Black Swan May-June 2017
Editorial
Welcome to the final edition of the Black Swan newsletter for the 2016-17 Toastmaster year. We have had a fabulous conference, and if were not lucky enough to get there for yourself there is plenty to read about it below in Leonor's Director's update below. Make sure you read through to the end of this newsletter, dear readers, as you do not want to miss the latest invitation to Competitive Speakers for their evening of Tall Tales this coming Wednesday.
Expressions of interest invited for the role of District 17 Newsletter Editor.
As the year draws to a close, I have to step down from this role. If you are interested in becoming the next newsletter editor for the coming year, send your details to me or Sue Fallon, and we will give you more information about what it involves and consider all applications.
And remember....
we encourage articles from members, this newsletter is 'written by Toastmasters, for Toastmasters'. Guidelines for authors are at the end of this newsletter.
Lisa Martin
Black Swan Editor
District Director's Update
by Leonor Ragan
I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the success of the District Convention “Passion to Communicate”. Conventions are one the highlights of the District calendar. This year our charismatic guest key note speaker, Past International President Gary Schmidt DTM demonstrated the power of leadership. I hope that his words of wisdom have motivated all of you to pursue your goals and personal achievements regardless of your current level. What about the workshops and contests?
They all were informative, entertaining and engaging. Sue Fallon, Ross Wilkinson, Jackie Perryman and Fremantle Gateway Toastmaster club members more than lived up to our expectations. Well done team and congratulations again. Your outstanding efforts are greatly appreciated.
The next convention will be hosted by the Northern Division with Linda Hunter as a Chair and with the host club being Northern Lights Toastmasters Club.
Opening Ceremony and Banner Parade
Contests
Once again congratulations to all our magnificent contestants. Every contestant presented with a very professional approach and incredible presentations style and made the contests amazingly brilliant. Every contestant should be very pleased with own your terrific effort and achievement irrespective of win or loss. You are all winners in my heart!!!
Upcoming District Team for 2017-2018
I sincerely would like to thank our District Secretary, Tracey Hudson and Parliamentarian, Mike Helm and team of volunteers for running a very successful District Council Meeting in my absence. As part of the District Council Meeting elections for 2017-2018 were held and the results are:
District Director Sue Fallon
Program Quality Director Patricia D’Cruze
Club Growth Director Peta Rakela
Central Division Director Almarie Meyer
Northern Division Director Mark Zhang
Eastern Division Director Adam Duda
Southern Division Director Veluthakkal Karunakaran (Kutty VK)
Many Congratulations. We wish you all the best success and the most rewarding experience. I’m looking forward to being supportive and encouraging to everyone. It is a very meaningful experience and enrichment to our lives and the lives of those we touch to serve our district. I hope you will inspire and support our 2017-2018 leadership team led by incoming District Director Sue Fallon as you have supported me.
Toastmaster of the Year
This year Toastmaster of Year is Robyn Lloyd. At the Saturday Dinner Dance Robyn was presented with personal district trophy. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Robyn for her dedication in helping clubs, areas, divisions and district club members to achieve their personal goals. Also for taking the time to promote club membership at all levels. You are an inspiration and thanks for your outstanding service to our members and to Toastmasters in District 17.
Overall Performance
Our Ranking in the world and in our Region 12 is as follows:
To be Distinguished, our district needs:
- 315 more paid memberships and 4 more distinguished clubs.
To be Select Distinguished, the district needs:
- 2 more new clubs, 386 more paid memberships and 8 more distinguished clubs.
To be President's Distinguished, the district needs:
- 4 more new clubs, 493 more paid memberships and 12 more distinguished clubs
I strongly believe that there are still members with awards to be submitted and with member’s dues to be paid. Please take a good look and verify that all the members who have paid for their renewals to the club have been renewed on the TI system, and new members who joined recently are lodged. Every member counts towards making our district distinguished. If every club registered 3 new members each we would make Distinguished status.
