When I arrived at the conference site for Saturday’s portion of the conference, it was 6pm and dinner was supposed to start.  After hearing from a conference co-chair that the ceremonies after the dinner will take place at 7:15pm, I headed to the restaurant hotel and grabbed a bite to eat, encountering several Toastmasters and talking about numerous topics.  When I went to the main conference room at 7pm, the servers were only handing out salad!  Looks like it would be a while before anything else will be taking place.

More people were waiting outside of the main room as time was approaching 8pm and only then the people were starting to eat their main dishes (8pm was supposed to have the District 30 International Speech Contest).  Many, including contestants and their families, were impatiently waiting for the dinner to conclude and the contest to start.  Almost 8:30pm, some speaking started.  Those who didn’t have the dinner were told to move to a spillover room to watch live footage in the main room.  Then, Past International Director Dietmar Wagenknecht was introduced and all of a sudden there was a “This is Your Life” skit that was supposed to be a surprise for him.  NOWHERE in the program indicated that this was supposed to go on, which did take half an hour.

9pm came and there was the DTM ceremony.  Unlike last Fall in which it was well coordinated, many of us were waiting for several minutes for any of the 7 to show up on stage and get the “high fives” from the previous DTMs.  After that, 9:30pm came and there were supposed to be two more things going on before the contest – the installation of new District 30 officers and to recognized the Conference Committee.  But without any indication that these two events were going to be deferred till later, the International Speech Contest took place!  After the contest was over at 10:30pm, announcements were made that the other two events will take place afterward and those not interested are free to leave.

Only a third of the contest audience remained, the 2010-2011 District 30 elected officers were inducted, the District Governor elect gave his presentation and the Conference Committee were recognized.  I left around 11pm while the committee recognition was going to start.  Well there was supposed to be one more thing that was supposed to start at 9:30pm till midnight according to the program – evening entertainment called “Saturday Night Live with Toastmasters”.  Doubt anyone could stick around after 11pm as many were “conferenced-out”!

OK, there was all this hype months before the conference about how much work and people were behind the event.  There was this hype shown in the Barry & Jerry Show that had videos out in YouTube claiming that this conference was going to be one of the best ever.  Many in the conference committee were part of previous conferences and had a lot of experiences and lessons learned.  We have a so-called “Advisory Council for Events” the last two years that is “committed to the development of conferences and TLIs from one event to the next”.  So why with all these things in place it appeared we were taking many steps back with this last conference?

I look at three fundamental areas in which District 30 officers and conference chairs need to address, failing to do that could cause more problems such as this one:

1) Conference personnel – The conference chair, one of the co-chairs, both contest co-chairs, the facilities chair and the educational chair also served as either Area or Division Governor.  Not only that but 4 of them who were Area Governors were also running for Division Governor at the conference.  I mentioned a couple of years ago that those handling two or three major Toastmaster roles could result in neglecting one or all of their roles.  And since they were close to District 30 politics and may have had their opinions on the top leadership, the election results could have affected their morale – which I did notice Saturday night.  Perhaps if we had people in critical conference roles that did not have other significant Toastmaster responsibilities and were not deeply embedded in Toastmaster politics or personal ambitions, we would have a team solely dedicated to delivering a great conference and can adequately deal with any situation during the event.

2) Transparency when the schedule changes – No matter what steps the conference committee take in making sure everything starts and ends on time, many things could happen.  From what I heard for this conference, there was miscommunication between the hotel staff and the conference committee regarding dinner that may have led to the huge schedule delays in the program.  What the conference chair should have done was to huddle with critical committee personnel to revise the schedule, then (most importantly) communicate that to both those attending the dinner and others outside of the dining hall on the changes in schedule.  If it had to be changed several times and need to be announced several times, so be it – it is better than surprising the attendees.   Many attendees set limited time in their schedules for this event, if they were told in advanced that the contest starts two hours late they could, for example, tell their kids or their babysitter that they will be returning home late.  Or it may not be worth waiting that long and they would go home early.  Leaving the attendees guessing, which this conference committee did, would cause not only a disservice to them but to many not at the conference who are dependent on the attendees.

