Darryl Heron's 2013-14 Presidential Inaugural Speech for Toastmasters

What follows is the text of the speech that I wrote and delivered to Word Weavers (My Toastmaster Club) on July 3rd....

My Inaugural Address for Word Weavers for the 2013-14 Toastmasters Year

Good Evening, Madame Toastmaster, fellow members, and dear guests. America has a long standing tradition where the President of the United States gives an Inaugural Address that lets the nation and the world know what he is thinking about and what he would like to tackle in this time in office. This speech gives the people something to aspire to and sets the tone for that administration. There have also been some very famous Inaugural Addresses over the past 200+ years. I would like to bring this tradition to our club. While my scope is not nearly as lofty or Earth shattering, I would like to take a few moments this evening.

Thank you to everyone who has voted for the officers that will be leading Word Weavers in the 2013-14 Toastmaster year. It is quite an honor and show of trust that you have put into electing us. We all plan and hope to serve you to the best of our abilities.

JFK famously challenged Americans to not ask what their country could do for them but redirected them to think about what they could do for their country. For me I would challenge you to think about how Toastmasters can help you grow and reach your goals and how you can help our club to grow. Our relationship with Toastmasters is a two-way street. Personally, I have gotten so much from Word Weavers and Toastmasters that I could not even begin to repay this if I lived a thousand years and a thousand lives. Do you have a mentor? Are you a mentor? You can give so much to the club and Toastmasters by being a mentor and being mentored? If you're a more experienced member you can share your experiences and your knowledge with newer members and you should also seek out mentors for yourself who can challenge you and help you to develop further.

FDR said in his inaugural address to a world that was in the middle of the Great Depression that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. As Toastmasters, many of us have worked on this fear of public speaking that affects so many people and many of us have taken great strides to become better speakers and some of us even stand on the edge of greatness. I challenge you to take the risks, try different types of speeches, try out different skills, take on new roles. The club will support you! Remember that when asked how it felt to fail 1,000 times in his attempt to create the light bulb, that Edison reportedly said he did not fail, I just found 10,000 ways that didn't work. While I hope that none of us has to do anything 10,000 ways that don't work, just imagine how great it will work when we finally get there!

I challenge each and everyone of you to think about what you want to accomplish in the next 12 months personally, within Toastmasters (as a Word Weaver), and as a club. Set some goals. 12 months will pass regardless of if you do anything or not, but wouldn't it be great to accomplish something in that time. Maybe you can become a Competent Communicator, an Advance Communicator, maybe you can complete one of the advanced manuals, maybe you can work on developing some new communication or leadership skills, maybe you can be a mentor. Think about what you'd like to accomplish and how the officers can help you or what you'd like to see the club do or develop, and let me or the other officers know.

The other officers and I have met and started planning for the year, but at this stage I would like to make you the following pledge to our members, potential and future members:

1. I will listen. I might not always have the answer, but I will try to find it and if my search is completed and I still don't know the answer, I will tell you.

2. I will help you. The other officers and myself want to see you succeed and we'll do what we can to help you do so. If there is nothing that we can do (other than listen) I will tell you.

3. We are open and your feedback is welcome. The other officers and myself want to make Word Weavers the best that it can be, so let us know what we can do to make coming to our meetings and being a member a more meaningful and rewarding experience. We won't be able to implement every idea but we will consider everything. Crazy ideas are welcome.

4. I'll keep the channels of communication open. I plan to keep the club posted on what the officers are doing. This will mean that sometimes I will have announcements and that occasionally members of the officers group will have announcements and reports.

5. I'll make mistakes. I can promise you that me and the other officers will make mistakes, but we will do our best to limit the impact and to take ownership of them. Whenever possible I like to learn from my mistakes and that I'm better for having made the mistake. As a Project Manager I'm very big on Lessons Learnt.