Let’s keep working together and aim for strong finish and celebrate our together at the awards night on the 7th July at 7pm. Register here: https://www.trybooking.com/QLUY
Please make every effort to convince those about to become members of your club to make the final decision, and club officers, please send your payments to World Headquarters the latest by the 30 June.
Remember that for the month of June, one of our clubs is sponsoring the new member fee ($25) for each new member who joins. If your club pays the $25 instead of the member, please send a request to our Club Growth Director at : cgd-d17@toastmastersdistricts.org and please copy me. You will be reimbursed for the joining fee.
Let’s make a special effort to finish the Toastmaster year on a great note for you, your club and our District.
I would like to thank every member in our District. Without your participation and dedication, we can’t achieve the Distinguished District statutes that we are know for.
Distinguished Clubs
To find out the names of Distinguished clubs please take a look at this ink:
http://dashboards.toastmasters.org/District.aspx?id=17&hideclub=1
They are 11 Distinguished Clubs, 7 Select Distinguished Clubs and 11 Presidents Distinguished Clubs for a total of 29 Clubs Distinguished Clubs or above. We need to have 33 clubs for Distinguished Status, 37 Distinguished Clubs for Select and 41 Distinguished Clubs for Presidents.
We will be achieving President Distinguished status for the number of new clubs in the District for a total of 7 new clubs and more likely 8 new clubs.
Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM)
Six Toastmasters achieved their Distinguished Toastmaster Award this year as we well all know this is the highest award that Toastmasters present to a member as it recognises both the communication and leadership skills that the member has completed. The achievement of the Distinguished Toastmaster award is recognition of both individuals’ commitment to both Toastmasters’ communication and leadership tracks.
Congratulations; we are all very proud of your commitments and achievements.
We have 6 Toastmasters who have achieved their DTM. In order of lodgement dates:
01 Catherine O’Brien 1 July 2016
02 Tom Bielski 1 August 2016
03 Gladys Lavell 23 August 2016
05 David Nicholas 18 November 2016
08 Almarie Meyer 13 March 2017
10 Andre Sequira 20 April 2017
Area Club visit reports
| Area Goal (19 areas) | Count | Percent |
| July-Oct. visits | 19 | 100.0% |
| Jan.-April visits | 19 | 100.0% |
Admirable Average was 105%. Well done District Directors and Area Directors.
The Incentive of the Clubs
Clubs that achieved membership of 20 or more, or if the club membership was less than 16 as of 1st July 2016 and achieved an extra 5 members, and who submitted their renewal fees to Toastmasters International by 29th March 2017 went into the draw for a Full Attendance Ticket to the District Convention on May 26 to 28 May.
These are the clubs that were in the running for that convention ticket: CPA Toastmasters, Curtin GSB Toastmasters, Fremantle Gateway Toastmasters Club, Victoria Quay Club, Canning Vale Toastmasters. The winner was Canning Vale Toastmasters and the recipient was Dennis Foo. Congratulations I hope that you enjoyed the prize.
Please continue to be inspired and I that hope you have all had a successful year in Toastmasters and have achieved your personal goals and your club’s goals.
Leonor Ragan DTM
Your District 17 District Director 2016-2017 – Always at your service
The Passion to: lead, communicate and achieve your goals
District 17 Education Awards
by Sue Fallon
Terrific result for April and May - 23 Educational & Leadership awards lodged in April and 42 in May – your superb work continues District 17 Toastmasters!
Time is running out to have our awards lodged in the 2016-2017 year – Please make sure your VPE has all the information required to enter your awards!
