Tag: Bettyann Peck

First Summer 2024 Club Officer Trainings announced

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

Program Quality Directors Bettyann Peck (2023-2024), and Mohan Padamati (2024-2025) invite you to Summer Club Officer Training (COT)!

All District 53 COT events are online via Zoom!

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

Summer Club Officer Training is targeted for incoming club officers for the 2024-2025 program year, but all club members are welcome to attend.

The June COT dates have been scheduled, as listed below.  July and August dates will be announced soon.

Join Us for the District 53 Toastmasters Annual Conference – May 10-11!

Posted on | by Zachary Fisk

Dear Fellow District 53 Toastmaster,

As Program Quality Director for District 53, I’d like to extend a personal invitation for you to attend this year’s District 53 Toastmasters Annual Conference on May 10-11 at the Heritage Inn & Conference Center in Southbury, CT. The Conference Committee has put together an amazing program and the theme “Breaking Barriers” is something we can all relate to, whether it is a barrier in the way we network with others or a barrier to our own personal growth.

You will have the opportunity to experience two special workshops with a world-class Toastmaster and Accredited Speaker, Sheryl Roush. Her engaging, heart-centered keynote message will make you feel re-energized and inspire you even beyond your Toastmasters journey.

There will also be two additional morning breakout sessions led by outstanding District 53 Toastmasters. These interactive sessions will provide great tips on how to take your presentations to the next level as well as more advanced and cutting-edge topics. Plus, celebrate this year’s Communication & Leadership Award winner Alisa Klein with an all-inclusive luncheon. We close the conference with the fourth level of competition in the International Speech Contest – come see some of the best speakers in the District!

As Cathy K., a 2023 conference attendee, said “At first, I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend a whole day, traveling to another state for the District conference but I’m SO glad I did! It gave me an opportunity to enhance my Toastmasters experience, and meet cool, new people, and I was blown away by the speech contest participants. It was a fun day- well worth it!”

Ticket prices go up on April 27th to the At Door rate, so please register to join us for this exciting opportunity to meet new people and invest in your own personal and professional development. Looking forward to seeing you there! There is a club rate, three or more people from the same club get a 10% rebate. Bring your fellow members and share this experience!

Additionally, don’t miss out on the FREE Friday night District Evaluation Speech Contest and socializing gathering on, May 10th at 7 pm. Click here for directions. 

Yours in Toastmasters Service,

Bettyann Peck, DTM
Program Quality Director 2023-2024

Toastmasters District 53 | Region 9
Serving Connecticut, Western Massachusetts, and Eastern New York
“We build new clubs and support all clubs in achieving excellence”

Club Officer Training Ends 2/29/2024!

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

Hello Fellow Toastmasters!

Club Officer Training ends soon — 2/29/2024!

While District 53’s offerings are now over, there are upcoming COT sessions from across the world that remain in order for anyone needing this Club Officer Training before the Feb. 29th deadline. This is part of Goal #9 in the Distinguished Club Program (DCP) to recognize clubs of excellence — and we’d love to see your club achieve that distinction.

It will take communication, a little bit of time, and maybe even a telephone call or two, but if your clubs are not seven-of-seven officers trained, please encourage each untrained officer to attend one of these sessions!!    Trained officers make stronger clubs, stronger areas, stronger divisions, and a stronger district, which makes Toastmasters a better place for every member!  4/7 trained should be an absolute minimum — and you can check which officers are trained in your club!

Please remind officers that, if they are going to attend another district’s COT, to have them fill out the survey with the details of the club officer’s name, club, division, and role and date trained.

Yours in Toastmasters service,
Bettyann Peck, DTM
District 53 Program Quality Director 2023-2024

Winter 2023-24 Training Dates Announced!

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

Link to Registration: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/D53COT-Registration

Club Officer Training (Winter Season) has started and will conclude at the end of February. Several sessions have been scheduled throughout the period for your convenience. District 53 has recruited a great selection of officers from high-performance clubs to facilitate and guide your workshop sessions this year. In your sessions you’ll…

  • Attend a breakout session based on your officer role.
  • Experience quality time with other officers in the same role, sharing strategies that work.
  • Work with diverse officers in many roles across the district to get proven tactics for membership, club quality, contest programs, open houses, and other club operations.
  • Attend at least 80% (120 minutes) of any 2.5 hour session to receive training credit.

