Not long after the District 30 Spring Conference, it appears work is now under way for the Fall Conference coming up on November 13th and 14th.  After last Thursday’s North Suburban meeting, one member who was on the Spring Conference committee mentioned that he will be the Publicity Chair for the Fall Conference.  He also mentioned that the Conference Chair wants to pursue the “best contest chair in District 30”, namely yours truly as the Chair mentioned to me at the end of the Spring Conference about wanting to see better-run contests and thought it would be great if I get involved with that next Fall.  She remembered attending a presentation about contests I gave at the 2006 District 30 Summer TLI and seemed to be impressed by that.  I mentioned to her that my involvement in District 30 activities is in the past and my fellow club member also indicated that to her when my name was brought up to his attention.  What the club member, who’s only been in Toastmasters for a year, does not know was that there was an incident at the 2006 Fall Conference that clinched my decision to completely slam the door on my involvement in District 30.

The Evaluation Contest at the Friday portion of 2006 Fall Conference went very well, with no problems and everyone, including myself, was happy with everything that went on.  The Humorous Speech Contest at the Saturday night portion of the conference was another story.  The Conference Chair, who is still a very close friend of mine and the reason why I was part of the conference committee, planned to have the dinner and Communication & Leadership awards presentation in one room , which is larger but is adjacent to another room that was having a wedding reception, and the contest in a different room, which while it is smaller would be far away from any noise from the reception.  The District 30 Governor noticed that more and more people were showing up during the dinner for the sole purpose of watching the contest and looked into keeping the larger room for the contest.  While we had a band playing music and a past District 30 Governor singing he stopped by the wedding reception to check if he could hear the music and singing from our room.  Convinced that he didn’t hear a thing, he unilaterally decided to keep the contest in the larger room, supposedly without any input from anyone else, not the Conference Chair, not myself as the Contest Chair.

I was very mad at the decision for several reasons, one was that we were already setting the contest up in the original room, another was that there were already a couple of contestants that were practicing their contest speeches at the stage we were originally be using.  Furthermore, it appears that no one else had a say on this, especially those from within the conference committee – had the Conference Chair been involved in the decision making and told this to me instead of the District Governor, I probably would have been more receptive to this move.  Instead, I went back to the original contest room steaming mad and even threw a chair at a closet door in that room!  After telling the people there of the news, both the contest personnel and the contestants that were there, they too were puzzled by the sudden decision.

While I admit that I tended to be a bit of a perfectionist in which everything I planned for should come up with a predicted outcome, plus I thought that previous contest chairs were not subjected to unexpected maneuvers by a District Governor, there were a couple of factors that continued my anger towards this move.  One was that it would result in the contest starting later than scheduled as there would be a need to move the head table out as the platform it was on would be used as a stage.  The other was that some of the contestants would have to readjust their speaking plans for a stage that is set up far differently from the original contest room – the stage in the original room is a plain rectangle with plenty of room from front to back, the stage where we actually had the contest is a half-hexagonal shape with little room to move from front to back.  I felt rushed to have the contest started almost on schedule and was trying swiftly to go through the contestant briefings.  When the District Governor approached me as if he wanted to help out, I did not want to see that person and went as far as saying “leave me alone or you will get a broken nose!”.  One of the current Division Governors also approached me and I ended up saying the same thing (I apologized to both of them within the next couple of days).  The whole thing already took the energy out of me that I ended up fumbling my opening comments for the contest.

So when the contest started and the first contestant came up, I should have been relieved that the mess was done with and we move on to have a great contest.  Unfortunately it took a turn for the worse.  Just as the first contestant was giving her speech, the DJ at the wedding reception next door started to blare out some music and nearly everyone in the our room heard it very clearly.  Well that anger came back and came back very hard.  Since I was responsible for putting together the contest, I was very concerned that the audience would put the blame on me for a decision that I definitely did not have a say on it.  I was so embarrassed for being associated with the District Governor that I took my Area Governor badge (as I also served as AG during that time) and bent it in half.  One member came up to me and complained about the noise, I replied “it ain’t my fault!”.  The District Governor came up to me during one of the speeches and admitted that he “fucked it up”, I acted like it was too little, too late as the damage was already done.

As if it can’t get even worse, after the contestant interviews, I was still waiting from the Chief Judge of the results of the ballot counting.  So I notified the Contest Toastmaster to bring up the Conference Chair, who had another raffle drawn and acknowledge those who worked on the conference.  After I received a gift she gave to each of her committee chairs, I rushed back to the side of the stage to wait for the Chief Judge, who finally showed up with the results and the certificates of the winners.  The Conference Chair then brought up the District Governor at his request, and after presenting a plaque to the chair for the work she did he asked for more people to come up with his announcements, going as far as asking the Region V Conference Chair to promote the Regional Conference that was going to take place seven months later!  Then he asked the crowd “when will we find out the winners?”, so I finally went up with the certificates.  The District Governor was rushing to get the certificates and hope that I go away, but I had to recognize the contest personnel who had to go through all this mess, so he told me to make it quick.   While I started introducing my team, the District Governor was begging me to hurry up, when I was done he put me to the side and asked the visiting International Director to come up and help present the contest trophies (which also was done at the Evaluation Contest).  The DG mentioned after the previous conference that we need to take as much time at a conference to recognize anyone for their accomplishments, and now he wanted me to shortchange those who really did their jobs well under unfavorable circumstances.  I also felt that the others he brought up for announcements were given as much time as possible to speak.  Yes I felt I was thrown under the bus, my worst nightmare had just happened!