Make sure you are achieving your gaols, and be sure to let your Vice President Education know about your personal goals. If we all work on our personal goals, all of our clubs will achieve also
April Awards
| Award | Date | Member | Name |
| ALB | 4/04/2017 | Allen, Judith L. | Swan Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 04/25/2017 | Day, Cheryl | UWA |
| CL | 04/25/2017 | Day, Cheryl | UWA |
| CL | 04/18/2017 | Field, Michelle S | Perth Justalk |
| CC | 4/12/2017 | Hammond, Catherine | Victoria Quay Club |
| CC | 4/11/2017 | Hiew, Chi You Raymond | Willetton Toastmasters |
| CC | 4/06/2017 | Honey, Peter R | Durack Club |
| CC | 4/09/2017 | James, Nicholas | Willetton Toastmasters |
| ACB | 04/21/2017 | Kunzel, Cathy A. | Cannington Communicators |
| CC | 04/14/2017 | Law, Peter C. | Armadale Toastmasters |
| CC | 04/24/2017 | Leach, Benjamin Jack | Fremantle Gateway Toastmasters Club |
| ACG | 4/03/2017 | Lloyd, Robyn | Durack Club |
| CC | 4/03/2017 | Lloyd, Robyn | Durack Club |
| LDREXC | 4/03/2017 | Narayanaswamy, Anandan | Southern River Toastmasters |
| CC | 04/15/2017 | Parameswaran, Venkatesh | UWA College Row Toastmasters Club |
| CL | 04/15/2017 | Parameswaran, Venkatesh | UWA College Row Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 04/14/2017 | Pilgrim, Richard | Subiaco Early Birds Club |
| CC | 04/20/2017 | Salam, Kawsar | Swan Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 4/01/2017 | Segura, Laura Elena | UWA |
| ACG | 04/30/2017 | Sequeira, Andre J. | Canning Vale Toastmasters |
| ALS | 04/30/2017 | Sequeira, Andre J. | Canning Vale Toastmasters |
| DTM | 04/30/2017 | Sequeira, Andre J. | Canning Vale Toastmasters |
| CC | 4/12/2017 | Vorbach, Robert Alexander | CPA Toastmasters |
May Awards
| Award | Date | Member | Name |
| CC | 05/18/2017 | Bandara, Gayani | Risky Toast |
| CL | 05/24/2017 | Barton, Murray W. | Kalamunda Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 05/26/2017 | Beeston, Daniel | Curtin GSB Club |
| CC | 05/28/2017 | Burton, David | Water Corporation Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 05/23/2017 | Chilala, Maimbo | Victoria Park |
| CC | 05/28/2017 | Dart-Kelly, Christopher | ToastiES |
| ALB | 05/19/2017 | D'Cruze, Patricia Ann | Perth Justalk |
| ALB | 05/16/2017 | D'Cruze, Patricia Ann | West End Toastmasters Club |
| CL | 05/16/2017 | Dewar, Rebecca Emily | Gosnells Foothills Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 5/12/2017 | Evans, Lisa | Competitive Speakers Perth |
| CC | 05/18/2017 | Fisher, Charles A. | West End Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 5/11/2017 | Garg, Chahak | Applecross Toastmasters |
| CL | 05/22/2017 | Goodz, Morrie David | WA School of Mines - Kalgoorlie |
| ACS | 05/20/2017 | Goodz, Morrie David | Golden Gourmet Toastmasters |
| CL | 05/17/2017 | Gotsis, Sophy | City of Cockburn Toastmasters |
| ACS | 5/03/2017 | Harris, Duncan | Ellenbrook Toastmasters Club |
| ACG | 05/27/2017 | Hinscliff, Ross G. | Banyandah Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 05/30/2017 | Jackson, Samantha | Guildford Stars Toastmasters Club |
| CL | 05/22/2017 | Jurin, Ilija | Victoria Quay Club |
| CL | 5/09/2017 | Lavell, Gladys Doreen | Swan Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 05/18/2017 | Leung, Wai Yen | CPA Toastmasters |
| ALB | 5/04/2017 | Lloyd, Robyn | Terrace Speakers Toastmasters |
| ALB | 5/04/2017 | Lloyd, Robyn | Durack Club |
| CC | 05/16/2017 | Long, Katrina | Gosnells Foothills Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 5/09/2017 | Majoski, Danny | Plain Speakers |
