L.E.D. — District 15
Michael Rusnack, DTM, District 15 Governor
My long term philosophy has always been that if one wishes to be an outstanding leader, he/she would have to sound like it. It was timely that in January 2005 Toastmasters International began to place greater focus and emphasis on the Leadership track. It was also about this time that I realized that some day in the near future I would be leading District 15 as the Governor. With that responsibility came the duty of selecting a theme for the year; a focus that reflects the goals and direction of the leader.
It was some time after the changes to the Leadership Track that I chose my theme. Though it was actually 18 months prior to my taking office as the District Governor, the theme stuck. That theme was Leadership through Educational Development. In an effort to recognize this theme, each of the District Executive Council Members (those wearing burgundy badges) were challenged to have their Educational Achievement CC, ACB, etc., and also carry their Leadership achievement CL, ALB, ALS or DTM. It may have been a coincidence, alignment of the stars or just luck, but in the end, all but a handful achieved some level of Leadership recognition.
Now I extend my challenge. I challenge each of you to aspire to achieve a Leadership designation. As part of this process, we have and will continue to promote the Competent Leader Manual. For those “old timers”, there is still time to earn the old Competent Leader, or an Advanced Leader Bronze. For those who are interested in the Advanced Leader Silver, be aware that we will be recruiting Club Coaches, Sponsors and Mentors. The roles of Club Coach, Mentor or Sponsor are a key part of this award. Working with the Leadership team, we will offer training to ensure success in these roles as well.
Lastly, there are 27 members on the District Executive Council. It is never too soon to begin thinking of filling one of these roles. We welcome Area Governor Assistants, and the Lt Governors are in need of chairs and assistants. Additionally, there are roles to begin your leadership contribution at whatever level of commitment you are able. Remember, the other half of Leadership is simply taking the plunge and leading. If you are interested in learning more, contributing back to an organization that has given you so much, feel free to contact any of the Leadership Team.
My door is always open.
Michael Rusnack, DTM
District 15 Governor
Leadership though Educational Development
October 2 October
October 2 October has been a topic of great discussion amongst our District members. However, for those just hearing about the program, the question has often been poised to me: Why?
Oki-doki, here is the why:
We began this effort so that, through the Toastmaster Website, members will be provided the option of paying online for a One Year ( or Six Months ) Membership to Toastmasters. Further, they can then work through online information to join any officially listed club. It is anticipated that all of this will be available in the next few months.
Obviously, this could have some rather interesting effects. Imagine… Members joining online, getting information about a local club, and then walking into your club saying, “SPEAK ME!”
Well, ok… maybe not. But this is a great tool to draw more members in your club with very little effort. But, of course, the fear would be (as always) that they would be paper members.
Oh, the fear…
We realize this could also remove control (YES! CONTROL!) of club membership from the hands of the club officers. Scary, huh? Enough about those control issues for now, but know that we would all certainly have issue knowing the members if we all became internet members and not warm bodies at meetings.
Keep this in mind:
- O2O is your program, and provides an opportunity for each club member. It allows you to have a club effort behind you for one year
- It is YOUR club program. You get the member support of your efforts for a whole year
- It also stops Vinny and Guido, “the club money mongers”, from bothering you for dues… well… at least for a while
- It is NOT a toastmaster required function, nor a District required rule. We simply see the future and want to suggest a solution
Now lets speak about the rewards for participating… other than having a room full of Toastmaster screaming SPEAK ME… ok, that’s annoying, but it happens.
For a club with better than 80% participation, the club will receive a way cool ribbon, and a Gold O2O-07 pin for your banner.
Neat, huh?
Oh, and an Entertaining Speech, by the Trio member of your choice (that would always be James, right?).
For a club with 70% participation, the club will receive an O2O-07 Pin and ribbon, but no speech… sorry… we have to draw the line somewhere.
Your participation is of utmost importance in order to gauge the impact this will have on our District as a whole. In our leadership meetings we have been corresponding with other Districts, and you can be certain they have stared with unblinking eyes to see how District 15 handles this change. We feel confident that our District will provide outstanding results.
