D ISTRICT D ISPATCH

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www.d54toastmasters.org

December 2012 Edition 12/13, Issue 4

Message from the District Governor, Darrel Felty, DTM

Merry Christmas everyone! This has been a wonderful holiday for me, and I hope it brings you the best of everything! There has been a lot of activity in the District these past few weeks, please let me tell you about what is happening! District 54 has been implementing several new roles that are designed to help our members to be successful. Here is a link to the last Newsletter explaining many of these roleshttp://www.scribd.com/doc/116978343/DistrictDispatch-November-2012-Special-1 Please feel free to contact these people with any questions relating to their office. If you need contact information, please let me know, we will get it to you quickly. At the February DEC on 2/9/2013, which will be held at The Waterstreet Pub in Peru, IL, District 54 will host all club presidents for lunch. A major part of the program will be a discussion on what the clubs need from these new officers, and how we can help the clubs to be successful. An invitation will be sent to all club presidents for that meeting. Is there anything you need from the District? Are you meeting your personal goals? If any roadblocks appear, dont let them keep you from making progress; let us know and perhaps we can help you to find a solution that will get you back on the road to advancement.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Message from the District Governor On the First Day of Winter Easy Speak Website Education A Challenge from Division A Governor Message from the Lt. Governor Education & Training Message from the Lt. Governor Marketing Fall Conference Pictures Message from Public Relations LeadershipMoving Forward Oh, the Places Youll Go! 1 2 3 3 3 4 5 6 7 8

What does your club need? Do you need a club coach? Is someone in your club on the way to their DTM designation, but they need to be a club sponsor, club mentor, or club coach? Unfortunately we do not have opportunities for sponsors or club mentors, but we do have a need for at least a dozen Club Coaches! The job of a club coach is to help a needful club to become Distinguished. If you know someone who could be a club coach, let us know their name. For the next three months, the District 54 Nominations Committee will be accepting nominations for District Officers for the Toastmasters year 2013-2014. If you would like to consider a role as a district officer, contact Bonnie Tippey at ipdg@toastmastersd54.org. The nominations form is found at http://easyspeak.org/viewtopic.php?p=52353#52353. The Role Definitions and the District Organization Chart will be added to this page very soon. I sincerely wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year! May all your dreams be realized! Darrel Felty, DTM District Governor, District 54

District Dispatch December 2012

Submitted by Pat Reisdorf, Division A Governor 2

District Dispatch December 2012

Website Education, Ron Jones, ACB, ALB

Seasons Greetings from the District Web-Team! Our team has been busy reviewing lots of opinions about making the website friendlier in finding current district details. As you may have noticed, team members made many upgrades in the last two weeks. We are trying to make it easy for all ages to find and utilize the information available on the DISTRICT 54 site. Please, if you have ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR SITE IMPROVEMENTS, email: ronjones630@gmail.com

Message from the Lt. Governor Education & Training, LuAnn Larson, DTM
Its almost the end of the calendar year. Have you achieved any of the educational goals, i.e. Competent Communicator, Competent Leader, etc. that you set at the beginning of the Toastmasters year in July? If not, its time to refocus and remember why you set those goals in the first place. How will you feel when you have achieved your Advanced Communicator Bronze or Advanced Leader Silver? Or even your Distinguished Toastmaster. Very few people have the drive and determination to complete the educational achievements we have available in Toastmasters. It is up to you. You have a tremendous opportunity with Toastmasters if you embrace the program and get everything out of it that you can. Get your calendars out right now and pencil in every meeting that you will give a speech and work with your clubs on planning events that will help you achieve both your communication and leadership goals. Never hesitate to ask others for help, especially your district leadership team. We are here to help you succeed and make all your dreams come true. Happy Holidays, LuAnn Larson, DTM Lieutenant Governor Education & Training

Message from Pat Reisdorf, Division A Governor

Courage Takes Heart; a Challenge for You Between now and February 14, invite three people to visit a D54 Toastmasters Club meeting. Think back to when and why you joined Toastmasters and how it has made a difference in your life. Are you willing to take the next step, encourage a few others, and potentially make a huge difference in their lives? Given population demographics in District 54, there are thousands of people facing fears and doubts in their everyday lives. One of our newer members was willing to share excerpts of his recent Icebreaker. Read and reflect; make a connection with three people; invite and encourage them, from your heart to theirs.