The schedule of available training dates is as follows:

  • Wednesday, November 29, 2023, 6-8:30pm
  • Thursday, December 7, 2023, 6-8:30pm
  • Saturday, December 9, 2023, 9-11:30am
  • Saturday, January 13, 2024, 9-11:30am
  • Wednesday, January 24, 2024, 6-8:30pm
  • Saturday, February 3, 2024, 9-11:30am
  • Monday, February 19, 2024, 6-8:30pm

To register for any District 53 Club Officer Training event, use the link below. All training sessions are online by Zoom. The Zoom link is provided at the end of the registration page and is also included in your registration confirmation email and the reminder email that will be sent two days before the event.

If you’d like to know which officers still need to attend officer training, you can view the current TI training report for District 53 at this link. The deadline to attend a Club Officer Training (COT) is the last day of February.

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

If you’d like to know which officers still need to attend officer training, you can view the current TI training report for District 53 at this link. The deadline to attend a Club Officer Training (COT) is the last day of February.

November Greetings

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

Greetings fellow D53 Rock Stars,

The weather is getting colder, and sunsets are coming way too early now, but bright and exciting things in our District continue to unfold for our members when it comes to Program Quality.

BREAKING NEWS on our SC2024 Conference; Co-Chairs Richard E. Peck, DTM, PIP and David Freedman, DTM have been visiting site locations throughout Connecticut and Eastern New York to find the perfect location and dates that work best for our members for an epic conference, and we are very close to a final decision! Stay tuned for official announcements to come VERY soon in the district newsletter as well as on our website. For up to the minute news on what has occurred up to now with past conferences, take a peek on our website here.

Our second round of Club Officer Training (COT) sessions begin this month and unlike our Summer COT sessions, the winter COT sessions are focused on club leaders sharing their experiences and ideas to help others benefit from what you are learning about your role. These trainings will continue up to February 29, 2024. Register here

Speech Contest season, featuring the Evaluation and International Speech Contests is in full swing with our District Chief Judge Beth Van Kempen leading the charge with a fabulous team presenting deep dives into Contest Training for all members of our district. These sessions are a great opportunity to learn how to run AND judge a contest! Join the Judges training session on Nov. 13th at 8pm here.  For more specific questions or volunteering at an Area, Division or District contest, reach out to Beth directly at: dcj@d53tm.org

Yours in Toastmasters Service,
Bettyann Peck, DTM
Program Quality Director 2023-2024

Clarification of Contest Rules for Areas and Divisions

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

District 53 is pleased to announce that the particular rules of the Contest season have been selected:

  1. Contests at the Area, Division, and District levels will be in-person.
  2. No hybrid or online contests will be held this year.
  3. Clubs are responsible for choosing their format for the contest, whether online, hybrid, or in-person.
  4. Contests beyond the club level will be held in-person. Both contestants and officials will be expected to be present at the contest’s physical location.

In Areas with Four or Fewer Clubs —

  • Two contestants from each club contest may advance to the Area contest. These will be the winner and the first runner-up (or the second runner-up, or the third runner-up) in areas with four (4) or fewer clubs to advance to Area contests.

Similarly, in Divisions with Four or Fewer Areas —

  • the top two finishers (or the first two available contestants who competed without disqualification) shall move on from from Area to Division (rule 3.B in the rulebook).
  • In the event that the first place or second place finisher is unavailable to compete, the next available contestant (who was not disqualified on time) may advance to the Division contest..

As a reminder, clubs may send a contestant to the Area contests without holding a contest (and in Areas with four or fewer clubs, they may send two contestants to each contest). However, the rules specify that if the club decides to hold a speech contest, that contest must obey the Toastmasters Contest Rulebook for the current season.

This includes Pathways minimum requirements for some speech contests — please make sure your contestants meet all requirements before advancing them to the Area level, because if a disqualification based on eligibility is discovered at a later date, it is retroactive to all other contests in the same cycle.

Recognizing Cyber Fraud (Workshop)

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

Wednesday October 4, 2023
6:00 pm to 7:00 pm ET
Zoom Recording (see link below)

Join keynote speaker Joe Audet and District 53 officers for this workshop on understanding the risks and types of cyber-fraud that either you or your club may be subjected to.  An ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure!  You’ll learn about some of the major types of internet-based schemes that are used to separate you from your money, including phishing, gift-card scams, fraudulent voicemails, malware attacks, and more.  Your best protection isn’t to rely on just one method of defense on the internet — you’re better off knowing the risks yourself, and taking steps to avoid them.  Come and educate yourself to protect both yourself and your club!

Keynote Joe Audet, CC CL, has been a member of Toastmasters for ten years. He’s been an IT professional for 27 years, operating as a systems administrator, website manager, programmer, and security engineer. He resides in western Massachusetts.

