• 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!

Most of the contest questions I’ve heard over the 10 years District 30 has held the Table Topics contest fit this ideal type of a question.  Unfortunately, that was not the case this season.  A couple of Area Contest questions that I’ve heard, such as the one mentioned in the previous entry, were rather lengthy.  But the Northwest and North Division Table Topics questions were even worse!

Here was the Northwest Division question:

There was a huge flash of light and a crashing sound in the backyard.   When you went to investigate you find a very hot piece of multi-colored stone in a small crater.   After it cooled down, you put it in your pocket and as you carry around you discover that it gives you magical powers.  Describe how you came to realize that you can become invisible, leap fantastic distances or hear what animals are thinking.

Here was the North Division question:

Traffic cameras are being installed in many intersections throughout Chicago and surrounding suburbs.  There is a current debate, however, if they truly improve safety or simply just raise revenue for local governments.   In your opinion, what is the primary reason traffic cameras are used and should local governments continue to install them?

If you want to be punished further, here is the video of the actual Northwest Division Table Topics contest, held on April 22nd at the Motorola Schaumburg campus.  The contest started at the 10th minute.

The two questions were not only too long, it gave each contestant a limited set of answers.  The long questions made it hard for the contestants to put together a response as they had to absorb the question prior to responding.  In my opinion, they did not show who was the best in impromptu speaking during the contest, rather who was the most willing to put up with such a crappy question and/or who was the luckiest.

I wondered why there seemed to be a trend to use lengthy questions for Table Topics contests.  Since I have a distrust for the leadership of District 30, I thought it was some stupid encouragement from one of the top officers, likely the Lt. Governor of Education and Training, thinking that high quantity and high difficulty equal high quality.

After visiting the Southwest Division contest, that was not the case.  Here was their question:

If you were to nominate a person for best public speaker, what characteristics would that person have?

which I would consider an ideal question.  I was told the Central South contest had a great question as well:

If you had unlimited funds, where would you travel and why?

It appeared whoever ran the Northwest and North Division contests were on an ego trip.  They wanted to show themselves off.  They wanted their “15 minutes of fame”.  I noticed some things in both contests that did not seem right, especially in the North contest in which the functionaries were told to read from a script word for word on what they need to say to the audience when it was their turn to speak.

I’m hoping the District 30 Table Topics Contest on May 21st doesn’t follow the Northwest and North Division contests.  So far past District 30 contest questions were short and allowed each contestant to respond in their own way.  Otherwise I could say that contests in District 30, just like many other things, are going to hell in a handbasket.

I had a chance to talk with a couple of people about the politics taking place in District 30, one is an Area Governor from a different North Division area, the other is a long-time member of both District 30 and 54 who was competing in Table Topics representing one of her District 30 clubs.  Did not get much new information, so went into the contest room, which was actually where the Lincolnshire Village Board have their meetings.

Every time I attended a contest or an Area or Division which I did not belong to, I come in expecting to take a role, likely a contest judge.  Most contests are not well attended and any help contest chairs can get is very valuable.  But I did not expect the Area Governor, who was also the Contest Chair, to tell me this – “I got something for you to do.  Can you be Toastmaster for the contest?”  The person originally assigned the role ended up competing in the Table Topics contest as he was his club’s alternate and their original representative is unable to compete.

I’ve been a last-minute Target Speaker twice.  I’ve been a last-minute Chief Judge a few times.  This is the first time I’ve ever been a last-minute Contest Toastmaster!  And though I’ve attended over 100 Area Contests, I’ve only been the Toastmaster 4 other times.  The odd part about being asked to do this was that I only met the Area Governor once at last Fall’s North Division Contest and I did not think he knew much about me at all.

So I was fully in contest mode, just like the previous times I was Contest Toastmaster.  The Chief Judge handled the contestant briefings as well as judges briefings, so all I need was the speaking orders for both contests.  Also prior to the International Speech Contest, I verified the speech titles with the respective contestants – at the Northwest 4 Area Contest last month, one of the contestants gave a different speech from his club contest but did not notify the Toastmaster, who had the club contest speech title in the contestant’s paperwork.

The contest started with Table Topics.  My biggest challenge for that portion was making sure I say this lengthy question without butchering, something I still have a problem with when reading out something loud:

You are dreaming you are flying on the wing of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. When you woke up with a jolt, you realize that you are truly on the wing of the 787 Dreamliner cruising on the runway ready to lift off. What is your reaction and what would you do?