6. It will be fun. We will have fun this next year.

One last thing, as Steve Jobs used to say. When we met on June 5th I said that I wanted to develop a slogan for the coming Toastmaster year. I believe that having a slogan or motto can be a unifying experience and can help us to focus on what we want to accomplish. In my high school every senior class had their own motto, so my suggestion for our motto for the 2013-14 TM year is "A year of growth and creating new memories". Another suggestion out of the Officers Meeting was W5 (Winning With Word Weavers Wiesbaden). Let the other officers and myself know what slogans you like. We're half way through our 10th Anniversary, so while we have had a lot of accomplishments and good memories in the past we're looking towards the future and all of the new and wonderful memories we're going to have. Madame Toastmaster, fellow members, lets make this a wonderful year!

Note:  Being a history fan, I had lot of fun writing my Inaugural Address.  Why think about doing this in other Toastmaster clubs, roles, and even outside of Toastmasters.

I'm Pleased to Announce...

I'm pleased to announce that Word Weavers, my Toastmasters club, has elected me to serve as President for the 2013-2014 Toastmaster year.  This is a great honor for me and I look forward to serving my club members.

From the Toastmasters about page " Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational organization that teaches public speaking and leadership skills through a worldwide network of meeting locations. " But there is so much more to Toastmasters than public speaking! They were founded in 1924.  Wikipedia reports that Toastmasters has over 260,000 members in 113 countries, served through its over 12,800 member clubs.  Toastmasters is not as well known in Europe as it is in America, but this is changing as can been seen with the phenomenal growth Toastmasters has seen in Europe. District 59 (Continental Europe) will be splitting into two districts in the 2014-15 Toastmaster year and even Toastmasters in the UK, will be splitting into 2 districts in the near future as well.

I joined Word Weavers in the summer of 2011, so I'm coming upon my 2nd anniversary this summer. They made me feel right at home and I was hooked (in a good way I must say). I had heard about Toastmasters when I lived in the U.S. but I never got around to checking out a club. After passing my PMP in April, 2011 I was ready to check out Toastmasters. The 2nd meeting that I attended at Word Weavers was a BBQ (we had another one on May 15th). One of the things that I really love about Word Weavers (and all of the other Toastmaster clubs I have visited as well) is the variety of interesting and caring people that you'll encounter at meetings and events. It is also a supportive environment where you can try out different communications methods and get constructive feedback.

For the 2012-2013 Toastmaster year I have been the Vice President of Public Relations.  The club website was moved from its previous provider to a site being hosted on EasySpeak, the current president and I  spent quite a bit of time setting up the current website and I've been serving as the webmaster and will continue to do this in the near future. I've really enjoyed being a part of the activities that we've had this year in addition to our regular meetings.  In January our club celebrated their 10th Anniversary and we've made it a club goal this year to celebrate this often.  We celebrated in January, at our BBQ, and we'll be having a special meeting at an old Greek style amphitheater near the Neroberg, which is a water-powered train that goes up/down a mountain in Wiesbaden. The train itself is celebrating 125 years in 2013. 

In 2012 I started up the Toastmasters Podcast Europe along with some other Toastmasters that I've met via LinkedIn.  In March I released the 1st Anniversary episode.  I'm looking to expand the podcast team near future and I hope to be able to create a team that is spread throughout Europe (including the U.K) so that we can keep Toastmasters in Europe together even after we split into more and more districts.  For the podcast I've interviewed a lot of interesting Toastmasters at the D59 2012 Fall Conference in Bonn, Germany as well as the D59 2013 Spring Conference in Antwerp, Belgium and at other events that I've attended. 

I will be getting in contact with the other newly elected club officers shortly and we'll do our preliminary planning for the year as well attend the first of two officers training sessions being held in July. I'm also going to make sure that I get the input from our members as to what they what to accomplish this year and what direction they see the club going.  I want to do my best to serve the club and to get as much out of the experience as I can, so I should be a pretty exciting year. I really can't say enough good things about Toastmasters and I believe that is almost impossible to give back as much as I have received from Toastmasters.

