after voting is done.
Based on this system, it’s nearly impossible for a bias to sway the result. It would require a bias from most of the judges. If you think about it, most judges really do want the best person to win. As a judge, I’ve always taken pride in hearing that I picked the consensus winner. Otherwise I start to question my judging skills. Additionally, if the best speaker doesn’t go to the next level, we reduce our chances that we’ll win at the next level. After all, we wouldn’t want to send our 3rd best speaker to Region or International, would we?
There are always mistakes made. That’s why we have an appeal process. Aside from those rare occasions, this is pretty much the most fair judging model there is.
I recently read about a speaker who constantly blamed the judging for their inability to advance. One year, he finally realized that all he could do was worry about the part he has direct control over and let the rest go. That was the year he went much further than he ever had before. I really wish I could remember who that person was. If you know who I’m trying to think of, please leave a comment below.
The point is that it might be worth mentioning to potential participants that they’ll get a fair shake. It’s probably not an issue for most people but it might get a few more to participate that wouldn’t otherwise. If it helps, let them look at the judging form ahead of time.
And if you’re an AG, make sure you’re ready for scheduling your contest at the DEC meeting next Saturday.
Please make sure your clubs know about this. The flier is also posted on the Resources page. From “The Smedley Award Contest” document:
The Smedley Award commemorates the founding of Toastmasters International on October 22, 1924, by Dr. Ralph Smedley. One person initiated a program that would go on to affect millions of people. In his honor, if your club can add five new, dual, or reinstated members between August 1 and September 30, you’ll receive a Smedley Award ribbon to display on your club’s banner. Your club will also earn a choice of one module from The Better Speaker Series, The Successful Club Series, or The Leadership Excellence Series.
Membership applications and payment for members who join between August 1-September 30, must be received at World Headquarters or online no later than September 30. Each member’s “join date” as listed on the application must be no later than September. Transfer and charter members do not count for credit. There is no need to apply for this award. Your club is automatically entered when the first new member application is received in August. See the Smedley Flyer.
But wait, there’s more! In addition to TI’s recognition, District 55 will award a first, second & third place prize for the clubs who add the most members. Gift certificates worth $50, $30, and $25 to the Toastmasters supply catalog will be awarded to the winners.
Thursday night was the first of 3 officer trainings in Austin. It was well attended and turned out pretty well (pending the evaluation results).
In reviewing how it went, there’d been a last minute panic moment with a concern that maybe we hadn’t promoted the event well enough. That was based on the fact that a couple people who were club officers hadn’t heard about the training through any of the lines of communication they would have expected. Someone suggested sending out an email reminder. We did that. Or rather, we asked our LGET to do that.
Taking another look at that process, we realized that I ought to reemphasize how important all our district supporting communication is. The way this particular communication was supposed to have worked was that the Austin division governors communicated with our area governors (AGs). Then the AGs communicated with their club presidents who then communicated with the club presidents.
As much as we’d like to think people read mass emails from the top, the truth is that we get much better results when it’s from the person one step up. As a club president, I pay extra attention to any email that comes from my AG or one of my club officers. Something generic sent out to the entire district is a much lower priority. For example, I’d heard about the $10 CL promotion as a district officer but hadn’t remembered to mention it to my club. Our AG visited and was able to remind me and even make the announcement herself.
If we have individual club officers who aren’t hearing about things like training, they need to go back up the chain to figure out where the message got lost. It’s vitally important for each person to make sure their folks stay informed. Otherwise they don’t know about training or whatever else and they miss out. When we go back and look at the DCP reports after the fact, it’s too late.
The takeaway here is that if you’re part of this system of communication, make sure your people are covered. If you know they’re busy and only halfway reading emails, make sure you get confirmation or send multiple reminders. If you’re an AG, make sure your club Presidents know that their club officers may not know about things if they don’t tell them. That’s an important part of their role.
[Note: This message is from Linda Williams, DTM, one of our Division Governors in San Antonio]
Fellow Division Governors,
Steve Lockwood pointed out that a contestant to the area contest needs to be included in the first level club dash which finishes on September 3rd. Not all of the clubs will have had their contest by that date. To make it fair for all clubs and with the permission of Stan, I have made the following small addendum to the Jack Rabbit Dash:
The number of contestants participating in the Tall Tales or Evaluation contest will be added to the Jack Rabbit Dash total on the day of the contest (area, division, or district).
