Happy New Toastmaster year!

Hello everyone and welcome to the 2018-2019 Toastmaster year. During this past year, you witnessed a change in your club with the introduction of the Pathways program. This year the changes will take place at the District level.

First, there will be no Fall Conference. This change, mandated by Toastmasters International (TI), means that what we have focused on in the past, such as club, area, division and district level contests, are no longer being held. The primary driving reason for this is so your club officers can focus on planning an excellent year by first being trained, then having great club meetings, and finally using the district resources when help is needed.

Other things will remain in place, some of which will be in a different form. Even though the Fall Conference will not be held, the District Council (DC) meeting must still meet. The DC meeting is the one where all the Presidents and VPEs are given a ballot and asked to vote. The major items on which we will be voting at this meeting will be the district budget and the approval of the appointment of Area Directors.

TI has given us a deadline of September 30th for this meeting, but since it will not be linked to a conference date, they are allowing us to conduct the meetings “virtually”, complete with online voting. This will give voting members the option of skipping the trip and voting from home.

For this next year, we are also looking hard at our communication channels, with a focus on getting information to you in a timely manner while respecting your schedules and needs. This is going to be tricky. With all the information flooding us every day it’s easy to miss vital messages. However, we as a district will do our best to communicate effectively and efficiently.

I wish you all a happy Independence Day week, and look forward to working with you this Toastmaster year.

What was that you asked? How can I help, Michael? I’m glad you asked! Just drop me a message if you would like to assist the district in any way and I’ll be glad to chat with you about opportunities to serve!

Thanks,
Michael Holian, DTM