Division N Director (part 3) House cleaning, and Community building
Honestly, I didn't mean for this to go three parts (editor's note: it went to four) - it's just that there were a lot to process. Guess it helped that it was most recent, and had a lot of pictures. Moving on...
Given our early successes, you'd think that this Toastmasters year would be one great one. In a sense, it was... after all, we were also celebrating the Centenial celebration of Toastmasters, so there was a vibe of making sure we would commemorate the Centenial. But before that happened, we needed to converge in Cebu to be part of the District's turnover ceremonies. Since Jot Chiongbian was based in Cebu, the turnover naturally happened to be organized there. Advantage here was that plane fare and hotel accomodations were covered by the District - me being part of the District Committee (as all Division Directors are).
We basically had a two day celebration - arrival day until dinner, and breakfast the next day. We were not just going on a vacation though - the Division directors were ushered into a team-building session - thankfully not too much on the lectures, but with a lot of activities as well. We would exchange gratitude notes... all to make us feel more comfortable with each other. While at it, we had our pictorials - something that I did not shave for (mistake, specially when your picture is projected on the wall).
I also got an interview, where I shared my plans for Division N. Funny, though I have pictures, I never got to see the interview per se. Ah well... in it, I shared plans to strengthen the N community. Guess I was conssitent in my ideas for helping the Division. I have to say I looked good in my Toastmasters sweater - the one gifted to me by Past Division Director Jazz Encarnacion. Others may have dressed for their interview, but I opted for casual comfortable.
The evening was the celebratory turnover where we were sworn in. One thing that I liked about the entire experience - one that would be repeated later in the DisCon much later, was the option to have different clothes colors per activity. It helped make the event very colorful - but it was a bit of a concern for me to find the need to buy new wardrobe. For example, we needed a black coat for the pictorial, but the evening's colors were more Earth hued - green leafy designs (i.e. Hawaiian shirt).Oh, by the way... the Toastmaster of the Year award was also goven that evening - I was a nominee for two Divisions, but my contributions were not as impactful, comapartively speaking, to that winner. Ah well... I wasn't expecting anything anyway - but it felt good to be recognized by my peers.
I had a side trip while in Cebu - but since it was more with HOLA members, and not connected to my role as Division Director, I will not expound on it here. But this proved that even in Cebu, I was actually having a dual role with my fellow HOLAn members - by this time, I was HOLA's President. Anyway, with the Cebu trunover done, it was back to planning for Division Activities.
One thing we did differently (for the first time in Division N, anyway) was to run a Rookies contest. This was done several years now by Division B, but we just wanted to give our Rookies some exposure beyond the club (again, to raise awareness for the N community), but we also did something different - a week before, we had a Contest Bootcamp - past Division N chanpions would give a talk about their contest experience - maybe share tips on how they prepared for the contests. This was where I met past contest winners for the first time.
Our contest proper was also a practice for our Area Directors to plan for a contest - give them some experience in being Contest masters, see how to organize such a contest in prepapration for our upcoming Area Contests.
As we continued on into our Toastmaster year, some chinks started showing... several clubs were not giving us any feedback with their activities - we did not know if they were meeting, and their officers were not participating in Area or Division activities - let alone answering our attempts to reach out to them. One whole Area would be a problem... ironically, the Area that Troy took over. We initially thought to put all problematic clubs into one area, and Troy, being a very experienced Area/Divisoin leader, would be able to reach out and handle/help them... but... if they're ghosting you, what can we do?
So we eventually retired some of these clubs. Others we learned were going through some hectic Corprate schedules, hence not being too active in Toastmasters activities. Others though were giong through reallignments, or management changes - and with these changes, Toastmasters was not a priority. We tried building clubs... but it wasn't that easy. We got one going... and it was very promising - for one semester. I'm still scratching my head on this one. How can a club with so much potential just suddenly lose steam. Bottom line? We were at a net loss of clubs from start to end of the term. You could say we were still reeling from membership loss due ot the membership fee increase the year before. The thing is, Troy thought they had already removed problematic clubs in the past... and had a leaner, stronger Division N. Unfortunately, it did not seem to be the case. So we had to struggle to make sure no more clubs were lost, while our attempts to form new clubs to repalce the lost ones were not totally feasible. Two of these eventually got formed... after my term. Thems the breaks.