3) Conference priorities – District 30 conferences in recent years have become more and more like “Lollapalooza” with educational sessions, contests, business meetings, showcases, award ceremonies and entertainment all mixed into one.  The problem with that is how to deliver all of that in one Friday evening and all-day Saturday without either overwhelming the attendees or dragging them to late at night.  From my past experience in conference committees, District 30 has absolutely NO COURAGE in making tough decisions on what to keep and what to drop.

I still remember after the 2006 Spring Conference when there was a transition meeting with the 2006 Fall Conference committee, which I was part of both.  The Spring Conference ended at midnight for the Saturday portion, irritating plenty who were present and assumed that it would end a couple of hours before.  One thing we did in the 2006 Spring Conference was had a special ceremony on Thursday night to honor the International President on his visit.  So at the transition meeting, a question was asked about if we should continue that for other purposes.  I suggested that we use that in a Fall Conference to recognize Distinguished Clubs, Areas and Divisions, as I believed many who attend the conferences are not club or district leaders, but rather regular members who want to learn to be better speakers from the keynote speakers and educational presenters.  Mike Raffety, current International Director who was at that time the District 30 Lt. Governor of Education and Training, vehemently objected to that suggestion stating that recognition is extremely important in Toastmasters and we have to do that with the most audience possible.  Others agreed with Mike, so I gave them this question  – “so what else can be cut so the conferences will no longer end late at night?”.  There was silence then, there may still be silence to this day.

There have been surveys out in past conferences as to what the attendees want to get out of the conference.  Asking attendees if they were most looking forward to the educational sessions, the keynote speakers, the contests, the awards, the entertainment, or any showcase of speakers.  Instead of just giving “lip service” and pretending to tell everyone that District 30 cares about the attendees through so-called committees and YouTube videos, they need to put those surveys in action and start setting up conference schedules to what the majority of conference attendees want, n0t what they have always been.  If it meant reducing the need for, let’s say, recognition or entertainment, District 30 should try that and see if it makes a positive impact on the next conference.

District 30 needs to take a long, hard look on the organization, scheduling and execution of their conferences so members attending can get what they came in for.  Personal visions and ambitions along with traditions should be set aside if these conferences have any chance to move forward, otherwise many including myself may never attend another District 30 conference again.

• I plan to attend only the Friday and Saturday evening events, so if you follow me through Facebook and Twitter you’ll hear from me regarding the conference during those evenings, maybe a few comments when I’m not there.
• I already have a job to do on Friday evening portion, serve as a judge for the District Table Topics contest.  Hopefully they’ll have a question that can measure the best impromptu speaker during the contest.
• My proposal to give an educational presentation on using Social Media for Toastmasters was turned down last month by the conference committee.  Not disappointed at all as their priority was to get newer members to present, not those washed up or “has-beens” like myself.  If you check the agenda, they did have some experienced members to present as well such as Johnny Campbell, guess they wanted those who seemed well-liked and not those like me who may be polarized figures.
• So since I don’t need to be at the conference during the day on Saturday, I opt to golf at Seven Bridges in Woodridge with my singles golf group.  This may be my best opportunity to play what many considered among the best public courses in the Chicagoland area plus the weather is supposed to be great on Saturday – 70s and sunny!
• While golfing, maybe I can check Twitter and Facebook to see if anyone posts the results of the District 30 elections (for attendees who read this before this weekend and use either network, please post).  Hope that Kentucky will not be the only place having a “Tea Party” victory this week!
• I should be back at the conference site in time for the DTM ceremony, honoring 7 who achieved the goal since the last conference.  Hope to be part of the DTM “high five” ceremony that the conference committee is planning to follow from the previous one (which I did not take part in).
• Among the 7 newest DTMs, 4 belong to PESO club (Philippine Engineers and Scientists Organization).  When I attended my first District 30 conference in 2000, among the first people I met include members from that club.  Don’t remember their names, but a few of them may be among the DTM honorees!
• Based on the 3 Division Contests I attended, the District International Speech Contest should be a real good one.  Two of the contestants were past District 30 Humorous Speech Contest winners – 2003 winner Conor Cunneen and 2007 winner Rudy Segovia.  Both are now representing different clubs from which they won their District contests, in Rudy’s case it is also in a different Division as he’s now in the Northwest Division.  The North Division representative, Tom Keefe of VW Credit, also has a great speech and can hold his own against the other contestants.