Please feel free to contact me, your Division Governor, or your Area Governors if you have any comments or questions.
James Jackson, LGET, and the overall Gumby Guy
A NEW CLUB FOR OUR DISTRICT!
“Russet Ramblers”
Division A
Area 12
Boise, Idaho
Fall Conference 2007 — Coming Soon
Susan Baer describes the planned events for Fall Conference 2007Fall is just around the corner. District 15 Fall Conference is November 2-3, 2007. Mark your calendars to attend this exciting event!
Here are some of the highlights:
- We have the World Champion of Public Speaking Winner for 1990, David Brooks for the Friday night event. You do not want to miss this once in a life time event.
- We have selected the top speakers from our district to give us fantastic educational sessions. Rick Hopkins, the Third Place Winner in World Champion of Public Speaking, will be presenting a session on evaluation.
- Billie Jones, International Director Candidate, will be presenting a session on leadership. There are more educational sessions.
- Plan to attend the Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contest. Come and see the best of our district speakers compete in these contests.
- District 15 was distinguished last year. The district could not have accomplished their goals without the help of everyone in the district.
- We will be presenting the 2006-2007 awards throughout the conference. A few awards will be the Toastmaster of the Year, Club officer, Area Governor, etc.
- We will have an International Director visit this fall. Tevis Thompson, First Year Director, will be attending to help with club building.
District Conference is a time to renew old friendships, create new friendships, network, learn and have fun! So mark your calendar and plan to attend District Fall Conference on November 2nd and 3rd, 2007 at the Best Western Garden Inn.
Use the following district website link to register:
Fall Conference Registration
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Susan Baer, DTM
Fall Conference Chair
Leadership through Educational Development
Have you seen these guys?
District 15 in the Spotlight at International
Have you ever been proud to be associated with an organization because it was just soooo good? Whilst attending the International Convention this year, I repeatedly heard of District 15 members, accomplishments, and recognitions mentioned time after time. First Timers were even provided the opportunity to meet our own Rose Johnson, DTM and Toastmaster President Johnny Uy on stage at the orientation.
Later, Rose again was called upon stage to receive a Presidential Citation from Johnny Uy. During that same presentation all District 15 members present were called upon the stage to be recognized as members of a Distinguished District. It was an honor to have members of District 15, both past and present, on stage with us.
During the Region 1 Breakfast, I was honored to nominate Billie Jones, DTM for International Director. As if that were not enough, a representative from District 15 went on stage pledging 2 new Clubs to Chris Ford — TI (then President Elect). Those two Clubs were our first new Charters of the year — Simplot (Div A) and Universal Business Insurance (Div D).
I can only share with these words the pride I experienced when District 15 was acknowledged so many times. While there, and especially while on stage, we all carried the pride and sense of accomplishment of YOU, the members of District 15 that made this all possible.
Congratulations and Thank You
Fall Means Speech Contests
This fall our Toastmaster schedule includes the Table Topics contest and the always entertaining Humorous Speech contests. With the Club Contests over, the Area Contests are in full swing. Members are encouraged to attend the contests to support the speakers, participate as judges, timers, counters and last but not least, invite a guest. Show a friend or family member some of the best District 15 has to offer.
In support of the upcoming competition, members are encouraged to chair a Club, Area or Division speech contest for credit. By being a chair at any level a member can gain credit for the Competent Leader Manual Project Number Eight. Those chairing at the Area or Division Level can also earn credit for a High Performance Leadership Project. These are two ways to develop your leadership skills while helping others demonstrate their skills.
We will work hard to keep you informed as to the time, date and location of the Area Contests. Division Contests are scheduled —
- Division B — Oct 13
- Division A — Oct 20
- Division D & E — Oct 27
The winners from the Division contests will compete at the District Conference to be held Nov 2nd and 3rd in Salt Lake City. Thanks in advance to all of you; competitors and supporters alike.
DCP Planning and the Horizon Award
Whether it was during officer training from an Area Governor visit or a knowledgeable past Club Officer, I am certain you have heard about Distinguished Club Planning. Each year at this time, we encourage the Club Officers and members to complete the Distinguished Club Plan (DCP).
