Poster Contest

Mayo Day Breakers did it Again!

Neil Wimmer, a member of Mayo Day Breakers, put up the very first TM poster for Area 84! Thank you!

Have I told you that I have the two golden tickets in my bag?

In case you don’t know what I am talking about, you can find the information here:

 

February Membership Month

February 1 – February 29th

Poster Contest

Check this web page: http://www.d6tm.org/node/294

 

We need more posters! Print it and post it, that’s all!

District Membership Contest

Have you seen several Toastmasters posters post around the town and wondered what is going on?

February is Membership month. Our District is having a contest! Each area will choose one winner who will receive 1 ticket for morning Education Session, and  1 ticket for Saturday evening banquet and International Speech Contest (worth $50!) for the Spring Convention, Saturday 4/21, held at the Ramada Plaza, Minneapolis. Participating clubs must put up posters with pertinent information during the month of Feb. and report back to their Area Governors the dates posters went up, locations (names/addresses etc.) The club who puts up MOST posters in your area will win 2 Golden tickets.

Where can you find posters? Well, there are several free ones that you can download at: http://www.toastmasters.org/MarketingMaterials

Good luck! (And more importantly, I hope this will bring you many new members!)

Mayo Daybreakers Member Spotlight

One thing I always want to do (and I am able to do it now is to let each club learn from each other. Today, I want to share Mayo Daybreakers Member-spotlight web page with you. Rose Evers, an amazing toastmaster, is in the spotlight this time. (Isn’t she wonderful?)

To see the page, go to: http://5536.toastmastersclubs.org/ and click “Member Spotlight” on the left side.

Mayo Daybreakers Member-spotlight page is a fun page to read. I get to know several of its members by reading this page. After I get to know several members in the club, I feel I know the club as well.

It’s a great club. Check it out!

Mayo Daybreakers Winter 2012 Newsletter

I received a copy of Mayo Daybreakers Winter 2012 Newsletter today. It has good information about Toastmasters; it tells me something about the club and its members; and it’s easy to read. I provide a link here for you – I am sure you’ll like it too . Great job, Sally!

Mayo Daybreakers Winter 2012 Newsletter

Feel free to leave comments.

 

Happy New Year!

I wish all of you and your families have a wonderful 2012! (I can’t believe we are in the second half of the year already. Can you?)

 

Officer Training

We had one officer training session in Dec. (Thanks to Area 83 Governor Jean who organized that event.) Seventeen Area 84 officers were trained. Yeah! Fourteen or fifteen to go!

 

The second training session is scheduled on Jan. 14, at Rochester Methodist Hospital Dining Room 6 from 10 am to 11:30 am. Thanks to Vicki, Area 85 Governor, for arranging this. Those who didn’t attend the Dec. training session, I hope you will attend this one. I hope. I hope…

 

Area Governor’s Second Visit

I will start my second club visit soon. Official visit, that is. I will contact VP-Education in each club to arrange that. Not sure what would be a good topic to talk about. At this moment, I think I will share my 6-month Area Governor experience with you. If you have any suggestion, please feel free to contact me.

 

Area Contest

Area 84 Spring Contest is on Mar. 16, 7 pm, at Calvary Episcopal Church. This time we have International speech contest and Table Topic speech contest. I hope many of you would participate. (Do you know that all Area Governors are not allowed to compete? And several of us really enjoy the competition!)

 

Area 84 Challenge – 2012

I don’t know about you… I had a lot of fun with our area challenge. Are you ready for another one? Ready or not, here we go… in less than 400 words, tell us what you like about your club. I will post it on the challenge page and we (secret judges) will select 3 winners from all entries.

 

This is not a writing contest! It is not an advertisement! Everyone has a chance to win!

 

See you pretty soon.

The Winners are…

Our area 84 challenge is officially ended. The first prize winner is Bright Monday (earned 51.5 points. Wow!) Mayo Day Breakers second (earned 23 points. Great!) and Hi-Nooners third (earned 10 points. Excellent!)  Each will be rewarded a wireless presenter. Congratulation!