Look forward to seeing some old friends and hope that everything turns out for the better!

I knew the North Division Governor, Rhonda Craven, far more than the other Division Governors that year because she was in Toastmasters the longest and I’ve worked with her in countless events.  Prior to the 2006 Fall North Division Contest, Rhonda was in need for help in various roles, one of which was the Target Speaker for the Evaluation Contest.  Since it was customary to have the North and Northwest Divisions to swap Target Speakers for their Evaluation contests, she wanted someone in the Northwest Division for that role.  And since I belong in that division I offered to find someone for her, which she greatly appreciated.

Since none of my Area clubs were strong and had very little interest in trekking outside of their clubs for any Toastmasters activity, I was looking at other clubs in the Northwest Division to find a Target Speaker.  One club that was increasingly involved in District 30 was the AT&T Chicagoland club that met at their Hoffman Estates campus.  Their Table Topics contestant last Spring won the District 30 contest with two dozen from that club cheering him on, their Club President made the trip to Washington, DC  for the 2006 International Convention and wrote her take on it in the October 2006 District 30 newsletter.  I keep hearing how the club was increasing and mentoring their membership and filling their agendas to the point where it could take months to get a speaking slot.  So this was by far the best club to supply a Target Speaker for the North Evaluation Contest and I called and left a message with the Club President asking for help.

Well AT&T was the home club of the Northwest Division Governor and a couple of days later during a phone conversation, I added that I gave the club president a call asking for a Target Speaker for the North Evaluation Contest.  What I heard from him was shocking – he ripped me for several reasons.  First he claimed that AT&T is a bad club to find a Target Speaker because they do not conform to Toastmasters International customs and rules, which he did not specify.  Second he claimed that I went behind his back and I should have talked to him or the Area Governor for that club (who was also an AT&T club member), implying that they both had authority over their club president on club matters.  He also mentioned that he heard many complaints about the way I did things in Toastmasters, which he also did not specify.

This was very demoralizing for me – I went out of my way to help many in District 30 succeed, attended many events because I knew my assistance was needed.  Plenty of people appreciated my help and leadership, one kept writing in her e-mail messages to me “thank you for all you’ve done in District 30″.  I never did this for my personal or political gain, I did it because I love Toastmasters and want to see everyone in the organization succeed.  It may have been one reason I was named the 2005 District 30 Toastmaster of the Year.  And now there seemed to be a backlash against me.  Or so this guy said…

I talked to the Area Governor for AT&T about this encounter with the Northwest Division Governor.  He mentioned that the Division Governor had problems with the club president and others.  The Area Governor did not find anything wrong with my actions.  It appeared the Division Governor just did not want the club to get any further credit for their accomplishments, apparently more for his personal issues than anything else.  Anyway, the Club President did find someone from the club to be the Target Speaker for the North Division Evaluation Contest.  Don’t remember if anyone credited me or thanked me for getting this done, if so I didn’t want to hear a word about it.

Whether what I did was noble or intrusive is up to you.  But I did it as a favor for a close Toastmaster friend, not for my own benefit.  I had no intention of undermining anyone or making a person look bad.  The Northwest Division Governor wanted to paint me the opposite.  I started asking myself what was the point of getting involved in Toastmasters if I had to deal with such crap.  It was one major reason why after this term as Area Governor ended, my involvement in District 30 “ceased to exist”.  It was the primary reason why I got into a big mess with this person as mentioned in a December 2008 blog entry.

I came to the conclusion that he just did not respect what I did as it did not match his view of the world.  And I was not alone.  The following year, my successor as Area Governor endured the same wrath due to the same club!  My successor was invited by the AT&T club to attend their club contest and was encouraged to let her own club know.  So she sent a broadcast e-mail to her club members about this.  The Northwest Division Governor, serving his second consecutive term, was at that time a member of her club as he was their club coach previously.  And he went on the same diatribe just like he had at me regarding how bad the AT&T club was and that she was going behind his and the AT&T Area Governor’s back.

