Fellow Members,
Toastmasters International is now providing some of its content online to help cut costs at Toastmasters International as well as for clubs.
Maybe you have been wondering how to get a passport for the Fall Convention? (Apply here to get your passport). Fall Convention plans are underway and you will need a current passport in order to return home from Canada. Our Convention Co-Chairs are finalizing information which will be posted in the near future. Convention Co-Chairs, […]
Return to Club Resources main page Looking for great ways to promote your club and spread the word about Toastmasters? Check out the links below. If you have something you would like to share, please contact the Public Relations Officer using the Contact Form. By sharing what works with others, we can all be successful! […]
What is a Speech-a-Thon? A Speech-a-Thon is just like it sounds – a speech marathon! Okay, so sneakers are not required. But do you find yourself in a race to hit the finish line with a new award, only to see that time is quickly ticking by and you still have a couple (or more) […]
Toastmasters International Articles
Corporate Club Articles – Testimonials from Corporate Club Members
http://www.toastmasters.org/ToastmastersMagazine/ToastmasterArchive/2007/June/CorporateClub.aspx
http://www.toastmasters.org/ToastmastersMagazine/ToastmasterArchive/2008/March/Microsoft.aspx
http://www.toastmasters.org/ToastmastersMagazine/ToastmasterArchive/2008/February/ATT.aspx
http://www.toastmasters.org/ToastmastersMagazine/ToastmasterArchive/2007/October/BankofAmerica.aspx
http://www.toastmasters.org/Members/SpotlightArticles/TroubledTimes.aspx
Starting a Corporate Club
http://www.toastmasters.org/Members/MembersFunctionalCategories/AboutTI/CompanyorCommunity.aspx
http://www.toastmasters.org/ToastmastersMagazine/ToastmasterArchive/2007/January/CorporateClubs.aspx
Highlighting the Impact of Corporate Clubs to the Organization
http://www.toastmasters.org/ToastmastersMagazine/ToastmasterArchive/2010/January/Departments/ErasingAllDoubts.aspx
http://www.toastmasters.org/ToastmastersMagazine/ToastmasterArchive/2007/April/McGrawHill.aspx
http://www.toastmasters.org/ToastmastersMagazine/ToastmasterArchive/2010/May/Departments/Profile.aspx
http://www.toastmasters.org/Members/SpotlightArticles/ErasingDoubts.aspx
Toastmasters Mission
http://www.toastmasters.org/Members/MembersFunctionalCategories/AboutTI/MissionVisionandValues.aspx
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When I joined Toastmasters a few years ago, I wasn’t looking to become a polished speaker or to enhance my leadership skills; I was just looking for a club that would allow my homeschooled, teenaged son to participate, even though he was too young to join. They welcomed his participation, on one condition—I had to join the club!I joined the club and the next week, I was in a leadership position, helping to plan club meetings. Over the next few years, I held several club and district leadership positions, greatly improving both my management and leadership skills—“on-the-job” leadership training in the non-threatening and supportive environment that is a hallmark of Toastmasters. In addition to growing in leadership, I grew in communication skills, through the various projects emphasizing different aspects of communication from the basics of organizing a speech to the challenges of leading discussions. I even entered and won a few speech contests. My attitude regarding public speaking moved from fear to fun!. |
As my confidence as a speaker and leader grew, I began to see myself differently. I began to see myself as an achiever who had a lot to give to others. Even more recently, with the encouragement of other Toastmasters, I began to consider developing myself as a professional speaker.
Only a couple of weeks ago, I saw an employment ad for “Dynamic Public Speakers wanted” for a local college. The college was looking for people to present classroom workshops to high school students. After encouragement and advice from another Toastmaster, who currently conducts workshops with the college, I decided to go to the “info” session. After 2 auditions and an interview yesterday, they hired me! I definitely would not have had the courage and confident presence to apply for this kind of job without my Toastmaster experience and connections. My Toastmaster experience has not been what I expected—it has been so much more!
Diane Windingland
Prairie Division Governor 2009-10
District 6 Toastmasters
| I joined toastmasters when my boss dared me to become a better public speaker or find another job. In six months I distinguished myself enough to impress my boss and keep my job.Since then I’ve taken learned much more than I could have imagined. I’ve grown as a leader by serving as a club and district officer, sharpened my speaking skills, and honed my interview skills.
Thanks to toastmasters I’ve taken challenges I would never have imagined: earning my MBA, running for public office in Minneapolis and becoming an assistant professor at Metropolitan State University. I’ve learned that saying yes to opportunities in toastmasters can lead to unexpected opportunities. |
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Taking my boss’s dare and joining toastmasters was one of the best decisions of my life.
Allan Bernard, DTM
District 6 Toastmasters Governor 2009-2010
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Parul Mishra of IBM Toastmasters conquered her “mean inner voice” to take 2nd place at the District 6 Spring Speech Contest in April 2009.