The contest started a little late and with 5 Table Topics contestants, my biggest mistake in the Toastmaster role was to take a long time with the contestant interviews, asking one or two more questions for each contestant than I should have.  At least when I first came up I did not talk about the history of the Table Topics Contest in District 30, which only was implemented in 2000, something I did the only other time I was a Toastmaster for a Spring Area Contest (the others were in the Fall).

So when the International Speech Contest started, I got rid of another thing I did at the previous contest which I was Toastmaster – explain the difference between the International Speech Contest and the other contests, though this time explain the new route to World Champion of Public Speaking as Regional Conferences no longer exist.  As we’re still behind schedule, for the contestant interviews I had all 4 contestants come up together and ask the same questions to each of them.

The Chief Judge and ballot counters did not return with the results after the interviews were done, so I asked for an announcement for the District Conference, which the District Governor made.  Oddly enough, all of District 30 Top 3 were at this contest with the LGET showing up near the end for whatever reason and the LGM serving as a timer, probably the first time I ever seen all Top 3 District 30 officers at a single Area Contest.  Also 3 of the 6 Division Governors were there so I also had each of them promote their Division Contests – in addition to the North Division Governor, the Central South Division Governor was there apparently to promote her candidacy for LGM, plus the Northwest Division Governor who was promoting a big “speech-a-thon” taking place in that division the following Saturday.

And I was done, bringing the Contest Chair back up to finish, though the Chief Judge and ballot counters still haven’t return until a couple of minutes later.  We did finish a few minutes past the planned adjournment, but everyone seemed pleased with the way the contest went and the North 44 Area has some top notch representatives for the North Division Contest on the 29th.

Recently I’ve been reading Linchpin by Seth Godin.  A “linchpin” is someone who is indispensable to an organization, someone who cannot be easily replaced.  There are times in which I did not want to be a linchpin because that means other members not only look up to me for guidance, they expect me to do most if not all of the work while they seem to do nothing but watch.  It’s opposite of what we want to see in Toastmasters in which those who were there before pass the baton to those who are new, letting them grow to be the new Toastmaster leaders.  But once in a while it may be a good thing to be a linchpin, especially if someone I don’t know well thinks highly to the point where he or she trusts me to do something critical the last-minute.

Bruce (or Jinyu as he preferred to be called in the club – see the video below for an explanation) also gave his “My Name” speech as a target speaker the following Fall in the Northwest 3 Area Contest and the Southwest Division Contest (when I was the Division Governor there), and everyone cracked up at most of what he said.  I still remember Sporty King, who was the Toastmaster of the Division Contest, mentioning in jest at the start of the Division Humorous Speech Contest that “Bruce Jin has just entered the Humorous Speech Contest”!

Bruce also used his speech when competing for the Northwest 2 Area International Speech Contest in 2003, representing the Northwest Toastmasters Club in Elk Grove Village, where he lived at that time.  This was a club that all but disappeared from the District 30 map in 2001 as the club hasn’t paid their dues or submitted their officer list.  Both the Division and Area Governor for that club could not reach anyone who served in that club the previous year.  At the XL charter party in the Spring of 2002, as Area Governor I discussed with both the Club President and Bruce after the meeting to go over any possible educational goals that could be achieved for the 2001-2002 Toastmasters year.  Bruce mentioned that he was working on his 2nd CTM award and was giving speeches at his other club.  The District Governor and Lt. Governor of Education & Training were at the charter party and overheard that, so they went straight to Bruce and asked him what other club he belonged to.  Bruce gave them the names and phone numbers of a couple of people from that club who were running it, and all of a sudden the Northwest Toastmasters Club came back from oblivion and started participating in the Area and Division contests.  A week after the charter party I was at the Northwest 2 Area Contest and met the two ladies who stepped up to keep the Northwest club alive.  So in such a very short time Bruce made an impact in District 30!

Bruce and his family moved to Naperville in the Summer of 2003 and with that left the XL club as well as the Northwest club.  Sadly the Northwest club folded for good a couple of years later as the two ladies that were leading that club gave up on it after resisting help from District 30 to boost the membership (I heard they wanted to keep the club small for whatever reason).  I found out through the 2007-2008 District 30 Directory that Bruce resurfaced in Toastmasters with the Saturday Morning Workout club in Naperville.  In the fall of 2008, I heard he came in second in the Southwest Division Humorous Speech Contest and that was when I contacted him for the first time since he left the XL club.  He didn’t give his “My Name” speech but mentioned that had he given that he might have a better chance of winning.