This year, we are suggesting that the officers ask the members to commit to completing an education award. I observed in the past that club officers would sign-up a member to complete an award, but in many cases, the member was unaware of what they were committing to do. To help alleviate this problem, we are asking the members to approach their Club Officers and, working with the Club Officer to get a better understanding of the requirements, request to be signed-up for a specific Education Award that the member wants to achieve in the next year.
After working with the member to identify an Education Award, Officers are encouraged to complete the plan both on paper and on line, creating an electronic reference as well as a hard copy document for the member’s reference. On line entry can be accomplished at http://district15tm.org/allclubsdcp.php. As an encouragement to complete the planning process and enter the plan on line, Clubs doing so by October 15th (two weeks longer than in the past) will receive the Horizon Award ribbon for the Club Banner. To qualify for this award, Officers only need to complete the planning guide and enter the information on line; it’s as simple as that. If you are having difficulty or have questions, please contact your Area Governor. They will be pleased to help.
Members, please keep in mind that you don’t have to stop at just one award. Every member is encouraged to utilize the NEW Competent Leader program with the communication track. Have you ever had a great speech in mind that did not fit your advanced manual? Don’t waste the great idea… have the speech evaluated using the Competent Communicator manual.
If the club can continue on and earn one more education award, for a total of three, the club will be recognized as a Triple Crown Award winner at the District Conferences. Remember, any three awards in the Toastmasters year will qualify for the Triple Crown Award. Help your Club be successful by demonstrating your speaking skills and completing education awards, all while earning personal recognition, too.
What Are You Afraid Of?
That was the question my four year old son asked. We weren’t speaking of lions… or tigers… or bears (… oh my!).
We were speaking of a speech I was to give the next day… my Icebreaker speech… and I was terrified.
I explained to him how hard it was to speak to people you don’t know well. “You talk to me all the time, and you talk to mom every day… You talk to the lady when I get my hair cut. And you always say hi to the old man next door. You even talk on the phone all the time to all kinds of people.” He folded his arms, putting his chin on his hand. “I think, Dad, you talk to just about everyone you know.”
I laughed, telling him this was different. “Why? Do they talk like Scooby-Doo? Or the Teletubbies?”
“No, son”, I answered… “they speak just like we do. It is just scary sometimes to get in front of people to give a speech.”
“Why? Will they throw things at you? You shouldn’t go if they are going to throw things at you.” he said seriously.
I reassured him that none of the nice people were going to throw things at me, and that they were there to help me be a better speaker. I explained how they can see things I do poorly and then can tell me how I can be better… without having to throw anything.
He sat in silence for a moment, furrowed brows and intense concentration on his face.
“Then I think you should talk to them, Dad. You talk all the time, so you already know how… and they speak like you do. And as long as they are nice people and want to help you, then I think things will be ok. Helping people is good… but throwing things isn’t.” he said sagely.
His words stayed with me as I rose to the lectern to deliver the first of many speeches. As I stood there, looking into the faces of my fellow club members, I couldn’t help but smile. As I began my speech, my son’s simple logic echoed my ears:
- I speak all the time, and I know how (but there is always room for improvement)
- The club members understand me… and I them
- They are nice people
- They want to help me improve my ability to speak
- And… most importantly… they won’t throw anything at me
I’m STILL terrified whenever I stand to speak. However, I now recognized the benefits far outweigh the irrational fears that swarm around me as I prepare to speak. In confronting these fears, I have learned more about my tics, tricks, traps, and personal torments than I could have imagined, and in doing so have found ways to be more effective as a speaker, a friend, a leader… and maybe even a father.
So, I ask you now, Dear Reader…What are you afraid of?
Where’s Speaker #2?
Why do scheduled speakers sometimes fail to show up for their talk? “I couldn’t make it," is the common answer. But the common answer leaves a great deal unspoken. Club Boise usually scheduled two speakers and often had only one speech. One night we had no speech at all. As I became frustrated with our use of time, I developed the theory that speakers never really committed to come because they were assigned a date to speak. What if it wasn’t a good date for them? I suggested a change, but others didn’t agree with me and my suggestion went unused.
