This same weekend, District 22 (Kansas), 30 (Chicago), 43 (AR/TN/MS), and 63 (TN/KY/VA) are all having conferences the same time! That’s unfortunate, since two of them won’t have an International Director visiting, and I can only get to one of them. I’m going to D43, since I missed that district last fall (their fall conference was the same weekend as D63 then). We should try to better coordinate conference dates, especially for neighboring districts.
Mississippi is probably the only state in Region V I’ve never been to before, so it was interesting to see Tupelo. I flew into Memphis, where Joan Diehl (my campaign manager) picked me up on her way from home in Little Rock to Tupelo. The conference began with Friday afternoon educational sessions. The DG himself gave one on running contests, he had some good stories to tell about his own experiences. While contests aren’t core to our mission, they are important and need to be run well.
Friday evening was the evaluation contest, and I played both sergeant at arms and ballot counter. Later, in the hospitality suite, the DG chaired “team table topics” with three teams, one from each state that makes up the region. I was a judge for that, and it was very good. Mississippi won, mostly due to a hugely funny skit trying to find some peanut butter in the room. There was also a “bad science fiction” topic involving Star Trek and an alien.
Saturday kicked off with a general session from me on club coaching (one of my favorite topics), and then educational session breakouts. The lunch included presenting the district C&L award to Randy Sharp, director of special projects for the American Family Association.
After lunch was the business meeting, where the main topic (besides elections) was for the district to select the contest option allowing contests with four or less clubs/areas/divisions to include two contestants from each club/area/division. I tried to get this passed in D30 a while back, but it is a complicated idea. I think it’s a great idea, it helps make small contests bigger and more exciting. A contest with 2-4 participants isn’t as much fun as 4-8 contestants, and it draws a bigger audience as well.
Saturday evening was the usual international speech contest (all very competitive!), “farewell” from the outgoing DG, installation of officers, and “hello” from the new DG. Sunday morning, Joan dropped me off at the Memphis airport on the way home to Little Rock.