We have some updates on District officer assignments.
I have received notification from John J. Hogan, DTM that he has to step back as the chair of the District Leadership Committee (DLC), although he will remain as Immediate Past District Director. I have appointed Andrew B. Watt DTM, Past District Director 2020-2021, to lead the DLC until such time as John may or may not resume his duties. Both the resignation and the appointment take effect as of 9 February 2024 at 3:00 pm Eastern Time, to maintain the DLC’s continuity. Please forward all paperwork for the nominations process to Andrew B. Watt at nomination@d53tm.org from this point forward — Nominations are due by February 15, this week! John can be reached separately at ipdd@d53tm.org, although we ask you not to present him with any non-urgent communications at this time.
I’m also pleased to report that Kate Scarcella CL EC3, has been appointed as District 53’s Club Extension Chair, one of the committees under Club Growth. More information will be forthcoming about her role in the near future. If you know of a possible club location, or would be interested in helping organize new clubs in District 53, please contact Kate at ClubExtChair@d53tm.org.
In Toastmasters service, Patti Walter, DTM District Director 2023-2024
Can you believe that it is February already? I hope that the New Year is treating you all well… but this is a busy time of year for everyone, and Toastmasters is no exception!
Our second round of Officer Training is just about to wrap up: If you haven’t attended you can join us on 19 February 2024. If you are an officer, please make attempt to attend a training. It is proven clubs are more successful when their officers attend training. You do not need to be an officer to join us. These sessions are open to all.
Speaking of training… your District trio — Bettyann Peck, Mohan Padamati, and I — attended District Leaders Training the last weekend in January in Dallas, TX! We spent all day Saturday and Sunday working together, and with others across the world, strategizing to have a successful second half of the year! We brainstormed about membership retention, new members, hybrid meetings and business meetings. We had discussions around accountability and reviewed our plans to help YOU achieve success. We even had a snowball fight! I am including a few pictures of our weekend. See if you can find your leaders in the group picture.
Many District leaders from around the United States, together in one roomBettyann Peck, Mohan Padamati, Patti Walter in Dallas, TXDistrict Trio with Stefano McGee (ID for region 9), Radhi Spear (International President-Elect), Lynda Starr (Region 9 Advisor)
On top of coordinating training, your PQD Bettyann Peck is working with David Freedman and Richard Peck to bring you a great Annual Conference in May. “Breaking Barriers”. We are fortunate to have Accredited Speaker Sheryl Roush DTM, as our keynote speaker!
All of our Club and Area Level Contests are now over. My thanks to our Area Directors who did a great job recruiting functionaries and judges; a number of people applied their participation in these events toward completion of Pathways goals, too! In all, twenty-three Areas held live, in-person contests, sometimes in conjunction with other Areas — What a great feat! This has not happened since January 2019, before COVID. You can find Area Contest results posted here.
The next step is our Division Contests. Our Division Directors have found facilities to hold their division contests, and a schedule is available here. I hope that you will be able to attend one or two of them. We have some great speakers in our district; I am sure they would love your support. Also, there are many judge and functionary roles that still need to be filled out. Contact your Division Director through their pages (A – B – C – D – E) for more information.
A special thank you to our Chief Judge, Beth VanKempen who has been diligently review all material and ensuring that our Area and District Directors had the proper scripts and paperwork available. Thanks Beth, we appreciate all the time you put into this position.
Our CGD, Mohan Padamati is also busy creating a great team of people to support him with establishing new clubs, and club coaching.
I also would like to take a minute to thank some of your other district team on a great job that they are doing. Eleni Solar has taken on the challenge of being Audit Committee chair. She is working with her team and our District Finance Manager Glendalys Ramos to make sure our finances are all in tack. Our Technical Team, consisting of Public Relations Manager Zachary Fisk and webmaster Andrew B. Watt DTM, work daily to make sure you as members are informed of what is going on in our district and all around us. Thank you Zach for updating the newsletter and for keeping it and our Facebook site up-to-date. Andrew thank you for you quick turnaround to get things posted on the website and also keeping the pages looking fresh.
My special thanks go out to to Immediate Past District Director John J. Hogan DTM for creating and leading the District Leadership Committee by looking for and interviewing candidates to serve as elected district officers for 2024-2025. for next year. It is not to late for anyone who is thinking of taking a leadership position to apply. Is this your next hardest thing??? Information on this can be found here, or reach out to John if you have any questions.
I have always said it takes a village and we have a very special villager, that keeps the Sr. Team on point. He makes sure all our deadlines are met; he does all the pre-work to get our business meetings running smoothly; and he also assists with every district Zoom meeting we have: Norm Thibodeau DTM , thank you for your countless hours you donate to help us all.
The team is looking forward to ending the season strong. Reach out if we can assist you in any way.
Most Sincerely, Patti Walter DTM District Director 2023-2024
I am writing to let you know that District 53 is partnering with Toastmasters International by participating in a global marketing campaign.
This campaign will begin on 8 January 2024 and run for 90 days until 7 April 2024. It will consist of using brand recognition advertising on LinkedIn to educate prospective members about Toastmasters. In order for this to be successful we need everyone’s assistance. Here is how.
Please check your Find A Club information at Toastmaster International and make sure all the information is correct
Respond to all inquiries within 48 hours. If you are a restricted club and unable to take this lead please forward to me at dd@d53tm.org. This is the most important part as it can make or break the success of the campaign
If you receive the ad in your LinkedIn account please pass it on, and pass it on again and pass it on even one more time. The more hits we get the better our chances at a success rate.
