{"id":44,"date":"2007-06-15T18:00:59","date_gmt":"2007-06-15T18:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/?p=44"},"modified":"2008-08-30T14:08:15","modified_gmt":"2008-08-30T14:08:15","slug":"surprise-award-at-the-region-v-conference-rockford-illinois","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/15\/surprise-award-at-the-region-v-conference-rockford-illinois\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise award at the Region V conference, Rockford, Illinois"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been enjoying the conference, able to mostly just relax and enjoy it as a non-dignitary, since I haven&#8217;t had to attend &#8220;Top Three&#8221; training on Thursday and Friday. Friday night is a &#8220;talent showcase&#8221;, with a team from each district presenting a skit of some sort.<\/p>\n<p>My district (30) is presenting a parody of <em>Gone with the Wind<\/em>, where Scarlett (Carolyn Arthur) is chairing the Gone With the Wind Toastmasters Club, #1050556832798134. I play a butler called upon to make an impromptu pocket speech, and the audience enjoys it. The real highlight, though, is the <em>Region V Theme Song<\/em> (sung to the theme of <em>This Land is My Land<\/em>), as sung by a motley group of past international directors and presidents!<\/p>\n<p>After the talent show, I&#8217;m caught completely by surprise by a special award! It seems that my peer District Governors in the region have all conspired to present me with a special &#8220;Over the Top&#8221; award. Of all the awards I&#8217;ve received, including my DTM and our distinguished district award, this is the one I value most, exactly because of who gave it to me, and how unexpected it was. The inscription reads:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Presented on Behalf of all the Region V Districts<br \/>\nfor Outstanding Service that is<br \/>\n<strong>OVER THE TOP<\/strong><br \/>\nBy Regularly and Timely Preparation and Distribution<br \/>\nof the &#8220;Report Changes&#8221; Emails, Which Helped Keep<br \/>\nEach of us on Track to be an &#8220;Over the Top&#8221; District<br \/>\nWith Much Toastmaster Love, Great Appreciation and True Heart Felt Thanks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been enjoying the conference, able to mostly just relax and enjoy it as a non-dignitary, since I haven&#8217;t had to attend &#8220;Top Three&#8221; training on Thursday and Friday. Friday night is a &#8220;talent showcase&#8221;, with a team from each district presenting a skit of some sort. My district (30) is presenting a parody of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-region-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}