The District is offering this workshop immediately after a spate of cyber-fraud efforts deliberately targeting District Officers, Club Officers and Members. Know the risks, understand how YOU can protect yourself, and teach your fellow club members and families! Put it on your calendar and plan to attend, today!

Greetings from Nassau!

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

Hello, fellow Toastmasters!

It was a busy week for the D53 District Trio on-site in Nassau, Bahamas for District Officer Training and the Toastmasters International Convention. Just like the training our Club officers, Area and Division Directors are required to attend, we too have completed our training as well and it was amazing. I’m super excited to bring back to our district the things needed to help our clubs achieve excellence in District 53!

District 53 Program Quality Director Bettyann Peck, DTM, in front of the Toastmasters logo and holding a portable Toastmasters logo, at the 2023 International Convention

Member engagement, quality club meetings and education excellence was the forefront of our PQD sessions along with building new clubs. District Conferences were on everyone’s agendas as well during several days of intense PQD training sessions. Meeting with Program Quality Directors from around the globe was immensely helpful to gaining insight on what we all need to do: We build new clubs and help existing clubs to achieve excellence!

Congratulations to the Club Officers that attended the required Summer Club Officer Training (COT) sessions held in June, July and August and a huge thanks to all the facilitators that conducted the sessions over the last three months. As you know, the updated club officers list required by June 31, 2023 is the way officers can be notified about training. We have added makeup COT sessions to assist those clubs that missed it and that can be found on our website d53tm.org. You can also attend in other districts!

I’m thrilled to announce that our SC2024 Conference Co-Chairs Richard E. Peck, DTM, PIP and David Freedman, DTM have already started preliminary steps to provide you with a great District conference and we will provide additional details as things progress. Be on the lookout for “Save the Date” notifications from Public Relations Manager Zahary Fisk in the district newsletter as well as on our website.

Yours in Toastmasters Service,
Bettyann Peck, DTM, PQD
District 53 Program Quality Director, 2023-2024

Bring Out our Best

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

Hello Fellow Toastmasters!

It’s an honor to serve the district as your Program Quality Director for the 2023-2024 Toastmaster year. My team and I are excited and committed to provide training for all District and Club officers, helping them to lead our members and achieve their club goals. I’m thrilled to announce that the Area, Division and District Speech contests this year will all be in-person, and I look forward to an amazing Conference next Spring as we celebrate our successes.

Since joining Toastmasters in 2015, I have served in numerous club officer roles and continue to be an active and passionate member of three clubs. My home club is Park City Toastmasters. I’m also a charter member of New England Advanced Toastmasters. Both are located in in Fairfield, CT. I’m also a member of World Travelers Toastmasters in District 80 (Singapore). Through this I have been motivated to earn Distinguished Toastmaster awards in both the Legacy and the Pathways education programs.

Our founder, Ralph Smedley said “Ours is the only organization I know dedicated to the individual, we work together to bring out the best in each of us and then we apply these skills to help others.” It is my goal to help and encourage our members to engage in Pathways and apply the skills learned. We will strengthen our engagement with the members through increased communication. These efforts will allow us to support all members of our District to achieve excellence throughout their Toastmaster journey.

Remember to get your club officers trained!

With my best,
Bettyann Peck, DTM
Program Quality Director 2023-2024

From the CGD: 12 June 2023

Posted on | by Andrew Watt, DTM

12 June 2023

Greetings fellow Toastmasters!

Bettyann Peck, DTM, Club Growth Director

Club Officers’ List Submission Deadline is June 30, 2023!

It’s that time of year again…Club Officer Lists need to be updated by June 30, 2023! If any clubs miss the deadline, they will not be able to access CLUB CENTRAL on the TI website, and cannot carry out any club business, like processing new member applications OR submit any education awards. Additionally, no new officers will receive notices of any required District training.

If any clubs are currently suspended – they still need to update their club officer list. Because Suspended clubs do not have access to Club central, any current officer needs to email the club officer list to this address (and using this form). . By acting well in advance of the June 30th deadline, clubs will also avoid any possible disruptions on the TI website that could occur around the end of the month, and it also earns the club one requirement of DCP for the next term!

Thank you for your involvement with building new clubs, which I sincerely appreciate. Our district has chartered more new clubs this year than the last several years combined because of the work you have done. But many clubs have struggled. Many clubs weren’t aware that the most fundamental aspect of good club health starts with a new Club Officer list being updated through Club Central on the Toastmasters website before the June 30th deadline. 

I wish you all continued success and thank you again for your contributions this past year. If anyone needs assistance with this, please contact your Area Director or call me anytime at (203) 854-5498.

Yours in Toastmasters Service,
Bettyann Peck, DTM
Club Growth Director, 2022-23