That Northwest Division Governor is now the District 30 Lt. Governor of Education & Training.  As you may know he had his nomination for District 30 Governor rejected by the Nominating Committee.  While I am not a voting member of the District 30 Council, I saw the packet for the council members to be considered at the District 30 Council Meeting on May 22nd.  There was a letter mentioning why his nomination was rejected, among the reasons include  “Demonstrated disrespectful behavior to others in meetings, in person, or via phone.”  Not sure if he did something similar to what was mentioned above with both myself and my successor, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was part of such reason.

Even though it is apparent that the LGET is not liked at all by many in District 30, he still has some friends and allies who would nominate him off the floor for District 30 Governor.  I’m not convinced he has learned from his past.  Therefore he needs to be stopped before more damage takes place that could turn more people off from Toastmasters.

Many in Toastmasters are willing to take their time and energy to help the organization, to help the clubs they belong to, to help those in the organization that they hold dearly.  Why?  Because they love Toastmasters, what it stands for and the people in the organization.  And each has their own way of helping, another way to embrace the diversity of this organization.  It should be a win-win situation for everyone involved, from the member to the District Governor to the rest of Toastmasters International.

But if you berate and criticize, telling those who help that they’re doing things they are not supposed to do, not because they violated some rule but because you simply don’t like what they do or who they help, people would think twice before getting further involved in Toastmasters.  They may no longer get involved in the local district.  They may not want to be a club officer or stop attending their club meetings.  They could even leave Toastmasters outright.  As a result, you could lose a future District officer, a future conference chair, a future TLI Dean.  You could miss all the new people those members could bring to Toastmasters, the new club opportunities they could come up with.  You want a Distinguished District/Division/Area/Club?  Forget it, some you offend may even go as far as sabotaging those efforts if that is all you are concerned with because you may be so hung up in your legacy and glory.  It can be a huge lose-lose situation!

District 30 cannot afford this type of leadership.  It is important for those who are eligible to vote to either be at the District 30 Council Meeting on May 22nd at the Elk Grove Village Holiday Inn starting at 9:30am, or find someone in the club who can go.  When I was a District 30 officer, I mentioned when it came to the Spring District Council Meeting that “the future of District 30 is in your hands!”  None more so than this one.

1. Submit a proposal for the upcoming District 30 Spring Conference to present a session on Social Media, in particular how LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter can benefit Toastmaster members -  in particular obtaining information not found by their club and district leaders, as well as publicizing the organization to their friends, connections and followers.  If the conference committee are not interested, I hope this would be considered for the next Summer TLI.
2. Plan to give more speeches as I only gave one in 2009 and that was for the International Speech Contest.  Some of the speech topics I plan to present are using Social Media, promoting Scott Berkun‘s Confessions of a Public Speaker book, the Tiger Woods scandal, and Curling, which is my new interest this winter.  I need to make use of the speech skills and experience I obtained throughout the years as I don’t have many opportunities to speak outside of Toastmasters, plus give speeches on topics that matter to me.
3. Avoid being a club officer after June 30th – I haven’t done much as the Arlington Heights‘ PR officer, so my goal should be the lay the foundation for my successor to build on.  The club is doing well with membership so we should not have a dearth of members who are willing to step up and become officers for the upcoming term.  While I plan to remain a dedicated Toastmaster member for my two clubs, my days of being heavily involved in the clubs should long be over and I need to move forward in becoming a more well-rounded Toastmaster member, especially with speaking.

There may be more things I plan to do for this year, I’ll post updates throughout the year.  I’ll continue to update the blog on a variety of Toastmaster topics, including observations on District 30 and Toastmasters International.  So stay tuned…

One video that I enjoyed which I was not present for was the DTM ceremony.  As in a previous post, I was concerned about how they can fit 12 new DTM medal recipients in a short time.  Well they opted for the “high-five” ceremony where the new DTMs run down the front of the stage high-fiving the other DTMs as if they were introduced as starters for the Chicago Bulls!

Tim mentioned when I was there that he was planning to start putting videos up late this week, I replied that he should not make these promises public unless he’s definite that they’ll happen.  Well he supposedly not made any guarantees to the crowds unlike the last conference and he actually delivered his work very quickly.  Way to go Tim!

