Mid-Year Trio Training in Jakarta

On a hot and steamy day in Jakarta, Day 1 opened with a mid-year training welcome. We met the Training facilitation team from Toastmasters International – three Regional Advisors – Ivan Lieu, DTM (R9), Stephen Budai, DTM(R12), and Ronaldo Huang, DTM (R14); Chief Marketing Officer, John Lorkin; CEO, Daniel Rex, DTM and Toastmasters International President Radhi Spears, DTM as well as the local Indonesian Trio who were very hospitable. Around 100 District Trio leaders from across Asia Pacific including China, Hong Kong, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, New Zealand and Australia attended – we were a very energetic and rowdy group. We’re hoping several leaders we met from other Districts will consider attending D17 Conference in May this year. 

We had breakouts in our respective roles. Jeff joined other District Directors to share challenges and gather solutions for managing our District especially planning our District elections which take place at the District Council Meeting (DCM) at the Conference in May 2025. Tom shared challenges with other Program Quality Directors and gathered solutions for enhancing club quality and helping clubs achieve their goals. Maree and the other Club Growth Directors shared progress toward achieving District goals in developing new clubs, retaining existing clubs and growing membership payments.

All role breakout groups did a really productive brain-writing activity to get up to 16 different ideas on how to tackle a problem. Can’t wait to share this simple activity at a future District Officer and Club Officer training session.

We then split up into mixed groups for Building Blocks of Communication, an experiential team activity to help us learn how to build and improve healthy relationships through more effective communication. This was a highly competitive, entertaining and enlightening Lego building activity. Who knew learning could be so much fun!!

We finished the long day of mixed group activities with time in our District Trio teams to refine our District 17 plan for increasing membership payments. We had to create a poster to share the primary objectives, the challenges and key strategies to implement the plan the following day.

Day 2 started with the hotly anticipated Organization Update. This is when World Headquarters and the Board share major changes to the organization that will impact Districts. Two of particular note for District 17:

– new rules for reinstating clubs that closed in the past 2 years making it easier to rebuild a club that may have closed as a result of the pandemic. We will be reaching out to several past clubs to test their interest in reforming under these revised criteria.

– new prospective member process. This provides a seamless way to engage and convert a guest enquiry via Find a Club through to becoming a paid member. It was shocking to hear that less than 10% of people who enquire through the Find a Club option on the TI website never join. When asked why, 75% say its because the club never got back to them. This is likely due to clubs not having their contact details up to date, only one email was contacted and the recipient may have overlooked to respond (thinking others got contacted).

With the new online process, three officers are contacted President, Secretary and VPM, the guest receives standard emails in reply as we move them through the guest phases and they can even register and pay online. As a result, we expect an increase in conversions from guests to members. More about this new process at Club Officer Training and a dedicated workshop.

– new Smedley Club award. In our 100th year and in honour of our Toastmasters founder, Ralph C. Smedley, Toastmasters International now have a new club award in the Distinguished Club Program (DCP). If your club gets 25 or more members and achieves ALL 10 goals by June 30, they will be awarded the Smedley Club Award. Several clubs in D17 are on track to achieve this award and several more are close and could push through. 

We then ran a poster session to present our respective District Strategies for increasing new, charter and renewal membership payments. The insights to other District’s strategies and feedback from others was invaluable in helping us reshape our strategy. We’ll be sharing this revised strategy at the upcoming District Executive Council Meeting (DECM) on Sun 9 March.

We finished Day 2 with a panel discussion with the three Regional Advisors. They have all been District Trio leaders before and shared their own insights and lessons learned on managing work/life balance, handling conflict and refining strategies in tough times.

Finally, we finished mid-year training with reflections on our Mid-year Training experience, identified key takeaways, and planned for the remainder of the program year with a focus on what we will START doing, STOP doing, and CONTINUE doing as a District team and as individuals. This was an enlightening activity as it required that we were really honest with each other and ourselves about how we need to pivot to get back on course to achieve our ambitious goals by June 30.

A lot was packed into the weekend but so much was learned and achieved. Being a member of the District 17 Trio is an honour and a privilege. This was even more evident from the lasting friendships made with fellow Trio members across the world, the safe and supportive space for us to share our successes, challenges and plan and the generous and constructive feedback provided by such a diverse group. We also greatly appreciated the transparency and clarity provided by our most senior leaders, CEO Daniel Rex and International President Rahdi Spears. Times have been tough, there are challenges ahead but together we can truly make Toastmasters great again.

Overall, the learning, the inspiration and the connections we forged with our peers and senior leaders further reinforced our commitment to District 17.

“If we believe, we can achieve!”