I saw his name on last month’s Fall Conference program as one of the contestants and even put a tweet about not being able to see him give his speech.  After finding out from one of his club members that he was going to give his “My Name” speech (now titled “The Story of My Name”), I knew everyone was going to enjoy the speech and laugh hysterically, perhaps he could even win the contest.  Here is the video of the first part of the District 30 Humorous Speech Contest, with Bruce giving his speech starting at about 38:40:

Here is the second part, with Bruce being interviewed at 23:06, it appears he was representing the Beyond the C’s club, a recently chartered Advanced club that meets in nearby Aurora:

From what I remembered the previous times he gave this speech, he revised and refined it for this contest, thanks to those in his two clubs as well as others who have seen him compete in the previous levels.

The XL club invited him to give that speech at their Open House two weeks ago.  When he joined the XL club eight years ago, he was no different from the others who joined that club.  Now coming full circle by recently revisiting the XL club and having his speech shown online to countless others, he returned as a solid speech contestant known by many in District 30.

• 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.

Time will begin with the first word uttered by the contestant.
However, should the contestant engage in definite verbal or
nonverbal communication with the audience (including the
playing of music or other sound effects, a staged act by
another person, etc.) prior to reaching the speaking position
and uttering the first word of the speech, the timer shall activate
the timing device at that point. If this results in the contestant
going overtime, the contestant will be disqualified.

The green signal will be displayed at five minutes and remain
displayed for one minute. The amber signal will be displayed
at six minutes and remain displayed for one minute. The red
signal will be displayed at seven minutes and remain displayed
until the speech is concluded. No audible device,
such as a buzzer, shall be used for the overtime period.

Please note the top paragraph regarding non-verbal communication, this could also apply to a sign or a PowerPoint slide with something written – the rules can be interpreted to mean that the timing can start even if such material was displayed during the minute of silence and/or prior to the speaker being introduced.

The winner of tonight’s Northwest Division Humorous Speech Contest had his speech title sign up during the minute of silence as the two Sergeant-at-Arms put the sign up on the easel the contestant brought.  As the Chief Timer, based on contest rule 6B, I started timing as the Sergeant-At-Arms left the speaking area and BEFORE the speaker was introduced.  Luckily for the winner, his time came out to be just over six minutes, including the extra time prior to being introduced.  Right after the contest, I told the winner about the rule and suggested that he flip the speech title sign board over to its blank side prior to being introduced at the District 30 Humorous Speech Contest on November 14th.

This was not the first time I dealt with this situation.  When I was Chief Judge for the 2004 Northwest Division Humorous Speech Contest, there was a contestant that set up her PowerPoint presentation to her speech title slide during the minute of silence and prior to her introduction.  A Past International Director was present at the contest and while he was not a timer, had a stopwatch and started timing the speech the moment the speech title was shown.  The contest timers did not start timing until the contestant came up and started talking.  She did meet the time based on that start and came in second place.  The Past International Director informed me that she should have been disqualified because with the additional time prior to her introduction when the starting slide was shown, she would have gone over the maximum allowed speech time.  He pointed out that specific rule, which was the same at that time as it is now, and I agree that she should have been timed earlier.

I learned that lesson at next year’s Northwest Division Humorous Speech Contest when I was the Sergeant-At-Arms and put a contestant’s easel and sign boards on the side prior to the start of the contest.  I told the contestant about this rule and made sure his first sign is covered, he only uncovered it after he started his speech.

I’m sure there are contest officials could interpret this rule differently and may consider a sign board or a PowerPoint slide with any information not part of the “non-verbal communication” listed in the rulebook.  But there are many that disagree.  If you are a Contest Chair, Chief Judge or one of the contest timers, in such a situation go with what can be the “worst-case” scenario and have the timers time a contestant’s speech immediately after that person’s sign board or PowerPoint slide with any information is displayed, regardless of whether the contestant was introduced or not.

One myth I was told about a year after I joined Toastmasters was that the District contest winners CANNOT compete in their respective contests the following year.  The truth is that they can, unless they won both the District International Speech Contest and the World Champion of Public Speaking in which they can’t compete in that contest again.

There was also a recent discussion in the LinkedIn board about taking steps to hide who the contest judges are.  Some people take that very seriously, one past District 30 LGET tried to make Chief Judges at a couple of Division Contests instruct their judges to NOT raise their ballots – personally I thought she was “sweating the small stuff” and was trying to make a mark with her role as she turned out to be very ineffective in any of the Top 3 roles during her time.

