Author: Mike Raffety

Candidate for Toastmasters International Second Vice President, 2011-12

Toastmasters club constitution: Proposal A, 2013

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CheckMarkOn August 24, 2013, Toastmasters clubs will vote on amendments to the standard Club Constitution that every club must abide by.  It hasn’t been amended since 1994, and is in dire need of updating.  However, this revision is mostly clerical in nature, things that won’t affect club operations at all.  Let’s take a closer look.

The most noticeable change is renaming the “standard bylaws” to “addendum of standard club options”.  This is where the club fills in details like the name, where and when they meet, and the dues.  Some redundancies were also removed, since the old bylaws repeated things already found in the constitution. Continue reading “Toastmasters club constitution: Proposal A, 2013” →

Toastmasters Presidential Citations Re-Revisited

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Past International Director Rick Sydor had a few more records to complete the gap in the middle, the list is now complete for 37 years, from 1976 to now (and I’ll add the 2013 recipients as soon as I get them).

My greatest thank you to all these wonderful people who have contributed to the growth of Toastmasters over the years!

Toastmasters International Presidential Citations V3 (PDF)

Toastmasters Presidential Citations

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ScrollOddly, there’s no place on the TI web site listing who’s been awarded with Presidential Citations, presented at the August convention.  I have the Hall of Fame booklets going back to my first convention in 2003, so I typed them up and attach them here, ten years history.  Hopefully, World Headquarters will consider expanding this list and publishing it like the list of past International Presidents and World Champions of Public Speaking.

Toastmasters International Presidential Citations (PDF)

Minimum requirements for club officer training

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trainingDistricts have full discretion over setting minimum requirements for club officer training, and there seems to be a wide range of standards.  On the one hand, we have districts that appear to grant credit to all seven club officers when an AG attends a regular club meeting and talks for ten minutes.  On the other hand, we have districts that require individual officers to attend a whole TLI (not just training for their office, but the whole 4-hour TLI).  In between, we have districts with, shall we say, situational standards, and they become weaker and weaker as August 31 or Feb. 28 get closer, and other districts with a clear written standard. Continue reading “Minimum requirements for club officer training” →

Toastmasters Speech Contest Rulebook Change Summary, 2012 to 2013

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World Headquarters has released their annual revision to the Speech Contest Rulebook.  While changes are marked with a diamond in the text, there’s no indication of what the change is, and there’s no official summary of what’s different.

So I carefully compared the two editions and made my notes.  The changes most relevant to running a contest are:

  1. A member who INTENDS to compete may not serve as a judge (probably to cover club contests where the member hasn’t actually competed yet). Continue reading “Toastmasters Speech Contest Rulebook Change Summary, 2012 to 2013” →

Mentoring matters!

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Have you ever had a mentor?  Wasn’t it great to have someone to turn to when you had questions, to get guidance on how to do something?

Mentoring is an important part of the Toastmasters program.  There’s no paid instructor with all the answers, which is what helps make Toastmasters so cost-effective.  You learn from your peers, your fellow club members, and when it comes to technical details about the Toastmasters program, having an experienced member to turn to can avoid a lot of frustration or wrong turns.

Continue reading “Mentoring matters!” →

Most improved districts?

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District rankings have historically been fairly important, as the top six earned “President’s Distinguished”, and the next six earned “Select Distinguished”.  But even after that, there is pride in being, for example, #17 instead of #53, even if both were distinguished.

How did districts do this year compared to last year?  Two districts moved from the very bottom, #81 and #82 (out of 82 districts last year) up to #20 and #21, up 61 places!  Who?  Districts 42 and 31 (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Canada, and Eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island).  Truly an awesome and inspiring turnaround!

Continue reading “Most improved districts?” →

2011-12 facts and figures about districts

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Membership payments

37 of the 86 districts lost membership this year.

D59 (continental Europe) added the most membership payments, adding 1,741 over their base, about 870 members, almost 15% growth.  D41 (India except Karala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka) wasn’t far behind, adding 1,550 over base (28%).

D41 added the most membership payments as a percentage, at 28% growth, simply amazing!  D79 (Saudi Arabia) was next at 21%, and D76 (Japan) at 16%.

Continue reading “2011-12 facts and figures about districts” →

District leadership succession

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Does serving as LGM and LGET make for a better District Governor?  Interestingly — the 2010-11 districts WITHOUT a regular progression do measurably better, an average of 6 places higher in the rankings, and 8 percentage points more of them are distinguished!

The list of districts are those that followed a progression — the DG had been LGM and LGET in the two immediately preceding years. That was the hard part (including dealing with name variations); getting a list of distinguished districts is relatively easy, TI publishes that list every year.

Continue reading “District leadership succession” →