If you're ever in the Wiesbaden, Germany area on the 1st, 3rd, or 5th Wednesday of the month, then we'd be happy for you to stop by, be sure to check out the website for more details.  You can also find a club near you at the Toastmasters International Website. I hope that you'll check out a Toastmasters club soon. For all other officers (both newly elected as well as experienced officers, and all other Toastmasters), lets make the 2013-14 Toastmaster year an exciting one full of growth and lots of wonderful memories with your fellow Toastmasters and guests!

Photo credit:  The Toastmasters Log is property of Toastmasters International.

My Impressions fom the Toastmasters District 59 2013 Spring Conference in Antwerp

I was one of nearly 400 Toastmasters that converged on Antwerp, Belgium May 10th through 12th for the District 59 2013 Spring Conference. While everything is still fresh in my mind I thought that I'd write about some of my experiences and impressions.


This was my second District 59 Conference. For those of you who don't know District 59 represents Toastmasters of several countries in Continental Europe. I have some really great memories from my first District 59 Conference (held in Bonn, Germany in November 2012), so I was ready to build from those memories and excited to be at my first district conference where some of the winners go on to represent the district at the International Convention (being held this year in Cincinnati). I've attended several contests now and it is quite an experience to see how the level of speeches grows from the club contests, to the area contests, to the division contests, and on to the district competitions, I can only imagine how great it is to experience the speeches at the International Conference! For me there are so many reasons that I was happy to be in this gathering of Toastmasters from all over Europe. The conference began so full of promise for me and I couldn't wait for things to get rolling.


Before the conference I was really looking forward to meeting Ed Tate. He is the 2000 World Champion of Public Speaking, and the first World Champion of Public Speaking that I have been able to meet personally. I attended an extra workshop that he did Friday morning where he showed the attendees how we can create stories for our speeches. I really liked the bully stories that he told us, this really helped set the stage for us to create out own stories. Ed Tate also gave the Keynote speech on Saturday and did a workshop on Sunday. I had the pleasure of interviewing him for the Toastmasters Podcast Europe (I will be posting this in the coming weeks). Ed Tate's website can be found here. I also met and interviewed Olivia Schofield, she was the winner of the District 59 International Speech contest in 2011 and went all the way to the finals in Las Vegas. Her website can be found here.


There were several workshops on a wide variety of topics. Besides the ones put on by Ed Tate, I was able to attend workshops given by Jack Vincent and Robert Cockburn. Jack Vincent's workshop was on networking. Robert Cockburn talked about the unexpected successes he has experienced at a Toastmaster of 29 years. I would have loved to see more of the workshops but I really enjoyed what I was able to attend. I was able to interview Robert Cockburn, so look for this to be part of a future podcast episode. Unfortunately, for those of us in D59, he'll be moving to Australia soon, but this should be quite a benefit for Toastmasters in Australia.


I was given the opportunity to watch Democracy in action at the District Council Meeting. The DCM was interesting because of what happened when a reorganization plan was presented for voting by the DCM and what happened after that as well as the officer elections in this transitional year before D59 becomes two districts. There was a proposal to reorganize some of the clubs within the areas and divisions within the district for the coming Toastmaster year. There was a little bit of controversy as a last minute amendment was proposed that would have changed the areas in Switzerland. Without getting into the details, the disagreement was about if there would be some German only speaking areas in Switzerland. Since German and French are two common languages spoken in Switzerland, you can understand why deciding to put clubs into areas that were organized around a single language could be a problem (especially when you think about who would be able to compete in what contest language and all the ramifications associated with this). The end result was that the amendment failed and Switzerland was to be reorganized as originally proposed. The district also held elections for the next Toastmaster year. As the district is getting ready to be split into two districts in July 2014, so after all of the voting was done there was one set of district officers (minus the District Governor) for the would be Northeast division and one set for the would be Southwest division. Division and Area Governors were also voted on. Since candidates could be nominated from the floor, there were a few people that were nominated from the floor.