Have you ever known a suggestion to act like a pouting child? Mine did.
It jumped up again, saying, “Me! Me,” when I came to the “Winning Proposal” project of the Persuasive Speaking manual. “Propose me,” said the child.
But I did the adult thing: I proposed that we try all our ideas. It would be fun. Everyone gets to see their pet theory in action, while I collect data, and we would learn what works. We would see exactly what factors affect the rate of speakers showing up.
My pouting child watched wide-eyed as club members overwhelming endorsed my “winning proposal.”
I wrote down all club members’ suggestions for improving our rate of scheduled speakers doing their talks. Then we voted.
Vote already?
Don’t we need to throw out problematic suggestions? No… we voted by ranking the proposals from our first choice to our last, which let poor suggestions sink to the bottom on their own. It also allowed us to adopt more than one proposal. Here are our ideas, in order from most-popular to least:
- Everyone picks one of two ways to get a speaking date: ask for it, or be assigned it.
- During the week, the Toastmaster reminds speakers of their commitment.
- Give everyone progress reports on their personal goals, so that they see how their next speech moves them forward.
- Stop assigning dates to speakers. Instead, speakers ask for the date they want.
- Use mentors.
- Progress reports on our club goals (DCP), so that we each see how our next speech contributes to club progress.
- Pull out of the assignment rotation people who default consistently. They must ask for a date when they’re ready.
Interestingly, the method we had been using is on this list, and it was unpopular!
I began collecting data and then we ran two experiments: The first suggestion, and then the first two suggestions together. We also put suggestion #6 in place independent of our experiment and without attempting to measure results. Here are the results of the options we were trying to measure:
| Option | No-show rate |
|---|---|
| Before any changes | 22% |
| Suggestion 1 | 9% |
| Suggestions 1 & 2 | 9% |
We decided that 9% defaults were probably optimum after all, as we didn’t want anyone coming in sick just to keep the rate low.
Why do scheduled speakers sometimes fail to show up for their talk? You can find out for yourself with the scientific method: When in doubt, experiment!
Speeches that ’Beat The Odds’
Bob Richardson, TURN ClubResearch Your Subject
Lillia’s doctor’s told her she had arthritis. “Take the pills and it’ll be better.”
It wasn’t.
Hungry for knowledge, she researched her symptoms online. Shockingly, it was more than just “cold weather pain.” Lillia learned she had a bone disease that could have her looking like a pretzel in no time. When the doctor’s confirmed it, she looked online again. She was amazed that little things, such as sitting straight instead of hunched over helped. It puts less stress on the back.
“You can’t ignore or fight it, but you can learn to live with something like this,” she said. Knowing what you’re talking about not only turns the odds with speeches, research and knowing what she was talking about gave Lillia life back.
The Jokes On Me
You’d think Jonathon’s Cerebral Palsy gave him an excuse for sitting back… Instead, he hosts meetings. When I asked him how he got into public speaking, he replied “Why, I think I’ve been speaking in public all my life!”
His disarming humor suddenly turned him into a person, casting aside my impression of disability. Joking about stresses in our lives can turn helpless energy into a stress reliever. Laughter empowers life as well as speeches. But, as Jonathon says… One is simply the other. You can’t separate a speech and life. And I trust Jonathon on this, as jokes are Jonathon’s favorite way to demonstrate turning the odds into his favor.
Put Passion Into Speeches
Patti was into mountain climbing and loved the out-of-doors. But, in her early 20s, doctors told her that she had been the victim of a stroke, which would leave her unable to walk again. Her faithful friends continued taking her outdoors with them, anyways.
She loved being in the great outdoors, and found enjoyment watching a peaceful mountain stream from her wheelchair while her friends followed nearby nature trails.
Staring at the stream reminded her that nature was her great passion. She kept that passion in mind during countless months of pain while she struggled with learning to walk again. Now she’s back out in the realm of nature she loves. Patti is living proof: Your passion not only works for your speeches, it can motivate a whole change in your life.
