by Joshua Bauer Area 53 Director
On Saturday, July 20, the District 25 Executive Committee gathered at the Baker Building of Texas Wesleyan University for a day of investing in ourselves for the good of our clubs! At least, that’s what we would have done if the University hadn’t moved us at the last minute. Like all good Toastmasters, however, we quickly improvised and held our training in a different location on the campus!
From right to left: Jenall Gold, Larry Harmon, Joshua Bauer (me!) sitting at our Division E table
After some opening remarks from our Trio, we turned our attention to contest preparation, a session led by Lola Stone. Even though the contest season isn’t until early 2025, there is a lot that goes into preparing one. Your Area and Division Directors are already hard at work making sure that next year’s contests are a huge success. Who knows? Maybe your next speech could be a contest winner!
Immediate Past District Director, Emily Murray, conducted a fun session in which we all selected three words that describe a leader. Next, we had vigorous debate within our Divisions to decide which three were the best. Then we had Divisions debate each other, and so on until we coalesced around the words, we most feel describe a leader!
Service, Integrity, and Encouragement are among the words that made it to “the finals” of Emily’s word contest!
It wasn’t all fun and games, though. We took a hard look at some common pitfalls of Toastmasters meetings, and how they can have a huge negative impact on everyone from officers to guests. Then our District Director, Jesse Ford, crafted a mini–Table Topics Tournament to come up with the best ways to beat those pitfalls!
Okay, maybe it was all fun and games.
As part of the day’s events, we participated in a District Council meeting! If you think a bunch of people in leadership reading their reports would be dry and boring, you’d be dead wrong. We got a financial report tailored to a Jedi council, fun slogans and sayings, and we even had multiple leaders in costume.
My big takeaway from this day is how much collaboration can enhance learning. I heard many wise words from our senior leadership of District 25, but I also gained a wealth of information from my fellow Area Directors! In a world that’s becoming more virtual for learning and training, we cannot underestimate the value of getting people in a room together.
I was shocked at how much I walked away with.