One of the benefits of this campaign is that I am able to receive reports on how we are doing. This gives us the opportunity to maintain an open discussion on campaign progress.
I am including resources to assist you with this campaign.
The Global Advertising Campaign—2024 Webinar recording to learn the objectives, user journey, campaign goals, and new ads that will be running in your District. The best practices learned will also be highlighted.
The Prospective Member Conversion Guide. This valuable resource will help guide clubs to converting prospective members to members, contributing to the growth of your clubs.
I’m sorry to inform you that the scammers are back. They are again attempting to connect you, your email and your cellphone number to go after your bank accounts or other sources of funds.
Patti Walter, DTM District Director ’23-’24
In the current scam, someone emails you and asks you if you’re available for a quick call… email me back and confirm your cellphone number, please? This email comes to you with my name on the bottom of the email, and if you’re not careful about double-checking the email address, you’ll think it really is from me. These emails have targeted club officers and district officers alike — be alert to these and other scams, and maybe watch Joe Audet’s presentation on common types of internet scams!
Fortunately, there is some positive news.
This year’s District Chief Judge Beth Van Kempen is available to answer all your questions about this year’s speech contest season, and how to run the Evaluation contest and the International Speech contest. You can watch her presentation on running contests as well, to help get you up to speed.
As you may or may not have heard there was a phishing attempt made against me that affected the senior team.
Patti Walter, District Director
Someone posed as me from two outside email accounts and asked the leaders to respond when it was a good time to chat. If they responded to the email they were asked to go and purchase gift cards for a secret recognition program. Once I was notified of this senior team members were notified to not respond and delete the emails. We thought that was the end of it.
A few days later some of our clubs’ executive committee members received the same email this time with the hackers posing as the club’s president. The emails appeared to be coming from them through Free Toast Host. We have notified them of this. To date we are not aware of any one purchasing any tickets. We took these attempts very seriously and made attempts to contact all club presidents so that they could share with their members.
We are not stopping there. District 53 will be holding a Cyber Security Fraud Workshop on Wed. Oct 4th from 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm. The link to the meeting can be found on the district 53 Website on the front page under Recognizing Cyber Fraud Workshop.
You can never be too safe.
Let me also remind you that the International Dues deadline is fast approaching on September 30, 2023.
We are almost one month in, and time is going by so fast. Your Senior Team has been busy interviewing candidates, preparing for training, creating success plans and revising our annual budget.
Just like we have asked our officers to attend training, your District team will also be attending training in the upcoming month. Our team of Area Directors and Division Directors will be attending a four hour session in August, and your District Trio will be attending a two-day session in August just before the Toastmasters International Convention in Nassau in the Bahamas! The District Trio are there to attending the Annual Business Meeting on your behalf. At this meeting voting will occur electing ten new members to join the International Board of Directors, and the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors. Your district officers have interviewed all candidates and are ready to share what we have learned with you on August 2 and 3 at 8 pm. You can find the link on our district calendar.
We are not the only ones who get to vote. Each club has 2 votes in this election. Clubs have responsibility to either attend the Annual Business meeting and vote, or proxy their votes to the District Director. We will talk about how to do this on August 2 and August 3. Information on this process can also be found at https://d53tm.org/proxy-assignment/. Reminder the last date to assign proxies in August 11th.
Also remember that members’ international dues are $45 for the October 2023 to March 2024 period — when paidbefore July 31, 2023. After that time, dues rise to $60 per six months. Encourage your club’s members to pay early, and help them use the new self-pay feature (if your club has voted for it) to do so quickly and easily.
I can’t wait to share with you what we learned during our August training. I hope you are enjoying your summer.
Happy New Year District 53 members…actually Happy Toastmaster New Year. My name is Patti Walter and I am your new District Director. First, I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity.
Patti Walter, DTM District Director 2023-2024
I would like to take a moment to introduce your new district team. I have been a Toastmaster since May of 2013. I have also been your Program Quality Director, Club Growth Director, Division Director, and Area Director for 2 terms. I reside in Ludlow, Massachusetts, and I am a recent retired Learning and Development Consultant. I enjoy spending time with my children and six grandchildren.
Our Program Quality Director this year is Bettyann Peck, DTM. Bettyann was previously our Club Growth Director and Public Relations Manager.
New to the trio, in the position of Club Growth Director is Mohan Padamati DTM. Mohan was our previous Public Relations Manager, and a prior Division D Director and Area Director before that.
Zachary Fisk will be joining us as the new Public Relations Manager. Zachary also has been a Division Director. Administration and Registration manager Norm Thibodeau. Also on our team is Webmaster Andrew Watt. We are still recruiting for Finance Manager and Executive Secretary. Please feel free to let me know if you are interested in either position.
I am so grateful that these members have stepped up to assist with running District 53 this year!
I want to conclude by sharing a little bit about my goals this year. First, I want to make sure the District grows! I hope to see that we are in a better place on 30 June 2024 then we were on 1 July 2023. I want to continue to get out to the clubs and see what we as a district can do better. I want our members to understand what our district does and the enormous number of opportunities that are out there for our members to grow as communicator and leaders. I have said in the past that it takes a village.
The District Team cannot do it by themselves. We are always looking for new people to step up and assist in and share their idea. Please reach out if you have questions or idea. Finally, I am open to visiting clubs, attending open houses, giving speeches or provide an ear for concerns. Reach out to me at dd@d53tm.org. Let’s become distinguished together this year. Together we can do this.
In your service, Patti Walter, DTM District Director 2023-2024