| CC | 5/01/2017 | O'Loghlan, Gaye | Ellenbrook Toastmasters Club |
| ACB | 05/30/2017 | Rodrigo, Maria N | CPA Toastmasters |
| CC | 05/16/2017 | Ross, Leslie F. | Gosnells Foothills Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 05/24/2017 | Sanders, David A.J. | Sunday Sundowners Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 05/19/2017 | Schaeffer, Jennifer Lyn | Golden Gourmet Toastmasters |
| CC | 05/31/2017 | Shanghavi, Shil | Young Guns |
| CC | 5/12/2017 | Sharma, Jaitabh Jewel | Applecross Toastmasters |
| CC | 05/16/2017 | Stevens, Daniel | Gosnells Foothills Toastmasters Club |
| ALB | 05/19/2017 | Wallace, Cherie D. | Golden Gourmet Toastmasters |
| CL | 05/19/2017 | Wallace, Cherie D. | Golden Gourmet Toastmasters |
| CC | 05/19/2017 | Wallace, Cherie D. | Golden Gourmet Toastmasters |
| CC | 05/18/2017 | Walsh, Jacqui L. | Shell Australia Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 05/13/2017 | Whittred, Katrina L | City of Perth Toastmasters Club |
| ACB | 05/23/2017 | Wong, Alison | St George's Toastmasters Club |
| CC | 05/22/2017 | Woodhill, Scott | Victoria Quay Club |
| ACB | 5/02/2017 | Yau, Henry | City of Perth Toastmasters Club |
Sue Fallon
District 17 Program Quality Director 2016-2017
Distinguished Toastmaster Award - April 2017
by Sue Fallon
Congratulations to:
Andre Sequeira DTM
Congratulation this month to our latest Distinguished Toastmaster for this fantastic achievement.
Your commitment Andre to the learning and development required to reach this standard is immense and I am extremely proud of your endeavours!
Sue Fallon
District 17 Program Quality Director 2016-2017
Triple Crown Awards April & May 2017
by Sue Fallon
April
Andre Sequeira DTM LDREXC, ACG, ALS, DTM
May
Cherie Wallace CC, CL, ALB
Gladys Lavell DTM CL, CC. DTM
Ross Hinscliff CL, ACG, ALB
Sophy Gotsis CL, CL, ALB
Morrie Goodz ACS, CL, AL
Congratulations to District 17’s newest Triple Crown Award winners on your continued achievement.
Sue Fallon
District 17 Program Quality Director 2016-2017
Winner of the First Timers Quiz at the ‘Passion to Communicate’ Convention
by Patricia D'Cruze
At the recent 2017 District 17 Convention at Fremantle last month, Cara Mansfield from Ellenbrook Toastmasters was the winner of the First Timer Quiz.
Cara was awarded a book titled Speeches that Defined the World a collection of the most potent and memorable speeches throughout history.
The aim of the First Timer Quiz is to get members to network and meet District Officers and other members outside their club.
Patricia D'Cruze
Club Growth Director 2016-17
District 17 Marvellous Membership Campaign 2016-17
by Patricia D'Cruze
The winners of the Marvellous Membership campaign were announced at the May 2017‘Passion to Communicate’ Convention Closing Ceremony. To achieve the award, clubs were required to pay a minimum of 20 members payments to Toastmasters International by the due dates of 30 September 2016 and 31 March 2017. In addition, they were required to achieve 4+4 new members therefore achieving 2 points on their club’s Distinguished Club Programme.
The clubs awarded the 2016-17 Marvellous Membership Award were:
- Canning Vale
- Fremantle Gateway Toastmasters Club
- Victoria Quay
Congratulations to the members and club officers of the winning clubs.
Patricia D'Cruze
Club Growth Director 2016-17
Promoting your club
By Almarie Meyer
Have you ever thought of using Facebook advertising to promote your club? For as little as $6 you can reach a few thousand people in your local area.