It also looks like there'll be a part four - just because I still have a lot to share.
Given our early successes, you'd think that this Toastmasters year would be one great one. In a sense, it was... after all, we were also celebrating the Centenial celebration of Toastmasters, so there was a vibe of making sure we would commemorate the Centenial. But before that happened, we needed to converge in Cebu to be part of the District's turnover ceremonies. Since Jot Chiongbian was based in Cebu, the turnover naturally happened to be organized there. Advantage here was that plane fare and hotel accomodations were covered by the District - me being part of the District Committee (as all Division Directors are).
We basically had a two day celebration - arrival day until dinner, and breakfast the next day. We were not just going on a vacation though - the Division directors were ushered into a team-building session - thankfully not too much on the lectures, but with a lot of activities as well. We would exchange gratitude notes... all to make us feel more comfortable with each other. While at it, we had our pictorials - something that I did not shave for (mistake, specially when your picture is projected on the wall).
The evening was the celebratory turnover where we were sworn in. One thing that I liked about the entire experience - one that would be repeated later in the DisCon much later, was the option to have different clothes colors per activity. It helped make the event very colorful - but it was a bit of a concern for me to find the need to buy new wardrobe. For example, we needed a black coat for the pictorial, but the evening's colors were more Earth hued - green leafy designs (i.e. Hawaiian shirt).Oh, by the way... the Toastmaster of the Year award was also goven that evening - I was a nominee for two Divisions, but my contributions were not as impactful, comapartively speaking, to that winner. Ah well... I wasn't expecting anything anyway - but it felt good to be recognized by my peers.
One thing we did differently (for the first time in Division N, anyway) was to run a Rookies contest. This was done several years now by Division B, but we just wanted to give our Rookies some exposure beyond the club (again, to raise awareness for the N community), but we also did something different - a week before, we had a Contest Bootcamp - past Division N chanpions would give a talk about their contest experience - maybe share tips on how they prepared for the contests. This was where I met past contest winners for the first time.
Our contest proper was also a practice for our Area Directors to plan for a contest - give them some experience in being Contest masters, see how to organize such a contest in prepapration for our upcoming Area Contests.
As we continued on into our Toastmaster year, some chinks started showing... several clubs were not giving us any feedback with their activities - we did not know if they were meeting, and their officers were not participating in Area or Division activities - let alone answering our attempts to reach out to them. One whole Area would be a problem... ironically, the Area that Troy took over. We initially thought to put all problematic clubs into one area, and Troy, being a very experienced Area/Divisoin leader, would be able to reach out and handle/help them... but... if they're ghosting you, what can we do?
So we eventually retired some of these clubs. Others we learned were going through some hectic Corprate schedules, hence not being too active in Toastmasters activities. Others though were giong through reallignments, or management changes - and with these changes, Toastmasters was not a priority. We tried building clubs... but it wasn't that easy. We got one going... and it was very promising - for one semester. I'm still scratching my head on this one. How can a club with so much potential just suddenly lose steam. Bottom line? We were at a net loss of clubs from start to end of the term. You could say we were still reeling from membership loss due ot the membership fee increase the year before. The thing is, Troy thought they had already removed problematic clubs in the past... and had a leaner, stronger Division N. Unfortunately, it did not seem to be the case. So we had to struggle to make sure no more clubs were lost, while our attempts to form new clubs to repalce the lost ones were not totally feasible. Two of these eventually got formed... after my term. Thems the breaks.
It also looks like there'll be a part four - just because I still have a lot to share.
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