Division N Director (part 4) Fun and Learnings, and a Last Hurrah
Focusing on the Division... I did say we were trying to build a community. For our members to realize that there is life in Toatmasters beyond their respective clubs. This meant that with every club visit, we aould invite other members to club hop - experience how other clubs did their meetings, maybe laern from these as well.
I would always say that one role of eahc Area Director - who would visit clubs under them, would be to help the clubs where they needed it... but to also see aht other clubs did well, and share the practice. However, it would still be great for members to experience this first hand, and not just as a suggestion by their Area Director. Learning would happen faster too - and yes, they could help out in sharing the meeting roles - specially the technical evaluations (Ah-counter, Timer, Grammarain). We started getting some traction here when we would see some clubs visiting other clubs - more so as invited evaluators. For example, the Club President of ING showed up in a St Luke's TMC meeting to be an evaluator. She was acocmpanied by a member who did a Technical evaluation. Members from Fort Bonifacio TMC would help where they could - and one instance, their visits were reciprocated when members from CITI Toastmasters joined their meeting / anniversary celebration. Yes... face-to-face meetings were back, indeed. And so were activities that we set up. We had a Socials night at St. Lukes; one we dubber "Meet and Chill". No prepared speeches, no GE - just a sit down and chat moment. In this particular evening we all shared how Toastmasters has helped us; what we liked about it - the club, the experience. I discovered a lot of experiences from our memebrs - if only we had a very active Public Relations arm to document all these answers - they would have made great memes, or posters.
We also had an Evening with Fursey (an International Speech runner-up) and learned from him, not once, but twice - first when he showed up in Fort Bonifacio TMC, and next, at St. Lukes for a Division N organized workshop. District Director Jot joined us in that one. It was fun, Fursey was wacky, lively, unorthodox - but he gave us a lot of learnings.
It was in that same time that DD Jot informed me of the planned 100th year celebration by District 75 for Toastmasters International - one that we eventuially help at somewhere in Makati. That would have been October. And before 2024 ended, Division N decided to ahve a year end celebration at ING. So there were several Division-wide, even District-wide activities that would bolster our community and further build trust, camaraderie, and friendship amongst each other. All these activities, I attended as the Division Director.
So yes, the community was building, and would continue to be strengthened in the Area Contests, and when we went to Cebu, it was as friends. The Division N community was seen by the way our members mingled with each other. How we supported our contestants - though I have to say I was also juggling District-Division work, like being a contest marshal making sure no one was recording our contestants. Likewise, I had to also represent HOLA in some capacity. There is an activity that I will tackle separately because it, in itself, is important - and deserves a separate entry. Needless to say, I participated in this as Division N's Director, and our actions are now being felt by the District. I mean to talk about our realignment separately. See it was part of my responsibility as Division N Director/representative.
Prior to Cebu, of course, our Division Contest went smoothly - the strategy of having the Rookies Contest as a testing ground for our Area Contests, led to a smoother Division Contest. Once again, this was help at ING (the Area Contest was held at Great SPeakers are Made's home office). I would have wanted more attendees - but at least, we had a good enough sized audience. Why were we not blessed with more? I would say that March is when a lot fo companies are preparing for their Fiscal year end (April), so many corporate clubs were just too busy. Still, we had our old reliables, and clubs with contestants did show up.
Our final community activity was the Division N Last Hurrah. We wanted to end with a bang, and boy, did we ever... this was sponsored by BHP - a resurging Toastmasters club quite absent in the first half, but they returned with a vengeance - attending other clubs, and giving feedback, throuhg this they earned rapport, and when we asked them if we could use their venue as our Last Hurrah, they agreed. We wnated to end strong, after all, this activity showed a great, and lively community of Toastmasters. It showed the culmination of our dreams and effort to get the community up and running. It was an evening where I was defineitly proud of Division N - what it had become... a far cry from where we started.