District Dispatch December 2012

Message from the Lt. Governor Marketing, Jeffery Lehmann, DTM

Hello Fellow Toastmasters; We have multiple campaigns in progress, with the intention of getting our members back, and getting new members! Our retention campaign strategy is focusing on sending out postcards to those non-renewing members, and having a club officer (e.g. president, vp educ, etc.) contact them within 2-3 days after, either by phone or email. We want to focus on those members who have not moved, relocated, or flatly communicated that they no longer want to be a Toastmaster (hard to imagine, eh?). A personal, individual contact is preferable over mass emailing. Each of our members are unique, and lets make them feel special. Division Governors have the postcards and will be distributing to Area Governors and working as a team to make this campaign a success. One officer from each club will email the results to their Area Governor or Division Governor, and after final results are tabulated from each division, please email me, the LGM, at lgm@toastmastersd54.org. We also have the new membership promotion for the months of December and January. Each division will have 3 winners for having the most members during these two months. Each Division Governor will keep track of their clubs with getting new membership, and will choose the 3 winning clubs. The awards will be a TI store certificate (1st place $50, 2nd place $30, 3rd place $20) that can be used towards getting a replacement banner, lectern, timing lights, advanced manuals, etc. The winning clubs decide what THEY want. If there is a tie with multiple clubs getting the same number of members, the club with the greatest % increase with new members would be the winner. Every division will have 3 winners!!

Message from the Lt. Governor Marketing continued

There is also the 1 + 1 campaign (runs from December 1st to June 30th of 2013) from TI, which is a membership building program designed to help grow our membership. This is how it works. If you refer a friend that joins your Toastmasters club, you will receive a 1 + 1 decal and a personalized letter from Executive Director, Daniel Rex and John Lau, the International President. This letter will be presented to members by club presidents. Also, each month, the referring members name will be listed on the 1 + 1 webpagewall. To reward members efforts, all names will be included in a monthly drawing to win an exclusive 1 + 1 Toastmasters branded T-shirt. The top 20 clubs and top 5 districts will also be recognized and will receive a TI store credit. Lets take advantage of these opportunities to increase our Toastmasters membership! Sincerely, Jeffery Lehmann, DTM Lieutenant Governor Marketing, District 54

Please enjoy the pictures below taken at the Fall Conference in Peoria. All pictures courtesy of photographer Lyndon Rich.

District Dispatch December 2012

District Dispatch December 2012

Message from District 54 Public Relations Officer, Ray Termini, ACB, CL

December 2012 PRO Report Several new club initiatives are underway this fall, and I am happy to report that Toastmasters are helping in many different ways to facilitate the startup or development of these efforts. Besides simply inviting people to visit a club and attend a meeting, this is a great way for folks to mentor others who are looking to utilize the excellent Toastmasters programs for improvement in leadership and public speaking. The TI website has great information on how to get new clubs started, so please refer to this to answer questions and provide the guidelines in place for starting new clubs. The TI website is also where to go to download brief and very professionally done brochures about Toastmasters. These can be easily handed out to amplify your message, and add more substance to the Toastmasters message. Many people are looking for a way to communicate with more power and confidence. They do want to find their voice. Use these brochures to more clearly communicate your invitation to others to consider visiting a club and joining you as you take the steps to become a better speaker. As TLI season is upon us, now is also a good time to introduce potential members to the great things Toastmasters can offer by inviting them to a Toastmasters Leadership Institute.

