Colin Hughes DTM

Colin Hughes, DTM
Colin Hughes DTM

Colin Hughes DTM

Congratulations Colin.  It’s taken 13 years from joining, but you’ve done it.  It’s an amazing story of persistence and ability.

Colin joined Victoria Quay – and Toastmasters – in April, 2002.  That was just 7 months after Mark Richards joined.

He had a significant disability and had to work very hard to make his speech intelligible to us all.  He did work hard, and gradually he became more and more fluent and effective.  He worked on his speech projects and steadily moved through

  • the Competent Communicator (CC) 10 speeches
  • the three Advanced Awards of Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB), Advanced Communicator Silver (ACS) and Advanced Communicator Gold (ACG).  That involved 10 speeches each, made up of 6 Advanced Manuals, each of 5 Speeches.
  • That made 40 speeches altogether.

As well, he worked on the Leadership wing.

  • He became an Officer at Victoria Quay and attended Club Officer Training.
  • He delivered the required Workshops and became an Advanced Leader Bronze.

He was almost there to his goal of DTM.  But there were two big assignments left to achieve the last Award – Advanced Leader Silver – to be a District Officer and to either Found or Mentor a new Club or to Coach back to Distinguished Club status a Club which had declined to 12 or less members.

  • District Officer  Colin has just finished his term as Area Governor for S31 in Southern Division of District 17.  That Area has 5 Clubs and includes Armadale and Canning Vale.
  • Club Coach  Colin and Marianne Law were appointed Coaches of Netmasters in S32 which had only 10 members.  They both joined Netmasters and worked on recruiting more members.  They were successful and the Club had 16 members at June 30th, as recorded on the Club’s listing with Toastmasters International.  Netmasters is Select Distinguished.  (And Marianne  has just received her DTM, too.  Congratulations, Marianne.)

On Wednesday night, after our Victoria Quay first meeting for the year 2015/16, I put through the application to Toastmasters International.  And it is there – Colin Hughes DTM.
Colin has joined an illustrious group of DTMs in Victoria Quay.  He is the 7th current member to be so honoured.  As you can see from the material above, he has had to work very hard and successfully to achieve it.  He generously acknowledges the great help he has received from

  • Victoria Quay, Armadale and Netmasters members – the clubs he belongs to
  • David & Glenis Nicholas who have supported and guided him through his 13 year career in Victoria Quay and recently in Netmasters
  • Mark Richards who handled much of Colin’s transport issues for many years and has been a great support and guide in all that time
  • Peter Law who took over the transport role from Mark and has been a great support and guide for many years but particularly in this last year as Colin worked on his District Officer role

We are going to have a special celebration at Victoria Quay of Colin’s achievement when the DTM plaque arrives in a few weeks time.

So, Colin, we admire you for your determination and your successful achievement of this great goal you set yourself some years ago.  Yes, it has taken a long time but you have done it, Colin.  We have really enjoyed your speeches over the years, and especially your sense of humour and fun.  We are pleased to have witnessed your progress, and we are all very proud to have been part of your success.

David Nicholas DTM
0401 011 212

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