Category: Division B

Warning on Spam/Grift

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

Hello, fellow Toastmasters!

District 53 would like you to know that we’ve had a spate of both spam and phishing attacks on members and on District officers. The messages purport to come from District Director Patti Walter, DTM, asking you to buy gift cards to prominent businesses, and then to text or email the activation codes to a phone number or email.

NONE OF THESE EMAILS ARE AUTHORIZED.
DO NOT BUY GIFT CARDS ON THE DISTRICT’S BEHALF.

The District’s finances are governed by the Toastmasters Governing Documents, and specifically Protocol 8.4: District Fiscal Management. Part of those rules says,

Expenses that are essentially personal gifts must provide no more than “incidental private benefit” and must have a reasonable relationship to activities that directly support the mission. Examples are tokens of appreciation, expressions of sympathy and modest incentives. These items are appropriate if they promote goodwill and a positive atmosphere for the delivery of the Toastmasters program, but must never be lavish or excessive. Cash and cash equivalents, including but not limited to non-Toastmasters gift certificates, gift cards, or any other stored-value products, are not permitted.

Protocol 8.4.8 – District Fiscal Management, Other District Expenses

In other words, the District cannot own or purchase gift certificates from organizations or companies other than Toastmasters International’s own internal store; and we cannot reimburse members, even District officers, who purchase such cards.

We strongly advise clubs to make their members aware of these rules, so that they are not victimized by this kind of predatory scam.

July 24 from your District Director

Posted on | by Webmaster

Hello members!

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 paid before 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.

Keep Speaking!!!  

Patti Walter, DTM
District Director 2023-2024

Proxy Assignment

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

There are several steps to casting votes at the Annual Business Meeting. It is your role to ensure the completion of Step 1 by August 11 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)/Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) -4:

Step 1: Assign Proxy for your Club

Hold a Business Meeting: The club should meet to discuss the international candidates and to choose a proxyholder.

To learn and understand the roles, attributes, and responsibilities of International Officers and Directors, please review the leadership roles. Learn more about the International Officer and Director Candidates.
Your club’s proxyholder must be able to attend the Annual Business Meeting, either online or onsite, on August 18, at 7 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)/Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) -4.
The Club President or Secretary designates the proxyholder through the Toastmasters International website.

  • A proxyholder must be designated, even if the Club President or Secretary is assigning the proxy to themself.
  • Only one person may carry the votes for your club.
  • Once your club has chosen the proxyholder, follow the instructions below:
  • Log into www.toastmasters.org with your member ID/email and password.
  • Scroll to the Annual Business Meeting section on My Home (directly below the My Education and Achievements section).
  • Click on “Club Proxy & Voting Instructions.”
  • If you are an officer in multiple clubs, select the club(s) for which you are assigning the proxy.
  • Click on the Start button next to “Designate Proxyholder.”
  • Select from the three options for designating a proxyholder: A member of the club, the 2023-2024 District Director, or another active Toastmaster.
  • Follow the prompts to complete the process. To submit your proxyholder designation, enter your name into the Signature box, click the checkbox, and press “Confirm proxyholder.”
  • If your club wants to use the option to provide instructions to the proxyholder, click on Go to “Designate Voting Instructions”. Voting instructions can also be provided at a later time from “Club Proxy & Voting Instructions.”
  • Once your club’s proxy is assigned, please advise the proxyholder they will receive a communication on how to complete Step 2: Credentials. Credentials/the acceptance period starts on August 12.

If your club is the home to the Club Growth Director, or Program Quality Director, or another District officer who will be attending the meeting, consider assigning the proxy to them so they get the practice at exercising that responsibility.

If the officers in your club have changed, please notify World Headquarters immediately by going to the Club Officer Assignment section of Club Central on the Toastmasters International website. You can also email the changes to clubofficers@toastmasters.org or call the Club Quality and Member Support Department at +1 720-439-5050.

For questions or additional information, please email proxyinfo@toastmasters.org or visit the Annual Business Meeting page of the Toastmasters International website.

Please plan to attend the Annual Business Meeting, either onsite or online, on Friday, August 18, at 7 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)/Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) -4. Please note, due to legal requirements, there will be no 24-hour voting period. Voting for each election will be opened, closed, and tallied before proceeding to the ballot for the next election, so be sure to attend from the start.

Happy New Year!

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

Greetings to Division B Officers and Members,

I am delighted to serve as your Division Director during the 2023-2024 Toastmasters year! As a brief introduction, I have been a Toastmasters since 2016 at Mystic Aquarium Toastmasters Club and completed Competent Communicator (CC) and Competent Leader (CL) manuals. During my Toastmasters journey, I have served as an Area Director for two years, in addition to serving as the President, VPE, VPM and Secretary at Mystic Aquarium Toastmasters club. I have also competed in speech evaluation and table topics contests. I have multiple years of experience in advancing the club performance, mentoring members to achieve their goals, and planning, organization and execution of club and area level speech contests. I believe these experiences helped me to gain the skills to effectively communicate with other leaders and officers in the district to help with their needs and to provide resources in order to achieve high-performance among clubs.