Well as you see from this picture, that was what I did for a significant time at the conference.  Anything that I observed that was worth mentioning in my view gets posted.  It made an otherwise uneventful conference fun, and I admit that it made me want to get back to the conference site early Saturday morning instead of sleeping in.  Of course I got to meet with many old friends and meet some new ones, a few even mentioned that they read this blog.  The events I attended were OK, but they weren’t much different from past conferences I attended.

What is great about using Twitter is that I was able to enter what I feel like without any interference from others, without being part of someone else’s agenda.  That was a major reason why I’m no longer involved in District 30 and why I turned down being the Evaluation Contest chair for this conference as there are many in leadership here who are more concerned about their view of the world than letting those who volunteer at the event do their jobs and grow from it.  I went as far as pushing the limits of what I write by referring to the business meeting as the “bs meeting” (I admit it was intentional and not use it as an abbreviation) and mention the first sentence of this paragraph as my parting shot before I left the conference.  Not sure if the conference committee and D30 officers read what I wrote, they may be too politically correct to not want me to do this again or restrict or drop using Twitter, but it is worth a try.

On the other hand if more Toastmaster members are aware of using Twitter, more could check out the feed when they’re unable to be there.  They can even get an instant announcement as to who was a contest winner, which I did for Friday’s Evaluation Contest (too bad no one put one for the Humorous Speech Contest in my absence).  Someone in the volunteer desk mentioned it can be a great way to tell if there were concerns or issues about the conference so the committee can learn from them, such examples that I entered include:

strange they’re asking someone from each 7-officer trained club to go up and shake the LGET’s hand and leave the stage w/ nothing!

and

main room seemed dead during lunch and c&l now it is packed for main educ session with the ID!

I was excited on using Twitter to report from the conference, even forward my tweets to my Facebook page.  Only four others used it during this conference, if there is more publicity on it perhaps we can get more to tweet in the 2010 Spring Conference.

• Looking forward to seeing many old friends and new faces as the last District 30 event I attended was the Spring Conference (I was out golfing during the Summer TLI).
• Definitely will be at the Friday portion of the conference, definitely won’t be able to attend the Saturday night portion of the conference as my singles golf group has their dinner dance (and being on the board for the group that now takes precedence).  As far as during the day Saturday, I may attend parts of it just to meet more old friends as not much in the schedule or the educational sessions seems appealing.
• Both the Evaluation and Humorous Speech contests should be fun.  I already seen both the North and Northwest Division representatives, the Evaluation contestants are both relatively new to contests but have done great so far (the North contestant came from Master Speakers @ Baxter club, which only chartered in April!), while both Humorous Speech contestants have excellent speeches that can wow the audience.  If the other Division representatives are as good, it may be the best District 30 Humorous Speech contest in years – I’ll be missing that one though.
• Early last summer I was offered to be the Evaluation Contest Chair, turned it down for reasons mentioned in a previous entry, plus still have no desire to get back to active service in D30.  Never thought about what might have been if I did accept it.
• One thing I did find bothersome with the upcoming Evaluation contest, the Toastmaster is a current Division Governor who also serves as the District 30 Club Building Chair, while the Chief Judge is the Immediate Past D30 Governor.  Not sure they offered last year’s winner the Toastmaster role, which has been the tradition here, but regardless shouldn’t we give these opportunities to others without major roles and responsibilities?  Time to go back to this old entry from last year.
• I shouldn’t care because I won’t be there and don’t have any say on the quality of D30 events, but it’ll definitely be a challenge honoring last year’s Distinguished winners and the end-of-the-year winners within a 25 minute time frame.  I hope whoever emcees this won’t spend any time talking more than necessary especially about themselves – last year the IPDG not surprisingly did just that prompting someone to tell me “no wonder why it took her 4 tries to reach Top 3!”
• Same problem with the DTM ceremony, there are at least 12 new DTMs to be honored at the ceremony with their new medallions and receiving congratulations from the other DTMs.  At the last conference, there were 6 honored with the ceremony taking at least 6 minutes as shown in this video.  The upcoming conference will have 15 minutes and with likely more DTMs at the line congratulating the new ones, it could take longer than that.
• On the lighter side, District 30 put out a YouTube video promoting the conference, featuring the “faces of District 30″.  It doesn’t appear I’m among the faces, so I can definitely say I’m a “has-been” and proud of it!

