Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the District 59 2014 Spring Conference in Krakow, Poland. I know that it is a cliché but you really had to be there to really get the full experience, that being said I thought that I’d capture some of my experience while it is still fresh in my mind. This year’s conference had a little bit of everything.
2011 World Champion of Public Speaking Joch Elliot
It was amazing having the 2011 World Champion of Public Speaking, Joch Elliot at our conference. He gave a very dynamic Keynote speech, workshop, and even did a target speech. He took us on his 14 year journey to become the World Champion of Public Speaking. In his Sunday morning workshop, he dissected his winning speech and explained the Rhetoric devices he used, what an experience! He said a few things that stuck with me including, only one person takes home the trophy, but they will remember your message. He also told us of his dream to win three different districts and to finish first, second, and third, what a one-man show that would be.
The International Speech
Contest was incredible. Division F was well represented by our own Rudy Morales
and his Diamond Notes speech. It was nice to see Rudy make the finals. Rudy
told me on Sunday that someone had told him that like Joch Elliot had said, he
might not have won but everyone knows Rachel (the little girl that had taught
him so much)! All the finalist speeches were memorable and the winner told us
about a special marathon he participated in where he learned what it meant to
be a winner. Olivia Schofield was on fire as the contest chair. Given the level
of the speeches I saw at the district conference, I can only imagine how great
they’ll be at the International Convention.
This was a very historic
conference, as it was the last one for an integrated Continental Europe and the
birth of District 95 (Northeast Europe). At the DCM (District Conference
Meeting) on Saturday, We started out as D59, with officer elections and we
later split into separate DCMs for D59 and D95, with D95 meeting for the first
time. Everyone was very excited to see
the banner for D95 unveiled. After being
in Toastmasters for a few years, I know (or know of) more and more of the
people playing their parts. Ron Joseph (from my own club) was elected as
Division F Governor and another person I know from my club was elected as an
area governor. Kees Broos, who I’d first got to know as a Division F Governor,
was elected the first ever District Governor to D95. At the DCM we saw a
presentation for the 2014 D95 Fall Conference being put on in Frankfurt. The
organizing committee did a good job and people are looking forward to the first
ever D95 Conference.
This year at the gala
dinner, not only did we have the finals for the International Speech Contest
but there were a lot of awards presented. Several of the past D59 Governors
were recognized. There were twenty some DTMs (Distinguished Toastmaster, one of
the highest awards that a Toastmaster can achieve) recognized including someone
from my club.
I’ve heard that there is
a lot of pageantry at the International Convention, but we had plenty of pageantry.
There was a parade of all the flags represented in D59 from the back of the building
up to the main stage and later on all the flags were hung from the ceiling, it
was very impressive looking on the hanging flags from my table.
Maija and Dirk at the Gala Dinner
There was even a little
romance. After the Finals of the International Speech Contest were rapping up,
we were told that there was surprise.
Dirk Löffelbein, took the stage and after hearing him talk for a couple
of minutes I knew that he was going to propose!
He walked from the stage to the table that girlfriend was sitting at and
got to one knee to ask her to marry him. She was quite surprised and started to
say what a great guy he was and then I heard her say “however” and I about
choked. However is not a word that you
want to hear when you propose. Maija Kadlecova did eventually say yes, but
everyone (especially Dirk) was hanging on her every word. What a memorable
proposal! I wish the couple all the best, and now all future district
conferences will have an additional place in their hearts.
One of the reasons that
I like going to the district conference is that it usually gives me a chance to
do some interviews for the Toastmasters Podcast Europe and this conference gave
me the chance to do a few interviews that will be turned into episodes in the
coming weeks. I had the pleasure to
interview Joch Elliot. He is the second World Champion of Public Speaking that
I’ve been able to interview and the 3rd for the podcast. I
interviewed a team from Romania that are largely responsible for Romania’s
success in being able to join D95 (officially accepted into D95 on Saturday).
They told me about the Romanian story and had advice for other countries
looking to join Toastmasters. I’m not going to divulge all of my interviews but
please stay tuned and find out.
I took a lot of pictures
that I’m still sorting through at the moment. I’ll be posting them as I get the
chance at my club’s Flickr
group. I took several pictures of banners which I’ll post the Our
Toastmaster Banners group pinboard as I get the chance. You can read more about the pinboard here.
There were some
wonderful workshop scheduled. Florian Mück as the contest chair for the English
Evaluation Contest had a Hogwart’s theme to the contest I heard mentioned
during the awards ceremony at the Gala dinner, it sounded like it must have
been interesting
.
With so much going on
during the conference, I didn’t have much time to see Krakow, during the
conference, fortunately, I did get to do a little sight-seeing in Krakow, but I’ll
write about that in a another time.
Photo Credit: The picture of Maija and Dirk was shared on Facebook. The other pictures shown were taken by me and appear in by club's Flickr Group.
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