 

Many of you have told me how much you have enjoyed visiting other clubs. Many say you have learned something from this experience. All of you are winners.

 

I want to thank those who participated. You rock.

Extra! Extra! Bright Monday captures EGG October 8, 2011

On Oct. 8, five Bright Monday members (plus one member belongs to both clubs, which gave us another .5 point) drove toSt. Paulto visit Saturday Morning Live Toastmasters Club to capture the EGG. Other than Bright Monday, there were 3 other clubs there for the same purpose. Since Bright Monday had more members present, we won!

 

We are very proud of Bright Monday. The EGG is inRochesternow!!! Let’s try to keep it inRochesterorSpring Valley!!!  (I am sure Bright Monday is ready to welcome guests!)

 

If you haven’t heard about EGG, here is the link…  http://www.d6tm.org/EGG

Area 84 ROCKS!

I read our District’s online report. I couldn’t believe what I saw. All area 84 clubs had paid October dues on time (before Oct. 1)!!! ALL clubs! Every single one! You guys are awesome!

 Other than that, there are already several DCP points claimed by several clubs! Great job!

 I am so excited, and so proud.

Receiving Feedback

I asked people to give me feedback on our recent area contest and learned several things that I could improve on our next one.

 

I agreed with what people said and felt bad. Suddenly the whole contest event seemed like a failure to me even though many people told me the event was great.  

 

It was at that *down* moment, I received an article from Leadership Freak. It had this question on it: What do you do when you remember all the things you’ve done wrong and forget the good?

 

And it continued, “Beating ourselves up wastes brain power, drains passion, and slows growth.”

 

Amazing! When I needed an advice the most, it came to me! Sometime, all we need is one good advice to carry us forward.

 

I appreciate all of feedback I have received. They allow me do better next time!  

 

Area Contest Expense Report

Recently someone told me that someone had told him that Bright Monday Club was the one who asked for $5 contest event fee when we hosted our area contest last time. It is totally not true. The hosting club sets up the registration table, collects the money and then gives all the money to the Area Governor. Bright Monday didn’t receive a penny.

To be fair, our Area Governor did take care of bit items like room, trophies, printing…

It’s one of my goals to minimize the money the hosting club had to spend. By asking each club to contribute a food item, I was *almost* able to do that. There were still plates, forks, spoons, napkins… etc. Sadrul, our contest chair, ended up purchasing all of that and he told me I didn’t have to reimburse him. Thanks, Sadrul.

Food – how important is the food? I personally don’t think the food is that important. Having some dessert and coffee would be good enough. If an Area Governor wants to have a big party, he or she (instead of the hosting club) should prepare to absorb the cost, my opinion. (I enjoy feeding people. I think I got that from my mom.)

I want to post the expense report here so everyone knows where the money went and why it is important to come and support the event.  Without your support, we may as well forget about the contest.

Expenses:

$70.70  Trophies purchased by Helen

$50        Room paid by Helen

$20.24   Certificate paid by Helen (will print them myself next time to save money)

$11.27   15 folders paid by Helen (will reuse for spring contest)

$7.37     name tags, envelopes, pens paid by Helen (have enough left for spring contest)

—————————————————————–

$159.58

Expense that no need for reimbursement:

$__   table clothes, plastic bowl for chips, drinks, napkins, utensils, cups, coffee, plates, print programs… etc. from Sadrul (Thanks.)

$__   drinks and chips from Deana (Thanks)

$__   5 foot-long Subway Sandwiches purchased by Helen

$__   bread, cucumbers, cream cheese to make cucumber sandwiches – Helen

$__   gifts – Helen

Collected

$175 – 35 members paid the event

$40 – reimbursed by district

———————————————-

$215

$215 – $159.58 = $55.42  — Excellent!

$55.42 is saved for the spring contest. After the spring contest, I am hoping we will have some money left to buy some speech manuals for each club. For example, we can buy some CC manuals so each club can lend the manual to its new member until the new member receives his own CC manual. This is just one thought.