“Live your passion in your speeches and your life.” This is her advice and good example. It turns the odds in your favor.
TURN Club is all about empowerment. So many members are ‘natural’ leaders that I just assumed Toastmasters attracted that kind of people. I was surprised to learn the same techniques for good speeches are what also make ‘natural’ leaders!
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Oct 1 | Leadership Excellence District Membership contest begins |
| Oct 1 | Area Governors begin second round of Club visits |
| Oct 13 | Division B Speech Contest |
| Oct 20 | Division A Speech Contest |
| Oct 27 | Division D Speech Contest Division D Speech Contest |
| Nov 1 | District Membership contest begins |
| Nov 2―3 | Fall Conference — Hosted by Division E (Salt Lake City) |
| Dec 1 | The Pulsebeat articles due |
| Dec 21 | The Pulsebeat Published |
| Dec 31 | Area Governors complete 2nd round visits and reports to TI |
The Pulsebeat Submission Guidelines
District 15 toastmasters are invited to contribute articles to The Pulsebeat by sending submissions to the editor or to the Public Relations Officer. Accepted articles will be published in upcoming issues of The Pulsebeat, released quarterly.
Dave Manning offers Web submission guidlines
The Web has provided us with expanded opportunities of self expression. As a medium, the Web offers us the means of combining text and graphics, as well as the means of cross-linking to additional sources of information. However, it also means that we have to shift our thinking in terms of writing and publication. It is important to remember that as a medium of information, the Web is not an electronic version of paper. That is, something that looks fine in print may need restructuring when applied to the Web. Following these publishing guidelines will ease that transition from paper to Web.
- Developing a written article is similar to developing a speech. Just as you develop a speech with a specific purpose, and with a beginning, middle and and end, so you should write your article. Write with a purpose and organize your thoughts as you express yourself.
- Remember your audience. Just as we should always use tasteful language and content in our speeches, the same holds true for written articles. Use language appropriate for Grandma to read.
- There is sometimes a tendency for people to speak casually, then write with a formal voice. While in scholarly papers this may be fine, we prefer a more casual, relaxed voice appropriate for sharing your thoughts. Write like you speak.
- Be wary of run-away articles. Just as a speech can sometimes get away from you and you see that red timer light come on about a quarter of the way through a speech, a written article can sometimes go over time. Limit your articles to approximately 500 words.
- Conventional style in print is to double-space between sentences. This is intended to partition between complete clauses in print. However, HTML (the language of web sites) does not recognize doubles-spaces. Additionally, many word processing programs treat the double-space as a special character that can insert garbage characters when read by the Web browser. Use only a single space between sentences.
- Experienced speakers know the importance of providing an introduction. Your article title and by-line serves the same purpose by giving your audience a short hook to associate your article content with you as the author. For example, “‘What I did for my summer vacation!’ by Jack Sprat, DTM” gives the reader an idea of your article content as well as who wrote it. Always provide a title and by-line.
- Producers of popular word processing programs love to create ways of forcing everyone to use only their products by limiting the readability of documents. Never assume that someone working with your article can work with a file created by your word processor. To this end, the best format to send in your article is Rich Text Format (.rtf). Most people have Microsoft Word on their computers, which is fine, but the file should always be saved as .rtf or .doc. The recent release of Office 2007 has changed file types to saving as .docx by default. Currently, only another Word 2007 user can read a .docx, which is unlikely to change anytime soon. At the cost of several hundred dollars to purchase Office 2007, it may be awhile before large numbers of users join you in using Office 2007. Submit articles as .rtf or .doc files.
- The Web makes the inclusion of photos fairly simple. By all means, we love to have your portrait included with your article as a way for the reader to better get to know you. Include pictures with your article as an embedded graphic, or as a .jpg or .gif file.
That’s it. All of us on The Pulsebeat staff welcome your submissions and look forward to seeing your articles in upcoming issues. Email your new submissions to the District PRO or to The Pulsebeat Editor.