Read all about it in an article published in the Rochester Post Bulletin by clicking on the article image to the left. |
Read more stories at the Toastmasters International website
As you might have noticed, the menu to the left has changed. Current members – check out the “Member Resources” link to the left to expand and see pages that were listed elsewhere in the menu previously, including our District Calendar. Can’t find something? Contact us via the Contact form; select webeditor from the category list.
This page is a repository for presentations following TELI, Spring Convention, Fall Confererence, or great presentations that members would like to submit and share with others. Perhaps your club held an Open House and had a special presentation you would like to share. For website publication consideration, please contact the Webeditor via the Contact form […]
The following links are meeting minutes from the District 6 Council Meetings.
District Realignment for 2011-2012 (Date received: May 17, 2011) (xls) This plan was approved at the Business Meeting on April 30, but is subject to change if clubs turn in their charter or new clubs charter before June 30th.
The 2010-11 Realignment Chair is Joan Estenson. Please use the Contact form to contact Joan with questions/comments or for more information.
Several people will provide input to the realignment project. Besides a Realignment Chair, there may be a Realignment Committee. The Committee proposal will be reviewed by the District Governor, Lieutenant Governors and Division Governors. The members of the District will have an opportunity to review the proposal before it is presented for acceptance at the Business Meeting of the District’s Spring Convention.
Therefore, there will be a period of time during which the realignment working plan will be in flux. Early in the project, significantly different options may be under consideration, while minor adjustments to accommodate individual Clubs may occur up to the final vote. At all times during the project, adequate revision control of the master working document must be maintained in order to avoid confusion among project participants, to ensure that changes receive intended approvals and that agreed changes are documented and retained. In addition to the Master working document, presentation documents including print formats and maps should be under formal revision control.
Master working plan
The Master working plan is the principle analytical tool for the project and record of project decisions. The document must be easily sortable, so an electronic spreadsheet is the most suitable application. As a starting point, the realignment team can build a working Master from a spreadsheet of the current year’s Clubs, such as the one stored on the District web site. Fields of the spreadsheet should include Club number, Club name, current Division, current Area, and city. Other fields, such as meeting address, day and time of the meetings, and comments may be useful but are not necessary. Extraneous fields may be hidden when not needed. Other fields representing proposed Areas and Divisions will be added and removed during the course of the project. When a new proposal is made, it can be presented by copying the column for the current Area proposal into a new column, making the desired changes, labeling the column descriptively and resorting.
The date of the latest revision should be visible in the header. This may be in the column for the Area alignment proposal, such as ‘Current plan 4/21.’ There should be a sheet of the workbook for recording the revision history. Every time a change is made to the Master working plan, that change must be dated and detailed as a line entry on the revision history worksheet. It may also be useful to record the reason for the change, approvals and decisions not involving data manipulation on the Master working plan.
A third worksheet should be used for ‘Lost Clubs,’ in the same format as the Master working plan. Clubs may be moved back and forth between the ‘Lost Clubs’ sheet and the Master working plan.
Official Clubs
The only clubs that count in the final alignment are clubs that pay their dues by the end of the Toastmasters year. The committee will plan for clubs that are certain to charter before the end of the year, and will align them in good faith. However, until the club charters, it is not an official part of the alignment. Thus, it is important for the committee to have a contingency plan for clubs still in the chartering process, and for clubs that may fold.
Access and storage
The Master working plan should always be accessible to everyone with a need to know the current state of the realignment project. No one should rely on a private or distributed copy, which may be out-of-date. While it must therefore be internet-accessible, the team may decide not to make its location known outside of team members and others with a need to know.
Updating rights must be limited to those designated by the Realignment Committee Chair and the District Governor.
Print formats
For presenting and distributing the realignment recommendation, a format should be designed that is printable on a two-sided page. The creation date of the print format must be entered onto each sheet.
In order to avoid errors on this print format, it is highly recommended that it not be keystroked, but created by copy-and-paste operations from the Master working plan. If a print format is ever created for discussion at a working meeting of the Realignment Team, it is essential to be clear that the changes are not made to the print formats, but rather onto the Master working plan. There is a psychological temptation to relax discipline when an anticipated major decision or approval point is passed, that can cause confusion over what was agreed, and loss of the functionality of sortability and easy updates.
Maps
Maps are extremely valuable both as an analytical tool to guide decision making and for presentations, but they are time-consuming to make and nearly impossible to revise. They should be dated and tied to a specific revision date of the Master working plan.
Release Strategy
Due to the frequency of changes during the realignment period, the committee will want to maintain a release calendar. At specified dates during the realignment process, the committee will want to publish versions of the realignment. Individual changes will continue to occur behind the scenes, and will continue all the way up to a release. The release is intended to be a snapshot of progress up to that point. A release strategy emphasizes the coming changes while avoiding confusion due to the behind-the-scenes changes.