Lessons Learned

District 30′s own Mike Raffety, who just finished his term as International Director from Region V, reactivated his website earlier this month as he is making a run for Second Vice President of Toastmasters International for the 2011-2012 year.  As International Director, he was told by TI two years ago to deactivate his website as [...]

So with another long absence from updating my blog and a new Toastmasters year starting, here is another Toastmasters update including a few of my plans at the start of the new year: For the first time in my 11 years in Toastmasters I don’t have any formal responsibilities as I’m no longer a club [...]

Well Proposal A did pass with the required 2/3 majority.  As we move on to make the new International structure work, I noticed during my Saturday visit to the Convention a few things that perhaps Toastmasters International should look at for future conventions for their plans to be a success: Location – Probably the most [...]

After paying attention to the issues surrounding Proposal A the last five months and commenting them on LinkedIn and my Facebook page, I’m sure you want my opinion of this.  I’ve been reading both the pros and cons of the issue, hearing from those who have criticize the proposal as well as those from Toastmasters [...]

The debate regarding Proposal A and other recent issues from Toastmasters International rages on, in particular on the LinkedIn Toastmasters International Members group, which even had two International Directors actively participating.  For the most part, the debate was very civil and those who have issues with the proposed changes came away with a lot more [...]

I did attend the Friday night and Saturday night portions of the District 30 Spring Conference held this past weekend.  During the day on Saturday, I was at Broken Arrow in Lockport playing a round in my singles golf group, with no plans of finding out who won the D30 elections that morning until I [...]

A few weeks ago, I spoke on the phone for a half an hour with one of the Region V International Directors regarding the recent TI report that they are considering eliminating the Regional Conferences after this year.  This issue raised my attention as it was a hot topic in both the ToastmasterPrime Google group [...]

For a while, I’ve resigned to the likely possibility that District 30′s Lt. Governor of Marketing Blagojevich (not his last name, but no different from the ousted Illinois Governor in many ways – appearance, style and even ethics) will be the District 30 Governor in two years.  I was looking at some options in the [...]

One of the most understandable reasons why people leave Toastmasters is that they felt they accomplish what they wanted from the organization and no longer see a need to go further.  Perhaps by attending and participating in a few meetings they felt they conquered their fear of public speaking.  Perhaps getting a Competent Communicator, Advanced [...]