District Director’s Farewell

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At midnight tonight, another Toastmasters year comes to a close. And what a year it has been!

This is the first and probably only year that Toastmasters was 100% virtual. As the world grappled with the pandemic, we in District 29 had our own challenges and accomplishments. District 29 is a wonderful district to belong to as I am sure you know.

Unfortunately, we will not reach the status of Distinguished District this year. Here are the results from this year as of noon on June 30^th, 2021.

But the results above hide some very important and significant accomplishments:

1. During a year when Toastmasters Districts around the world were losing a lot of clubs and not starting enough, our Club Growth team led very capably by our Club Growth Director, Rick Taylor, DTM chartered Seven 7 incredible new clubs!! The CGD team’s Club Rescue Avengers swooped in to several clubs and saved them from closing by bringing them back into active status. Congratulations to the Club Growth Team!
2. Despite conducting our business entirely online, the Program Quality team led boldly by our Program Quality Director, Bettie St. Clair, DTM conducted online Toastmasters Leadership Institutes (TLIs) successfully twice training over 70% of our Club Officers each time! Kudos to the TLI Dean, the Training & Education Chair and their teams! Our Pathways Adoption rate also increased considerably under the leadership of the Pathways team and the incredibly consistent Tuesday afternoon Pathways Happy Hour. Over 850 Educational Awards were earned by our Toastmasters this year! 13 individuals earned their Distinguished Toastmasters (DTM) Award this year, an incredible accomplishment! The Sunday Socials hosted by the Divisions were well attended and extremely effective in their content and their presentations. The From Speaker to Trainer workshops presented twice in the year are extremely well attended and increased the cadre of trained presenters in our District who benefit from the experience. Well done Program Quality Team!
3. Public Relations Manager, Ivonne Vaughn, SR2 is among the best PRMs our District has ever had! Ivonne managed and successfully oversaw the upgrade of our District Website. The PRM Team has performed incredibly well keeping us notified of Club and District events all throughout the year. Their Spotlight on the Club of the Day has been extremely well received.
4. The District support team consisting of Logistics Manager, Greg Josephs, DTM, Administration Manager, Paula Green, DTM, Finance Manager, Shelly Roman, DTM, has done an incredible job of keeping our District operations humming like a well oiled machine. Our deepest thanks to everyone on the Support Team!
5. In addition to this, our Past District Leadership continues to be active in their mentorship and leadership by helping our District be an excellent one! Thanks to Past District Director, Dwight Yamada, DTM, RA for being “Johnny on the spot” and doing whatever needs to be done including being an excellent Zoom guru! Thanks to Past District Director, Amy Brener, DTM for being a highly effective Realignment Chair, Past District Director, Maheshwar Patil, DTM for his role as Credentials Chair, Past District Director, Shu Bartholomew, DTM for being District Leadership Committee Chair.
6. Thanks to Mary Phillips, DTM for performing admirably as the District Audit Chair, Edmond Joe, DTM for serving as the District Photo/ Videographer. A kudos of deep gratitude to Davin Peterson, IP4 for being the District Webmaster par excellence!
7. Thanks to Division A Director, Lamont Green, EH5, Division B Director, Lee Proctor, LD2, Division C Director, Nejat Abdurahman, DL5, Division D Director, Alfonso Rivera, VC5, Division E Director, Jonathan Kauffman, TC5, Division F Director, Margaret Huan, DTM and Division G Director, Chalese Gilmore, DTM. Without them and their incredible team of 32 Area Directors, we wouldn’t be the incredible District that we are.

At the beginning of the Toastmaster year I chose Commit to Excellence as our District Theme. I am incredibly proud and deeply humbled by each and every one of you who continue to Commit to Excellence each and every day, when you attend Club meetings and take on meeting roles, serve as Club Officers, and step up to the call of Excellence as you embody the Toastmasters values of Integrity, Respect, Service and Excellence!

It has been an incredibly fruitful and educational experience serving in the various leadership roles in this District. I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to serve the District in this manner. Though this Toastmasters Program Year is ending, we have a tremendous new team already working to serve our District starting tomorrow, July 1, under the capable leadership of our District Director, Bettie St. Clair, DTM!

Goodbye from the District Leadership team of 2020-2021, welcome to the Leadership Team of 2021-2022 and to all of you – Happy New Toastmasters Year!!