Tag: Toastmasters

2023 Toastmasters annual business meeting proxies

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The annual Toastmasters business meeting is where we elect the board of directors, international officers, and amend our governing documents.

Clubs not assigned to a district are assigned to a district director as a proxy option, and so it is possible for districts to get more than 100% of “their” proxies for the business meeting. None did that this year. The percent of clubs represented has varied from 73.5% in 2019, to 66.1% last year, to 70.0% this year (quorum is one-third).

The districts with the best percentage of club proxies were:

  • D70 (Southern Sydney, southern NSW and ACT, Australia), got 95.7%, 134 proxies out of 140 paid clubs (missing 6 clubs).
  • D65 (Western and central New York), got 95.2%, 60 out of 63.
  • D90 (Northern Sydney, Australia), 95.0%, 119 out of 126.
  • D116 (Qatar), 93.5%, 115 out of 123.
  • D120 (Tamil Nadu, India), 92.9%, 144 out of 155.

At the other end of the scale, we had:

  • D79 (Eastern Saudi Arabia), 12.2%, 18 out of 147.
  • D89 (Hong Kong, Macau, Fujian, Hainan and part of Guangdong, China), 24.7%, 23 out of 93.
  • D73 (South Australia, Victoria, and Tasmania, Australia), 38.3%, 46 out of 120.

The top quarter of districts beat 82% representation, the top half beat 70%, and the top 3/4 beat 59%.

The top regions were:

  • Region 13 (southern Asia, India to Singapore), 77.1%
  • Region 8 (Southeastern US, Caribbean, Brazil), 76.1%.

The vast majority of the votes come from clubs (98.8%, two per club), the rest are “at large” members, which is any current or past International Director (which includes International Presidents and officers), and the current District Directors (they each get one vote, regardless of any clubs they also may represent). At-large votes cannot be assigned to someone else (unlike clubs).

Undistricted clubs are randomly assigned a default district director for their proxy, if they choose to do so (they can assign it to anyone, just like all other clubs). That’s why there’s no “U” line in the spreadsheet (and that’s why a district can have more than 100% of the proxies).

Of those votes from clubs, the large majority are represented by the District Directors. There’s no way of knowing just how many.

While there are many more important things for Toastmasters districts to devote scarce resources to (like helping struggling clubs and building new clubs), this shouldn’t be that hard to do. A district proxy chair with a committee to call clubs and round up proxies makes an excellent project!

Full details in the Excel spreadsheet here: Proxies-2023

Here’s my post on the 2022 proxy returns.

2022 Toastmasters annual business meeting proxies

Posted on

The annual Toastmasters business meeting is where we elect the board of directors, international officers, and amend our governing documents.

Clubs not assigned to a district are assigned to a district director as a proxy option, and so it is possible for districts to get more than 100% of “their” proxies for the business meeting. This year, we had one do that, exceeding the total number of clubs in the district!

The districts with the best percentage of club proxies were:

  • D41 (region 13, North India and Nepal), got 103.4%, 150 proxies out of 145 paid clubs.
  • D88 (region 14, Northeastern China), got 96.9%, 156 out of 161.
  • D113 (region 3, Northern Mexico), 95.0%, 115 out of 121.
  • D62 (region 6, Michigan), 94.9%, 56 out of 59.
  • D23 (region 3, New Mexico, El Paso County, Texas, Oklahoma panhandle), 93.9%, 62 out of 66.

At the other end of the scale, we had:

  • D122 (region 11, Pakistan), 18.6%, 8 out of 43.
  • D92 (region 13, North and central Karnataka, India), 19.4%, 30 out of 155.
  • D12 (region 2, Southern California), 20.5%, 16 out of 78.

The top quarter of districts beat 77% representation, the top half beat 69%, and the top 3/4 beat 56%.

The top regions were:

  • Region 3 (Southwestern US and Mexico), 76.1%
  • Region 8 (Southeastern US and Caribbean), 70.8%.

The vast majority of the votes come from clubs (98.8%, two per club), the rest are “at large” members, which is any current or past International Director (which includes International Presidents and officers), and the current District Directors (they each get one vote, regardless of any clubs they also may represent). At-large votes cannot be assigned to someone else (unlike clubs).

Undistricted clubs are randomly assigned a default district director for their proxy, if they choose to do so (they can assign it to anyone, just like all other clubs). That’s why there’s no “U” line in the spreadsheet (and that’s why a district can have more than 100% of the proxies).

Of those votes from clubs, the large majority are represented by the District Directors. There’s no way of knowing just how many, but based on my informal observations working in credentials, it’s probably 80-90% of the votes (though lower now with remote/online voting).

While there are many more important things for Toastmasters districts to devote scarce resources to (like helping struggling clubs and building new clubs), this shouldn’t be that hard to do. A district proxy chair with a committee to call clubs and round up proxies makes an excellent project!

Full details in the Excel spreadsheet here: Proxies-2022

Here’s my post on the 2019 proxy returns.

Ethics

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The last line of the Toastmasters Promise is “To maintain honest and highly ethical standards during the conduct of all Toastmasters activities“.  However, for some, ethics may not always be a sharp black-and-white line.

For example, hopefully no one would forge a VP-Education signature on a project completion page for something that was never done.  But what about holding an education award past June 30 “because it won’t help my club’s DCP score”?  Or what about claiming credit for club officer training, when you went to training but arrived when it was nearly over?  What about being a judge in a speech contest where your spouse is competing?

We know that in the past, at least one district created “paper clubs” in order to meet their goals and be distinguished (they were disqualified).  As the distinguished recognition programs have evolved, we’ve moved towards using easily-verified criteria that are harder to fake, and are less subjective.

Ethics may not always seem to be black and white, nor does everyone give the same answer to a given situation.  The surrounding context is often important as well, and the motivation for the action.  There are entire college curricula devoted to ethics, and degrees granted in various specialties, like healthcare ethics and business ethics.

One method I like to use is “How would you feel if your actions were on the front page of the newspaper?”  Would you feel a need to explain them?  Would you be ashamed?  If so, then you should reconsider.

There’s also merely the appearance of unethical behavior — appearances can be just as bad as actually being guilty of whatever is charged.  It may be impossible to prove your innocence (or motivation), so you never want to have the question raised in the first place.

I’m glad that ethical behavior is very rarely a problem in Toastmasters, but even one time is too much.  Consider what you would do in a hypothetical situation before the real one comes up, so you can objectively consider your response.  Feel free to answer the poll below, it’s as anonymous as I can make it, though your IP address is logged.  Add your own experiences in the comments.

[poll id=”6″]