It will work like this. All other deadlines will remain unchanged. As official record keeper Steve Lockwood will keep an account of everything but the number of contestants at each contest. For the first level of the dash, the division governor will arrive at the area contest bringing the trophy to the area governor (the cost of these trophies is to come out of the division budgets). They will already have the individual club points. It will be easy to count the contestants from each club and get a final count to determine the club winner and present the trophy at the area contest.
I have asked David Borden to make the change on the District 55 website.
Thanks,
Linda
Area Governors: if you haven’t already contacted your club presidents, now is the time to start doing that.
Presidents: if you haven’t heard from your AG, you can initiate the contact. We haven’t gotten officer lists yet so your AG might not know who to contact. The reason for that is we’re still waiting for the realignment to go through at Toastmasters International. Then they’ll give us the realigned officers lists. Emails for your AGs are listed on the district website here: http://tmd55.org/divisions.shtml. Just click on your respective division’s clubs link.
When you visit, check and see whether your clubs will be participating in the contests. Club contests need to be held in August and area contests in September. We’ll post area contests on the calender as they get scheduled.
If it turns out some of your clubs won’t be participating, it would make sense to see about combining with another area to have a more complete contest. As enjoyable as they are, it’s really not fair for us to ask 6-8 judges plus role players to block out an evening to come and listen to 2 speakers.
Also, at least in Division K, I’m encouraging you AGs to have the clubs support their own contestants. In the past, the only way we were told to get judges was to swap (i.e. go judge other people’s contests). I’d end up judging 6-10 contests per season.
If you like doing that, that’s fine but it shouldn’t be the only way to get judges. Ask each club that participates to send 2 judges, 2 role players and refreshments. That way everyone’s represented fairly and you don’t come out of pocket too much for refreshments. There’s no budget for contests so it’s up to individual chairs on how elaborate they want to make things.
If you don’t know how to run a contest in general, there’s a few pages on it in the Area Leadership Handbook on the Resources page.
Here’s a video promoting the session that our PRO, Tony Geishauser will be doing tomorrow at the TLI:
[EDIT: The video was removed after privacy/intellectual property concerns were raised. Tony is still planning to offer an outstanding session on using YouTube to promote your club.]
Welcome Toastmasters in Austin!
As you know, July 1st starts the new year for Toastmasters.
Your district officers have an exciting lineup of programs and incentives to help you and your clubs earn recognition for all your hard work.
For individuals:
Toastmaster of the Year… this is a district-wide competition promoted by Toastmasters International. It allows members to keep track of all the activities and awards they earn over the year and be recognized at the club, area, division and district level.
Toastmaster of the Quarter… so far this is only for clubs in Division K. It follows the same criteria as Toastmaster of the Year but on a quarterly basis so you don’t have to wait until the end.
Contests… this fall, the district sponsored contests are the Tall Tales and Evaluations contests.
For clubs:
Jack Rabbit Dash… this incentive is to get clubs going sooner than later. We often wait until the last minute to earn our Distinguished Club points. Now you have a reason to get them done ASAP. The club level ends on September 3rd.
All the specifics of these competitions are outlined on our resources page. Additional resources have been added as well.
Some folks have asked why these programs.
The Toastmaster of the Year and Quarter competitions are to recognize all the Toastmasters who really make the program prosper but don’t want to compete in a contest. Did you attend most of your meetings, finish 5 speeches, mentor 2 new members or start a new club? We want to recognize you for those accomplishments.
The reason the Tall Tales contest was chosen this season rather than the Humorous Speech contest was for several reasons. One, we’ve done Humorous for several years in a row now and some folks feel like the winners are already pretty much a given. This could serve as a good enough mix up to encourage new people to participate. AND Tall Tales usually need to be funny to win so our humor experts will be able to feature their skills as well.
The Jack Rabbit Dash is, as I said, to encourage clubs to start well. Getting all your officers trained and dues in on time weigh heavily into the competition. Awards that were completed last year and turned in finally now that the new year has started are emphasized less. Fortunately, this competition is hands free… our district statistician will keep track and let you know how you did.
[EDIT: Division J is participating in the TMOTQ competition too.]
[EDIT: All of Austin is now participating in the TMOTQ competition.]
All of the major dates (pending area contests) have been updated through the end of 2008. They include DEC meetings, division contests, dues/club officer deadlines, and club visit deadlines.