The Budapest Conference team had a few people in Antwerp and they did a presentation about the District 59 2013 Fall Conference and had a table to start accepting early bird registration for the conference. The them for the Budapest Conference is Laugh and Learn. There were proposals from Krakow and Paris for the D59 2014 Spring Conference. The Krakow bid won. Hans Peterson led the Budapest team in their efforts, he also was one of the Toastmasters Podcast Europe team that started the podcast with me (I'm hoping that he'll have more time for the podcast after the Budapest Conference is over). I interview Hans and I did a wrap-up interview with the Antwerp team. I plan to put both of these interviews in the next episode. I also would like to say job well done to the Antwerp team!

Budapest is the location for the D59 2013 Fall Conference 

In the past year my home club adopted EasySpeak for use in meeting planning and to host our website, so it was nice to see that Malcolm Warden, the father of EasySpeak was in Antwerp along with Bill Monsour (who I interviewed in Episode 8 in Bonn). I did an interview with Malcolm Warden that will be posted in an upcoming episode. In the interview he told me about the development of EasySpeak as well as some features that are on the horizon.


I was really looking forward to all of the speeches and the evaluations and I wasn't disappointed. I was able to attend one of the Evaluations semi finals in English as well as the finals. This was quite an experience, because I know that most Toastmasters want good feedback and it was a real pleasure to see how the feedback was delivered and to see what I might be able to use in the future when giving my own feedback. I've heard different Toastmasters say that an evaluation is a speech and many of the contestants showed how this can really be the case! Like most of the attendees, I was not disappointed by speeches, there were so many memorable and touching speeches. I was touched and impressed with the speech that Kaylie Peng gave and won with at the Division F contest about the love that she felt for her baby brother. I had the previlage of seeing Raquel Belo give her speech in the semi finals and again in the finals. I will always remember her saying "Get up, Believe, Walk Again". Christine Roos made us feel better about getting older in her speech. I attended the workshop that John Zimmer did in Bonn about writing a contest winning speech, so I was looking forward to seeing John Zimmer do his speech and he didn't disappoint us. I was fortunate enough to interview Kailey Peng, Raquel Belo, and John Zimmer.


District 59 will be splitting into two districts in July 2014. For me this is bittersweet, because I like the idea of Continental Europe in D59 but I realize that give the growth of Toastmasters in Europe, maintaining one district forever would be unruly to manage, so I see the need for the district to become two (and as time goes by there will be more and more districts). This is one of the things that I talked to Robert Cockburn about in our interview. Our current Lieutenant Governor of Education, João de Mendonça, will be our District Governor in this transition year (I talked to him about the transition year and other topics in an interview as well).


Like most everyone else, I was looking forward to see winners of all the contests in the awards ceremony. It was really nice to see that João de Mendonça, Morag Mathieson and her husband all received their DTMs (Distinguished Toastmaster)awards. The contest results are posted here. I'd like to say congratulations to all the winners and participants of the contests. The International Speech Contest and Evaluation Contests were also held in German and French, currently these contests end with the District Conference. It was nice to see the John Zimmer will be representing D59 in Cincinnati in the International Speech Contest. He wrote a nice blog post about his experience. His blog is really good, with all kinds of good public speaking material.

The winners of the International Speech Contest in English

I really enjoyed the conference in Antwerp. I can't recommend attending a district conference enough, especially while District 59 is still Continental Europe! I had the opportunity to interview lots of interesting people, so you can look forward to a few episodes from all the interviews that I did. The Fall contest season should be exciting and there should be another memorable conference in Budapest. I hope to meet you there.

Photo Credits:
The Antwerp Bear comes from the Friday day by day photo album of Roland Pauwels
The Budapest picture is a Tumblr (note it is also used on the D59 2013 Fall Conference website).
The winners of the International Speech Contest in English comes from Susanne Kischnick's photo album

Darryl

Ps.  If you'd like to see some of the pictures from the conference in Antwerp you might find the following links useful...

Susanne Kischnick's photo album

Roland Pauwels created day by day photo albums for Friday, Saturday, Saturday the Party, and Sunday.

Pictures posted via Twitter are on Sharypic.