With the Region V conference in two weeks, I want to tell you the craziest situation I dealt with at a past Regional. It was the 2006 conference in Indianapolis and it had to do with the proxies for the Regional Business Meeting, in which we nominate an International Director from Region V.

District 30 wanted all the Club Presidents to mail in their proxies to the District Governor even if we planned to attend and wanted to vote. I instead took the proxies of my primary club myself as I didn’t trust the District Governor at that time to set aside my ballots even though the proxies specified that I get them – he ignored that at the last International Convention in Toronto, opting to take all ballots for himself. Furthermore, District 30 had a candidate, Dietmar Wagenknecht, whom we were rallying behind as we all thought he would be in a tough battle with Del Calderini of District 54, which we in District 30 also hold in high regard.

When I went out-of-town for the Regional or International conventions, I didn’t stay at the hotel the convention was at because I’m generally cheap – usually hotel rooms at the convention site were $100-170 a night, while I try to get a room for $50-70 a night at places such as Days Inn or Red Roof Inn. In Indy, the conference was at downtown and I ended up getting a room at the Red Roof Inn near the city limits on the northwest side near the Interstates. Also I was willing to park several blocks from the site to get a better parking rate.

On the Saturday morning of the conference, I thought I had the Regional proxy in my suit pocket as I submitted it to the Credentials desk to get my two votes that each proxy entitles to. Unfortunately the folks at the desk noted that I had the International proxy, which I cannot use until the International Convention in two months. I was in panic! Did I leave the regional proxy in my hotel room? Should I make a trip back to find it? You bet!

Well as I head out of the conference hotel, I ran into a few problems – it was now raining heavily so I have to run a few blocks to get to my car, plus since I was wearing a suit I had some shoes instead of sneakers so it’s sure going to be hard for me to run through the rain. The run was tough, I had to stop a couple of times to catch breath as at that time I didn’t work out in the gym regularly. Got to my car and drove back to my hotel, feeling very impatient and driving as fast as I can without getting caught for speeding.

When I got back to my hotel room, I looked at my briefcase there as I thought I had the regional proxy there. Couldn’t find it so I was looking at my luggage and other belongings – not there either. So I went back to my car and checked my laptop bag which I kept in the car so the laptop won’t be snatched at the hotel room and guess what, the Regional proxy was there! I wasted my trip all for this?!

I went back downtown, parked in the same garage (I was still thinking of being cheap even if my mind was on something else) and made another run through the heavy rain back to the conference hotel, stopping to catch breath a couple of more times. And being soaked and wet I did turn in the right proxy right away and got my two votes, which I cast for Dietmar at the Business Meeting later that day.

It probably was moot as Dietmar got 70% of the votes and went into the International Convention as the majority candidate. Had he got more than 75% of the votes at the Regional, he would have been the only nominated candidate from Region V but we did calculate that had every District 30 club submitted their proxies he would still be short of the 75%. At the International Convention in DC, Dietmar won with more than 80% of the International vote and for the first time in 18 years, District 30 has someone serving in the Board of Directors at Toastmasters International.

Well since I was working on the Humorously Speaking manual at that time, I was able to give a speech out of that shortly after the conference – so at least this wasn’t a complete waste!