When your Facebook manager signs in there will be a Promote tab visible on the club page. Click on that tab and then select 'Promote local business'. Don't worry, you can cancel the promotion at any stage. NO need to pay before you have confirmed that you do want to go ahead with the promotion so feel free to play around with the options.
The first item to select will be then geographic location in which you want to promote your page. Make sure that you have the correct address for your club meeting before starting the promotion. The default range will be a circle of 10km, but you can make it as little as 1 km or as far as you think people will travel to get to a meeting. For example if I select Butler club and take a 5km radius the potential audience of 18+ men and women are 72,000 people and if I reduce the range to 3km, the number of people targeted drops to 27,000.
The next is to select an age range. Since Toastmasters do not allow members under 18, it makes sense to exclude teenagers. Next you will see a box marked Interests. Select items such as 'Public speaking', 'Friendship' and 'Communication' to ensure you only show the ad to people likely to be interested in attending a Toastmasters meeting. There is a tickbox for Instagram, but unless your club uses this you can just untick that box.
Continuing on, you will now come to the text, or in other words, the message you are promoting. BY default this will be taken from the description of your club page. Change it if you don't like the wording. Select a headline. It will default to your page name. The image will also default from the current page and again you can change it if you like. Select a photograph where the people are smiling and look friendly and inviting.
After the image will be the 'call to action tab'. You can simply ask people to like your page, send a message, get directions or you can invite them to learn more by going to your club website. Experiment with the options to find one that suits your club. In our case we prefer the "Learn more" option. Remember to ensure that your club website is up to date before you start your promotion.
Finally you get to the budget and the number of days the campaign will run. If you don't like the default budget options on the dropdown menu, then type the daily amount you want to spend into the box. Similarly, if you don't want the number of days given as options, you can click on the calendar and select the date when the promotion must stop running. You can select as little as 1 day. Payment options are via debit card, credit card or PayPal.
Happy advertising!
by Almarie Meyer
Almarie Meyer
District 17 Public Relations Manager 2016-2017
Making succession planning happen
by Stephanie Chan
All the best plans made count for nothing without the people to carry on from there. Hence Leadership Succession is imperative to a Club’s survival and success. As part of Southern River Toastmasters’ revitalisation plan, we took on Succession Planning as a High Performance Leadership (HPL) project.
Our Vision
To ensure a strong continuity in Leadership.
Our Mission
- To understand what drives our members to be an Officer, challenges which hold them back and resources that need to be in place for anything to happen.
- To equip Officers with adequate tools and enable them to discharge their responsibilities easily and efficiently.
- To bring up a new generation of leaders.
Our Findings
We conducted a mini-survey and the feedback revealed that contribution to the Club and upskilling are the main motivators while time and lack of knowledge / confidence stand in the way of participation. There is a resounding need for education for members to take action.
Our Action Plan
- Expectations Management will be explored in a workshop on “The Value of Club Officer skills in your daily life” and an HPL on “Facilitating the transition into Club Officer roles”.
- Enablement, underpinned by time and knowledge will be addressed by:
- Early call for Nominations / Elections. This will provide ample time for incumbents to orientate, familiarise and immerse themselves into the roles even before they officially start.
- Club Officer Manual. This guide will detail the step-by-step instructions on tasks and processes with screen prints and templates to support.
- Advance Planning. E.g. Meetings program has been planned until end of October; Visitor packs are prepared for a year’s use; Club Contest paperwork are compiled for use at any time.
Each Committee will plan ahead for their successors.
- Changing of the Guards. Each officer will have a free hand to form their own sub-committees (Consultant/mentor and deputies) to share out the work, act as relief during holiday breaks and as Planning think tanks.
In a small Club of 20+ members, this could mean mobilising every member in running the club. Benefits include member engagement, exponential expansion in knowledge base, time saving and leadership continuity.
Our Results
Southern River Toastmasters called for Nominations on 3 May and response was positive. All positions have been elected and filled.
