As the Contest Chair for the 2006 District 30 Fall Conference, I had to make a gut-wrenching call to a Humorous Speech contestant less than a week before the conference – he was disqualified because Toastmasters International never received his application and payment from the club he was representing, an Advanced club he joined a few months back after receiving his Competent Communicator from his initial club.  It turns out that both the Area and Division Contest Chairs never contacted TI about whether their contestants are eligible to compete and relied on the honor system in which the contestants signed their eligibility forms, so the job of verifying eligibility with TI fell in my hands, which I have done every time I ran an Area or Division Contest since my 1st term as Area Governor.  Interestingly enough, the contestant’s wife was the runner-up as she represented their initial club which was in a different Area in the same Division, so she got to compete though she wasn’t happy with the situation either.

At the Business Meeting of that conference, I made a plea with the Club and District officers who attended to either check the TI website to examine their membership roster or contact TI directly through phone or e-mail to verify contestant eligibility for the following Spring contests so that this situation won’t happen again.  The top District 30 officers promised that they’ll take steps not to let this happen again through continue training at DEC meetings and officer training, particularly for the Vice President of Education as they usually chair the club contests.  Sounds like a good idea, right?

Well for whatever reason, history did repeat itself!  I attended Club Secretary training tonight and found out from the presenter that as the Contest Chair for the 2008 District 30 Spring Conference, she DID DISQUALIFY an International Speech contestant prior to the District contests for eligibility as that contestant did not have his October renewal posted.  She used this to make a point about the Club Secretary’s role in verifying the club membership roster by downloading it from the TI website.  Once again both the Area and Division Contest Chairs for the disqualified contestant didn’t do something right, so perhaps the District 30 leadership failed to take action to address this year and a half old problem – given my opinion of them it is not surprising!

Whether your District, or anyone else for that matter, instructs you as a Contest Chair about contestant eligibility, here’s a reminder on how to deal with it, especially as the Fall contest season is under way:

- If you are the Club Contest Chair, go to the TI members website, click on “Club Officer” tab, then “Conduct Club Business” and enter your club number and password (if you don’t have the password, check with another club officer or TI).  Once you’re in, go to “View/Update my club’s membership roster” to look at the membership list – you can download it to an Excel spreadsheet.

- If you are the Area, Division or District Contest Chair, send an e-mail to the Educational Programming department of TI (address is in one of the Club or District Officer manuals) and list each contestant and alternate along with the clubs they’re representing.  You could also give them a call but it does save everybody’s time if you e-mail.

This is something that Contest Chairs need to take seriously and must be repeated even if the previous level Contest Chairs did check for eligibility as something can slip through the cracks.  Otherwise people can get hurt, whether it is the disqualified contestant, the other contestants who lost to that person, or their respective clubs, families and friends.