Many of these myths and directives are NOT mentioned in the contest rulebook.  I’d be more concerned about whether the rules are being followed or not than dealing with the other stuff.  Of course Contest Chairs and other functionaries should apply common sense and fairness for the contestants when dealing with things not mentioned in the rulebook – especially if it affects contest judging such as displaying contestants’ Toastmaster designation in the program  (which BTW was part of another LinkedIn discussion).

As the Arlington Heights club did not have an Evaluation contest due to no one there stepping up to compete, I volunteer to represent them in the Area Contest as I’d like to give the contest another try – the only other time I competed in that contest was in 2003 and I couldn’t even get past the club contest!  After I volunteered late last month, I had a couple of evaluation opportunities at the North Suburban club this month, including tonight’s club contest (members in more than one club can compete in more than one club contest but only in one Area Contest).  I realized both times that I have one primary problem when giving evaluations – I tend to say some of the same things over again as I worried about not having much to say.  Usually when I write some notes for an evaluation, I’ll put down up to three good points about the speech and up to three areas of improvement.  So during my time giving the evaluation, I ended up repeating some of my comments about what is great about the speech and perhaps repeat an area of improvement.  As a result, the two evaluations took more than three minutes, the first ended up approaching four minutes, which would result in a disqualification if it was a contest.

So my challenges now on giving evaluations would be to state my points about the speech without repeating them and no summarizing the speech apart from the start and end of my evaluations.  Chances are that should be enough to give a two-minute evaluation as I normally don’t speak fast so I should no longer worry about speaking too little.  I have two more opportunities to give evaluations prior to the Area Contest, one next week at Arlington Heights and one the following week at North Suburban, so I can not only be better prepared for the Area Contest but be a better evaluator in general.

Now what if there was a decision made based on facts which resulted in an ENTIRE district going in an uproar?  It just happened recently in District 21 in British Columbia in which the District International Speech Winner was disqualified to compete in the Region I contest.  Why?  Because it turned the speech winner, who was out of Toastmasters for years, returned to her home club on the night of the club contest to rejoin and was asked by her club to compete that night.  What is wrong with that?  At the time of the club contest, the speech winner was not considered a member in good standing with that club because Toastmasters International did not receive that person’s application until after the contest.  The contest rules mentioned it very clearly under Eligibility in page 9:

Be a member in good standing of the club in which he or she is competing.  The club also must be in good standing.  A new, dual, or reinstated member must have dues and membership application current with World Headquarters.

Maintain eligibility at all levels of any contest.  If at any level it is discovered that a contestant was ineligible to compete at any previous level, the contestant must be disqualified even if the ineligibility is not discovered until a later level and has been corrected.

This is similar to what I’ve seen in District 30 as mentioned in an earlier blog entry.  And just like in that entry, the D21 winner was hurt by the decision made after the District Contest.  In this case as she won the contest with a speech that many seemed to both rave and be touched by it (here is her speech at her Division Contest), it appeared everyone in District 21 is up in arms.  Both the D21 conference website and Facebook group page, members took their anger at WHQ believing that yes there was a mistake but it was not the contestant’s fault at all and should be given the chance to compete at the Regional Contest.  One went as far as saying in the Facebook group: “This is yet another example of TMI turning into another faceless corporate entity and the new Governance Model that they are unveiling will further erode the voice of the individual members.”

Unfortunately the members of District 21 based their comments on emotions rather than facts.  They’ve seen someone who deservedly won their District Speech Contest and now with that winner cannot continue, they felt they were unfairly screwed.  Those outside of D21, even those who have seen firsthand similar disqualification stories, looked at it through facts such as the discussion in the ToastmastersPrime Google group.  It was something that could have been prevented at any level, whether it was the contestant, the Club Contest Chair, the Area Contest Chair, the Division Contest Chair, the District Contest Chair, but perhaps they either were not aware of the rules or misinterpret them.  Perhaps because the contestant was returning to TM, the contest chairs and others in D21 only thought of encouraging her to go on as she’s been through a lot in her life.  We could easily blame any of them for not doing their jobs.

Rather than pointing fingers, I think we should let the folks in District 21 accept that something bad had taken place that could have been avoided and look at what they could do in the future to not let this happen again.  And I hope these folks will put aside their emotions and learn the facts that cause this unfortunate situation to happen, hopefully before their Fall Contests start.  It is a lesson to be learned for not just District 21, but for every member and officer in Toastmasters.

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.