After the contest was adjourned, I went to the District Governor, tossed him my bent Area Governor badge and said “it was nice working with you, I’m stepping down as Area Governor”.  He replied “I hope you reconsider your decision”.  I went to several other people, including my Division Governor and the other Area Governors of that Division to mentioned that I resigned and mentioned that “I don’t have any interest working for morons”.  This had to do with my problems with my primary club a couple of months before where some prominent members decided to abandon the club when they promised to be there, one of whom as I mentioned in a previous entry someone who had a lot of TM experience seemed to be unwilling to help the club after promising to serve as the VP Education.  So there are now two cases within a few months where I was set up to fail and probably for the first time in my years in Toastmasters I began to question whether it was worthwhile to remain involved in this organization.

I initially told the Conference Chair that I was going to skip the debrief meeting the next day as I did not want to relive the mess.  When I left the contest room and returned to my hotel room at the conference site, I was very cold-faced and had no interest talking or even saying hi to anyone.  When I got back to my room, I found my “Key Area Governor of the Quarter” certificate I received earlier in the  day and ripped it to pieces, maybe tearing it apart a hundred of times.  I contemplated getting to my car and find some place to blow off steam such as a gym, as I belong to a 24-hour one, but after several minutes I took my laptop and brought it down to the hotel lounge to check on my e-mail.  There were several Toastmasters hanging around that I noticed, I didn’t bother to speak or say hi to them and focused on getting and reading my e-mail, then returned to my room.

I went to bed expecting to wake up very late as I was completely worn out in the wee hours of the morning.  However I woke up much earlier than I thought.  When I went to the hotel lobby to check out, the Conference Chair was standing in front of me in the line and I ended up telling her that I now decide to attend the debrief meeting, mentioning that I owe everyone an explanation.  At the meeting, there was the District Governor, the Lt. Governors and most of the conference committee.  The District Governor saw me prior to the start of the meeting, I did not say a word.  Nearly everyone in the committee gave their reports before it was my turn, then I explained my side of the events taking place.  At the end I said “I’m not sure it is worthwhile for me to remain involved in District 30 so I resigned as Area Governor”.  The District Governor replied that it was his fault for all the mess that took place and tried very hard to absolve me of any blame that could take place.  The others in the room tried to comfort me and mentioned how valuable I was to them and District 30.  I did feel better as I left the hotel but wasn’t sure if I was still going ahead with my resignation as Area Governor.

After seeing an e-mail from one of my Area clubs about an planned holiday event involving the Area clubs, I felt I owed it to the clubs that I need to stay on as AG.  At that time I did not want to be known as a quitter who abandoned the people who I represent, just like some in my club who did abandon us a few months before.  So I sent an e-mail to my contest team, the District Governor and others that I will continue to serve my term as Area Governor for the 2006-2007 year.  In retrospect, that may be the most regrettable decision I made in Toastmasters and my initial decision to resign would have been the best decision as it led to another incident that radically changed my course in Toastmasters as mentioned here.  The whole incident was a “wake up call” that I spent a lot more time in Toastmasters than I should have and perhaps I should have seen it coming beforehand.

Was there something good that came out of this story?  Yes, one of which was that District Governors now try to stay out of the decision making set forth by the Conference Chairs and their committees.  For contests, the Contest Chairs are now given more authority such as allowing ample time to recognize their team, announcing the winners and adjourning the contest.  The District Governor that nearly drove me out of District 30 involvement became much more respectful of my involvement in Toastmasters and seemed to tolerate anything that I said or write, even if others in D30 had problems with that.  Perhaps he is acting as if I had incriminating pictures of him, or he just felt that an “angry Will” is better than “no Will”.  Now as one of our International Directors, he seemed thrilled that I was contacting him regarding my concerns about the changes Toastmasters International are proposing this year and mentioned that he values my input.

So do I really want to get back to the “abyss” by serving as Contest Chair again?  I admit I was very flattered that someone I didn’t really know thought highly of what I have done.  However I remember reading Marcus Buckingham’s book “The One Thing You Need To Know” that I purchased at the 2005 Toastmasters International Convention as he was the Golden Gavel recipient.  His One Thing about sustained individual success is “Discover what you don’t like doing and stop doing it”.  While I enjoyed running a contest and felt I could come up with something that could be a model for future contests, what I don’t like doing is dealing with any mess cause by others that could result in destroying any work and effort I put into.  While our District officers have learned from this mess and are intent not to see this happen again, there is no guarantee that something else bad could happen that would result in me being thrown under the bus again.  What I’d be willing to do now is to serve as a mentor and an informal advisor to whoever will be the next Contest Chair, instead of being the Contest Chair again.