Message from the Public Relations Officer continued

The price is certainly not a barrier, and for a little time investment, folks can get a great picture of the many benefits of the Toastmasters experience. It is too late for the great TLI North, so focus on members in the south and west for this upcoming opportunity. Those in the north should start thinking about and planning for an incredible experience scheduled April 12 and 13 the Toastmasters Spring Conference at the Hilton Garden Inn Conference and Training Center in St. Charles, Illinois. This one is close enough to invite friends from Chicago and even Milwaukee, and it plans to showcase the fun side of involvement in Toastmasters. In closing, I want to encourage all members to visit the district website at www.d54toastmasters.org, or re-visit at least monthly. Also, encourage others outside Toastmasters to check out this site as well as your clubs website. Brochures and handouts are great, but the 21st century generation is increasingly determining the credibility of an organization by the information posted online. Consider emailing or posting links or web access information to your friends and others as a way of introducing them to Toastmasters and to answer the questions they have about what youve been doing. Ray Termini CL, ACB District 54 Public Relations Officer

District Dispatch December 2012

Message from Jon R. Greiner,

DTM, PIP
Leadership---Moving Forward
Dr. Ralph Smedley, the founder of Toastmasters International, created the basic club process we still utilize today to develop communication and speaking skills. During the infant years of Toastmasters, many of its members were community leaders focused largely on overcoming their fear of speaking in public. As Toastmasters International evolved and other less skilled people became members of Toastmasters, it became clear that there was a strong tie between communication and leadership, that communication skills were necessary to really become an effective leader. It also became clear that the process used by Toastmasters clubs not only developed strong communicators, but also strong leaders. For many years, the leadership development side of Toastmasters went largely unnoticed and was definitely undervalued. In the early 1970s, industry began to recognize the need to put in place programs to develop stronger leaders. At that point, most leadership literature was written by academics, was not particularly pragmatic, and was not always directly applicable to industry needs. A number of authors and writers began to examine leadership development from an industry perspective; this resulted in a large number of leadership books espousing different and often conflicting approaches to leadership development. At this point, Toastmasters throughout the world were still executing the basic club process developed by Dr. Smedley years earlier. It became increasingly apparent that the Toastmasters process was developing strong, capable leaders who not only understood, but were able to apply leadership skills in a variety of situations. Even so, there was no defined leadership development path in Toastmasters----- leadership skill development was still largely a hidden benefit for those members whose chose to stay in Toastmasters. We were developing leaders without really understanding how we did it and without being recognized for the value we were creating.

After several years, in the late 1990s, the Toastmasters Board of Directors recognized the need to increase awareness of the value and benefits of the Toastmasters leadership development program. Accordingly, the first leadership track was developed and put in place for the benefit of Toastmasters throughout the world. Many Toastmasters took advantage of the new leadership track to formalize their leadership development plans and were finally recognized for the leadership skills they were developing. Then, in 2004, a major step forward was initiated with development of the Competent Leadership manual. The leadership track was reworked in 2005 to incorporate the Competent Leadership manual and the basics were all in place for expanding awareness of the leadership development program. Then several years later, the Board of Directors took a strong position that In the future, Toastmasters would be known as much for leadership development as for communication development. That position drove development of a new branding effort where the tag line ToastmastersWhere Leaders Are Made was introduced to the world. Today, Toastmasters stands as the premier hands on leadership development program in the world. Industry is just beginning to recognize the benefits of Toastmasters in the leadership development arena. Are you engaged in the leadership development process? If not, why not? Why would you let an opportunity with this kind of background and strength slip through your fingers? Its not hard to get engaged in the program---its just new, something we may not understand very well. Fortunately, we now have numerous resources throughout District 54 who can help you get started. Feel free to contact me at the address below if you have questions about where to go, what to do, or how to get started. We can and will help you step out into the new world of leadership. (309)243-8241 (Home) (309)256-0201 (Cell) E-mail: greinerjon@aol.com

District Dispatch December 2012