Stephanie Chan, DTM
Southern River Toastmaster Club
Celebrating #450
by Robyn Lloyd
Celebrating Meeting #450 of Terrace Toastmasters, Tuesday, 2nd May 2017
A monumental milestone and best summed up, literally and metaphorically by Debbie in her Club Toast.
With the calculations defined by a mathematical genius Debbie presented and equated how many members had contributed to this
milestone, a major achievement on many fronts;
How many Project speeches had been delivered?
Thought provoking Inspirations;
And tantalising Table Topics?
Can you...
Did you guess?
Using a computations based on a fortnightly average and taking into
account weather conditions and the price of bananas the numbers
were sensational and staggering!
Note: Daylight saving wasn’t factored into the equation!
Equally impressive Debbie declared the litres of perspiration
expired by newcomers presenting their Icebreakers.
The Inspiration with the aim to lift and set the meeting mood did that with Towela
challenging the audience to think and act
quoting ‘the only limitations are those we have in our mind’.
Delivered with honesty and conviction,
enough to make even the faint-hearted consider pushing personal boundaries,
as she has.
With a theme of Celebrations Table Topics covered hypotheticals:
$40,000 weddings (or car!); reaching 100 year’s birthday; some happy and unhappy footy fans
and what to do with a 12th public holiday!
In attendance were a sprinkling of special guests, along with founding member Gil Alexander,
still an active member participating with his usual passion;
And who else but Gil can get those ‘funny’ shaped tables fitting perfectly together?!
#450, A memorable meeting!
Robyn Lloyd DTM
040 2811652
Area Director Central C5 2016-2017
VP Education Terrace Toastmasters
Competitive Speakers Perth
28th June - 1st Birthday Celebration & Tall Tales Competition!
Competitive Speakers Perth invites you to our 1st Birthday Celebration on 28 June.
To celebrate our 1st Birthday, we will be running our own (fun and unofficial) Tall Tales competition. You are invited to come along and join in the fun. There is no requirement to be a “good” speaker to enter. The focus of this competition is on “Giving It A Go” and “Having Fun”.
The venue for Competitive Speakers Perth is Tom Dadour Community Centre, Subiaco, and we start at 630pm. Light snacks will be provided.
Please let the Club President or Club VPE know if you would like to attend:
- Club President – Martin O'Connor marty.j.oc@gmail.com
- Club VPE - Almarie Meyer almarietm@gmail.com
Also, let us know whether or not you'd like to take part in the competition itself. There are no expectations and no restrictions to enter this "fun" competition.
Here are some extra details about our Tall Tales Competition.
Tall Tales Competition
We will be following the Toastmasters Tall Tales speech rules, with some minor changes, as this is a fun competition. The timing is 3-5 minutes. The judge’s guide and ballot can be found here: https://www.toastmasters.org/~/media/d13f181d4b65432bb74fcad35e6e9e61.ashx
Official additional rules for this competition are:
The Tall Tales contest follows all rules outlined in the General Rules section of the Speech Contest rule book. In addition, the following additions and exceptions apply:
- The subject for the Tall Tales speech must be of a highly exaggerated, improbable nature and have a theme or plot.
- Humour and props may be used to support or illustrate the speech.
Unofficial additional rules for this competition are:
- Everyone in the audience including competitors will be a judge and at the end of the contest you will only have to vote for the winner.
- Person with the most votes will win and you can only vote once.
- The highest-ranking toastmaster attending will be the tiebreaker if a tie is unacceptable.
The trophy you will be competing for will be something very special from the $2 shop. Your photo will appear on our website, and maybe even a video.
I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on 28 June, to help us celebrate our 1st birthday and enjoy / participate in our Tall Tales Contest.
Martin O’Connor
President - Competitive Speakers Perth toastmasters club
Black Swan Newsletter Guidelines for Authors
Criteria
- Articles must be relevant or of clear interest to Toastmaster members.
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Document Format
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.
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