Given that the District’s mission is to build new clubs and support all clubs in achieving excellence, the major objectives in my opinion are to help existing clubs achieve Distinguished status at minimum by meeting their educational and administrative goals, and to facilitate building new clubs if opportunity exists. In order to help existing clubs, I would make sure area directors and club officers are appropriately trained while working to provide support and resources to clubs through area directors. For that purpose, I would meet with area directors on a regular basis to follow the progress of clubs and to address any concerns and issues. I believe that the biggest challenges in achieving the Distinguished club status are the lack of progress in Pathways and inability to retain and/or increase membership numbers, so I would first focus on these areas using the strategies I learned.

I am very much looking forward to working with you this year! Please do not hesitate to reach out to me at divbdir@d53tm.org.

All the best,
Ebru Unal, CC CL
Division B Director 2023-2024

Happy New Year from District 53!

Posted on | by Webmaster

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, District Director 2023-2024
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

Summer 2023 Club Officer Training Announced!

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

Program Quality Director Bettyann Peck, DTM invites you to Summer Club Officer Training (COT)!

All District 53 COT events are online!

Please see more information and register at  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/D53COT-Registration

This year we have adjusted the training to be more flexible. There will be 3 classes that each officer must take.  The first is on your specific club officer role, the second is on Club Success Planning and the third is an elective that you can choose from available options on the day you attend.
To provide you with as much scheduling flexibility as possible, some sessions offer all classes and other sessions only have one of the three required classes.  You can take all three classes on the same day or on different days to satisfy the 3-class requirement.

DateClass 1: Officer RolesClass 2: Success PlanningClass 3: Electives
06/12/2312:00 pm
06/14/233:00 pm 4:00 pm 5:00 pm
06/15/236:00 pm7:00 pm8:00 pm
06/17/239:00 am10:00 am11:00 am
06/20/2312:00 pm
06/21/236:00 pm7:00 pm8:00 pm
06/28/236:00 pm7:00 pm8:00 pm
06/29/2312:00 pm
07/13/2312:00 pm
07/15/239:00 am10:00 am11:00 am
07/17/236:00 pm 7:00 pm8:00 pm
07/19/2312:00 pm
07/22/239:00 am10:00 am11:00 am
07/24/2312:00 pm

Register at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/D53COT-Registration

Goal 9 of the Distinguished Club Program is to get 4 or more officers trained each 6 months. But we are asking that each club set a goal to get all officers trained. Research has shown that clubs with all officers trained are much more successful. 

From the PQD – 22 May 2023

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

D53 had its first successful hybrid conference.  SPRINGBOARD to Success. What a great weekend! If you were not able to join us, let me recap what we did.

After a continental breakfast at the Springfield Sheraton — Monarch Place hotel on Saturday 6 May 2023, we jumped right in with our Keynote Speaker Joe Grondin. Joe spoke about developing our signature: how do you develop your own unique voice and presentation style?

Our members then were able to choose one of our three great breakout sessions to attend. Thank your Mary Cheyne, Ann Canfield and Heather LaPierre for your great sessions. 

We continued after our breakout with our tall tale contest. Boy do we have members who can tell some tales.  Our D53 Tall Tales Winners were:

  1. Christine Austin
  2. Poonam Hassija
  3. Kevin Haven

Then at lunch we presented our Communication and Leadership Award to Patricia Nicolari, founder and executive director of PROUD Academy.  Patricia spoke about the work that she does with passion and conviction, demonstrating again why she deserved our recognition and honor.

After lunch we continued on with our second set of breakout session. Again we had great sessions from Heather Turner, Steve Lanning and Stephanie Roy.  Thank you all.

After a break, Joe Grondin returned to the stage as he talked to us about Mrs. Elliot’s  Lessons. Joe shared with us the four leadership lessons his favorite teacher taught him at a time he needed it most.   Joe also shared some great memories he had with his students and family.  Both his sessions were educational, relatable and entertaining.