IT was in this evening that I even mentioned that based upon observiation - mine and others (whom I shall not mention here), I said that at the start, I envied Division H for their complete council, while we struggled to form a complete line-up. More so since I knew a lot of them for the Toastmasters that they were... strong and dedicated. However, seeing how N has transformed, I mentiond that we outgrew H as the better, more dynamic Division - through everyone's collective efforts. We were not perfect - but we thrived in the latter part of the Toastmaster year, and though I did not say it, my role as Director had me leaving a stronger Division... more so since we would be merging with H. It would definitely be a merging of equals, with N slightly better between the two.
Just to get things into proper perspective, I later realized that H was almost running on autopilot since Director Dan was also experiencing a personal crisis, one that made him almost back out as Director - it is to H's council's credit that they carried him through his crisis. Not allowing him to back out and promising support. So I guess I was right when I said to my friends back at the start, H had a lot of talent and leaders, while N needed someone to help them out - hence I was asked to be their Director. So credit where it's due... H may not have seemed as active as N, but that was because, Dan had a different set of challenges. Kudos to them that his council closed ranks to help out.
I would always say that one role of eahc Area Director - who would visit clubs under them, would be to help the clubs where they needed it... but to also see aht other clubs did well, and share the practice. However, it would still be great for members to experience this first hand, and not just as a suggestion by their Area Director. Learning would happen faster too - and yes, they could help out in sharing the meeting roles - specially the technical evaluations (Ah-counter, Timer, Grammarain). We started getting some traction here when we would see some clubs visiting other clubs - more so as invited evaluators. For example, the Club President of ING showed up in a St Luke's TMC meeting to be an evaluator. She was acocmpanied by a member who did a Technical evaluation. Members from Fort Bonifacio TMC would help where they could - and one instance, their visits were reciprocated when members from CITI Toastmasters joined their meeting / anniversary celebration. Yes... face-to-face meetings were back, indeed. And so were activities that we set up. We had a Socials night at St. Lukes; one we dubber "Meet and Chill". No prepared speeches, no GE - just a sit down and chat moment. In this particular evening we all shared how Toastmasters has helped us; what we liked about it - the club, the experience. I discovered a lot of experiences from our memebrs - if only we had a very active Public Relations arm to document all these answers - they would have made great memes, or posters.
It was in that same time that DD Jot informed me of the planned 100th year celebration by District 75 for Toastmasters International - one that we eventuially help at somewhere in Makati. That would have been October. And before 2024 ended, Division N decided to ahve a year end celebration at ING. So there were several Division-wide, even District-wide activities that would bolster our community and further build trust, camaraderie, and friendship amongst each other. All these activities, I attended as the Division Director.
So yes, the community was building, and would continue to be strengthened in the Area Contests, and when we went to Cebu, it was as friends. The Division N community was seen by the way our members mingled with each other. How we supported our contestants - though I have to say I was also juggling District-Division work, like being a contest marshal making sure no one was recording our contestants. Likewise, I had to also represent HOLA in some capacity. There is an activity that I will tackle separately because it, in itself, is important - and deserves a separate entry. Needless to say, I participated in this as Division N's Director, and our actions are now being felt by the District. I mean to talk about our realignment separately. See it was part of my responsibility as Division N Director/representative.
Our final community activity was the Division N Last Hurrah. We wanted to end with a bang, and boy, did we ever... this was sponsored by BHP - a resurging Toastmasters club quite absent in the first half, but they returned with a vengeance - attending other clubs, and giving feedback, throuhg this they earned rapport, and when we asked them if we could use their venue as our Last Hurrah, they agreed. We wnated to end strong, after all, this activity showed a great, and lively community of Toastmasters. It showed the culmination of our dreams and effort to get the community up and running. It was an evening where I was defineitly proud of Division N - what it had become... a far cry from where we started.
Just to get things into proper perspective, I later realized that H was almost running on autopilot since Director Dan was also experiencing a personal crisis, one that made him almost back out as Director - it is to H's council's credit that they carried him through his crisis. Not allowing him to back out and promising support. So I guess I was right when I said to my friends back at the start, H had a lot of talent and leaders, while N needed someone to help them out - hence I was asked to be their Director. So credit where it's due... H may not have seemed as active as N, but that was because, Dan had a different set of challenges. Kudos to them that his council closed ranks to help out.
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