Since I just joined Twitter after getting a new smartphone (HTC Droid Eris), I may use that to post updates from the conference, so check http://twitter.com/willhsiung next weekend.  Otherwise check my Facebook page for some updates or wait until I put in a summary in this blog.

Tim is not necessarily reliable (see the beginning of this video, in which he promised that the videos will be online before last June’s Summer TLI but were only up yesterday), but most of his videos are decent quality for an amateur and he is very dedicated to his work.

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.

My initial plans at the conference was seeing both the Table Topics and International Speech contests and being at the DTM ceremony where we had five people who received their ribbons.  I really wanted to be there for two of the five, Ron Lorsch and Keri Silk, both who I’ve known very well over the years.  I did not have any intention to do much at the conference, say hi to some old friends and meet some newer folks and stay in the sidelines as my days of having any role in a conference are long over.  Sherry Jost, one of my Area Governors who was an unsuccessful candidate for Division Governor, along with current District 30 Governor Pat Martin, mentioned about having me be part of the District 30 Wall of Fame as the 2005 D30 Toastmaster of the Year.  I replied “that was 4 years ago, I’m irrelevant in District 30 these days and I’d like to keep it that way!”

Well not long after I showed up at the Saturday night portion of the conference, Past D30 Governor Hugh Dunbar, who was the Chief Judge for the International Speech Contest, asked me to be a judge for the contest.  Having served as the Chief Judge for that contest two years ago, be one of the judges the year before that, and the Tiebreaking Judge even several years ago, I wouldn’t mind seeing different people getting the experience of serving as a judge for the most prestigious contest we have.  Hugh was someone who helped me out when I was Southwest Division Governor years ago as it was his home Division, and has encouraged me to stay involved in District 30 the last couple of years in spite of my problems with the people running D30 and their priorities.  So I accepted serving as a contest judge, which made me somewhat relevant in District 30, at least for that night.

But what made my comment that I was irrelevant to District 30 more contradicting was that I spent plenty of time at the conference discussing Toastmasters with many of the attendees, whether it is old friends that I haven’t seen or talked often or those who I only met last weekend.  I planned to leave the hotel both nights right after the contests, however I ended up staying longer because I still was talking with different people.  Saturday night’s contest ended just before 10pm, I left the hotel just after midnight!

When I talked with those who are currently serving as an Area or a Division Governor, I asked them how they liked their job and mentioned some of my stories from my days in those positions that may relate to theirs.  For those who I’ve known for years, we discussed about District 30 and Toastmaster International issues as well as what we’ve done since we last met and what our future plans are.  Many of them, even a few who barely know me were asking me questions such as:

• When will you ever become District Governor?
• When are you going to be involved in District 30 again?
• How come we don’t see you much anymore?  We used to see you around a lot!

I even had a couple of suggestions to run off the floor against the current Lt. Governor of Education and Training for District 30 Governor as I’ve heard many people having concerns about his work (or lack thereof) in his current and previous Top 3 positions.  Well my replies to all of that appear in previous blog entries.

I realized after I left the conference that I do spend more time than I planned to when going to events outside of my clubs, and most of it had to do with talking with others.  There is always something I could learn from them, while I can make some contribution in return.  At the North Division winter officer training a couple of months ago, I was there in case I was needed to train officers.  Since my services were not needed, I planned to leave when training started and after finishing my pizza that was provided there.  Well I ended up leaving an hour later after discussing Toastmaster issues with the District 30 Secretary who is an employee of the facility where the training took place!

I’m still irrelevant in District 30 in terms of having a formal role, but I get the impression that many who know me would disagree with that in general.  It’s hard for me to turn down engaging others in a one-on-one or a small group discussion about Toastmasters, or taking a role in a contest or a conference if it was offered by someone who I greatly respect.  Regardless of whatever problems I have in Toastmasters, there is always something for me in that organization to deal with and that is why it seems impossible for me to ever leave.