The April 2nd edition of the Chicago Tribune had an article about the misfortunes of Ed Hearn, District 30′s very own World Champion of Public Speaking.  Among the comments posted in the online version of the article is one from someone who is/was a District 30 officer, which I would say the exact thing:

That is quite an unfair classification. You can’t say that anyone involved with the Catholic church is a nutjob just because some priests molested kids. Toastmasters is a great organization for bettering public speaking and leadership skills.
Now, having said that, from my time in the lower political ranks of the Chicagoland district of Toastmasters I have found that anyone that gets that far gets really crazy. They seem to think that holding an office in a volunteer organization is some major accomplishment. It’s both sad and funny at the same time to see people stabbing each other in the back for a power grab in a public speaking volunteer group that has no power whatsoever.
So in my opinion, Toastmasters clubs and Toastmaster members are great and no more or less normal than anyone else I’ve met. However, these people behind the scenes fighting over nothing are the whack-jobs.

My guess is that this person is currently a District 30 officer who has the misfortune of witnessing a lot of power struggles and backstabbing that supposedly has been taking place with the top District 30 officers this Toastmasters year.  That was why there were NO nominations listed for both District 30 Governor and Lt. Governor of Education and Training in last weekend’s Nominating Committee report.  There will be more about this here once I get more information on what was going on and what possibilities could take place around election time, but the whole thing appears to be fun and exciting!

Anyway what this person has mentioned are things I’ve seen myself during my time as a District 30 officer and I’m sure there were problems before I joined Toastmasters.  Even if a new set of leaders take over come this July, I won’t be surprised if there are still more politics and power struggles as it seems to be human nature for people with not much accomplishments in life to use Toastmasters as “some major accomplishment”.  And that is why my involvement in District 30 leadership continues to “cease to exist”.