We concluded the afternoon session with the hall of fame awards for both the 2022-2023 and 2021-2022 program years. Congratulations to the following recipients of the awards for 2021-2022

  • Division Director of the Year Beth Van Kempen
  • Area Director of the Year Elizabeth Keeling
  • Toastmaster of the Year Jackie Kessler

We also announce the 2022-2023 award winners. They are:

  • Division Director of the Year Chad Babcock
  • Area Director of the Year Stephanie Roy
  • Toastmaster of the Year  Elizabeth Keeling

At the conclusion of the Hall of Fame, our International Director for Region 9, who represents us to the Toastmasters Board, Jeff Sobel DTM, swore into office the following District 53 officers for the 2023-2024 Toastmasters International program year:

  • Patti Walter, DTM  — District Director
  • Bettyann Peck, DTM — Program Quality Director
  • Mohan Padamati, DTM — Club Growth Director
  • Stephanie Roy — Division A Director
  • Ebru Unal — Division B Director
  • Selina Torjee — Division C Director
  • Mark Wing — Division D Director
  • Elizabeth Keeling — Division E Director

Congratulations to all!

A happy hour followed, then a wonderful dinner.  Our after-dinner entertainment was brought to you by our Division International Speech Contest Winners, as they competed for the title of District 53’s International Speech Contest championship.   These five came to the contest ready to go! Congratulations to all our contestants at club, Area, Division, and District levels.

Our winners were:

  1. Michael Whitehouse
  2. Donna Plen
  3. Craig Moore

We concluded on Sunday with a warm breakfast, out of this park networking and a final keynote from Joe,  who left us all dancing in our chairs.

You might be saying, “Oh, I missed you all!” Don’t worry… we were having to much fun to notice you weren’t there. But you can join us in May 2024, when the next amazing conference rolls around! Buy your ticket in February, and I’ll see you there!

In the meantime please join us for some officer training coming up in June and July, or join us for Train the Trainer sessions if you’d like to be a facilitator this year.  Psst— you don’t need to be an officer to go to training!  It is open to all.  

Yours in Toastmasters service,
Patti Walter, DTM —
Program Quality Director, 2022-2023

Train the Trainers Events

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

District Program Quality Director Patti Walter, DTM, is pleased to announce trainings for interested persons who would like to help facilitate the Club Officer Training sessions during the June to August 2023 training season — Train the Trainers!

The Train the Trainers sessions, for people willing to be facilitators for the Club Officer Trainings in June, July and August 2023, will take place on:

  • May 25, 2023 at 6:30 pm (Zoom link below)
  • May 30, 2023 at 6:30 pm (Zoom link below)

Facilitators…

  • give keynote addressess
  • lead conversations on officer roles in the club
  • facilitate sharing between people new to roles and old hands
  • guide and direct new club officers in their duties
  • help draw wisdom and experience from those who’ve done this role before

The skills you learn as a facilitator include…

  • Giving a presentation from an outline and script you did not create;
  • learning to make a canned presentation your own
  • managing time in an hour-long presentation
  • managing an audience which isn’t just your club’s members

As a facilitator, or a facilitator-in-training, you also…

  • make contacts beyond your own club
  • learn to hear from a diversity of voices
  • learn to summarize and synthesize a range of opinions quickly
  • learn your own role in the club from other Toastmasters in different situations

Join an upcoming Train the Trainer session, and contribute to your club, Area, Division and District’s success!

Topic: Train the Trainer
Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime

Join Zoom Meeting

Region 9 Presents: 3 Secrets of Leadership Success

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

District 53 Toastmasters is part of Region 9, a collection of Toastmasters Districts in the northeast US, Quebec, Ontario, and maritime Canada. Join Region 9’s Advisor Patricia O’Reilly for a great day of leadership training, inspirational messages and powerful exercises to help you become a better leader.

Saturday 13 May 2023

9:30am-12:30 pm ET / 2:30 pm – 5:30 pm GMT +1

Hear Great Ideas!

Past International President Ted Corcoran presents Skills of Servant Leadership — Learn how high levels of emotional intelligence and servant leadership go hand in hand. Learn how to get our team members on our bus, and going to the same destination.

Past International President Jim Kokocki presents Situational Leadership — Learn how to enable leaders to assess team member readiness and support them appropriately for their specific needs. Learn how to respond to a member’s “task maturity” to enable them to perform better.

Past International Director Monique Levesque-Pharoah presents Manage Conflict Before It Manages You — Learn how to facilitate honest and respectful discussion to resolve conflict and improve working relationships using the Interaction Model tool. Learn how to become more aware of the background biography and context of others on your team or overseeing your leadership.

Join Amazing Leaders!

Poster for the Region 9 Toastmasters "Final Three Secrets; for leadership success"

Region 9 Advisor Patricia O’Reilly invites you to join her for an amazing afternoon of leadership training with prominent Toastmasters from around the world.  Join her and

  •  Past International President Ted Corcoran
  • Past International President Jim Kocoki
  • Past International Director Monique Levesque-Pharaoh

with presentations on the Skills of Servant Leadership, the values of Situational Leadership, and the importance of Managing Conflict Before It Manages You!

Presentations will run from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm ET / 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm GMT + 1 on Saturday, May 13, 2023.

Register to join these amazing online sessions!