If you ask me, however, if I want to run in a contested race, the answer would be a big, fat, solid NO!  It was not because I don’t really want to match my candidacy against others, or afraid to lose if I ran.  It had to do with my experience dealing with a contested race in my home club 8 years ago which at times I remained scarred by it to this day.

During my first term as Club President, there were two ladies that wanted to run to succeed me in that office.  The first person to display her interest, and display it very publicly, was someone who had not held an officer position.  For whatever reason, she seemed to want to take the top club post rather than starting off at a lower position and work her way up.  The second person was the club’s Sergeant-At-Arms.  I considered both candidates “less than desirable”, the former having no experience and no interest dealing with club matters or getting involved outside the club, the latter being at times absent-minded.  Neither of them was willing to move to a lower position to avoid a contested race.

I got the feeling from a few longer-serving members that this was going to be a very ugly race.  As the Club President presiding over the club officer elections, I tried to make the effort on having this as fair as possible.  When the elections took place, I thought I read everything about presiding over the elections from the Club President manual, but it turned out I didn’t and ended up winging it to the best I could.  At the end the SAA won the election for Club President and the runner-up became our VP of Education as it was an open position due to the other officers not wanting her to be left out if she did not win as she threatened to leave the club if she ended up empty-handed.

Well the runner-up did not take the defeat well and e-mailed me a laundry list of complaints the next day about the election.  Three of them I still remembered in particular.  One was that I had her speak about her candidacy first, she didn’t think it was right for her to come up.  At the election, I had her speak first because she was the first to be nominated.  Actually it was supposed to be by last name first, which would not change the order anyway.

The second complaint was that if she was speaking first, her opponent must leave the room while she speaks, claiming that this is no different from the Evaluation or Table Topics contest.  I replied that it doesn’t happen in any election, from the President of the United States all the way down to Student Council President.  Her reply to that was “it’s different because it is Toastmasters!”

The third complaint was basically accusing me of fixing the election.  That was when I blew a fuse and replied she was “damn wrong” that I fixed it and tried very hard to make this fair.  Obviously she was only interested in what she wanted to hear and refused to accept anything otherwise and told me she was leaving the club.  I sent her an apology, she refused not once but twice the following day!  I had a special officers meeting to try to do damage control and asked the other officers for help.

She was willing to stay, however she seemed set to find ways to make me look bad.  The last month of my term, she complained to me three times in one morning that I replaced her on a meeting agenda for Grammarian and AH Counter as mentioned in our club newsletter.  I never signed up for that, it was assigned to me to fill up the meeting agenda.  The newsletter editor mentioned that no one initally signed up for the roles.  The final straw was the month after when the new officers were supposed to start their terms.  The first July meeting the new Club President was going to be out-of-town and I offered to preside over the meeting, then I forgot that the VP Education was suppose to preside.  I asked her if she could take the role and allow me some time to go over the Distinguished Club Program.  She was bent out-of-shape again as she accused me of being heavy-handed and again accused me of fixing the election.  I was willing to reach out to her, accept responsibility and apologize for my handling, but her personal attacks against me led me to get help from the other officers, basically telling them “she goes or I go”.  One of the officers tried to resolve the issue but it was too late, the lady who had not yet hold a club officer role decided to storm out of the club, never serving as one.

I never felt vindicated from this mess.  Even though none of the officers or members scolded me for what happened, only that I could have responded differently, I also had the feeling that I’ve lost some of their respect and my credibility would always remained in question.  As I started my role as Area Governor, I was driven to get more involved beyond the club as a way to forget about what happened.

A year later, I enjoyed my Area Governor role so much that I wanted to run for Northwest Division Governor.  I asked the Division Governor if the other Northwest Area Governors were planning to run, he replied that it was unlikely and encouraged me to go ahead and file my paperwork.  However, the District Governor mentioned to me a couple of times that a past Division Governor, Carole Schwartz, wanted to run for that post.  At the Nominating Committee meeting, Carole was there to run for Northwest Division Governor.  Still stung by what happened the previous year, I was left wondering if I should continue my run, see if there was an open Division Governor position available, or drop out of the race.  When my turn came up to present myself to the committee, I was fumbling along with my candidate statement and answering their questions.  Probably the only question I answered very easily is if I was willing to run for another Division Governor spot, which I replied with a resounding yes.

It turned out that no one filed to run for Southwest Division Governor, which at that time covered most of DuPage County, just south of where I live.  The Nominating Committee Chair, Deb Churan, called me later that night and asked me to run for that post.  I immediately replied yes, which probably surprised her as she was planning to talk me into running for that post as she held that position years before despite living in Crystal Lake and, like me, had no connections to the Southwest Division.  I told Deb that since the opportunity was there I should take advantage of it.  If it wasn’t there, I would be happy not to run and get back to being a “plain old Toastmaster”.

So Carole ran for Northwest Division Governor unopposed while I ran for Southwest Division Governor unopposed – at that time Division Governors in District 30 ran for individual divisions rather than at-large which will be the case in the upcoming election and for the previous two years.  The reason why Carole ran that year was that the incoming District 30 Governor, Earl Bateman, was one of her Area Governors the previous time she held the post.  That time Carole was hit with breast cancer while Earl and her other Area Governors stepped up and helped her out, so Carole wanted to return the favor.  We both got elected and it turned out to be a good thing – Carole earned Division Governor of the Year, while I learned more about the Southwest Division clubs and its members, gaining many friends who I’m still in touch with to this day.

While I wished I could have gone back and rewrote what happened with the contested race for Club President, it provided valuable lessons for me to learn along the way.  While I hope the contested races this year bring out the best in District 30 and Toastmasters International, if you ask me to run against someone, I could reply to let that someone have that job as I don’t need it and the possible aggravation that comes with pursuing it.