District 106

Newsletter

July 2023

From the Desk of the District Director

Celebrate! Congratulations to each of you! You are Toastmasters of Distinction! Your completion of education and leadership awards, plus your commitment and warm invitation to new members and your pursuit of member numbers sufficient to achieve recognition for those clubs, have combined to fulfill the dream of this District. We ARE President’s Distinguished because of you and your commitment to excellence. Thank you!!

How did we reach this point? We have had outstanding leadership throughout our existence as an independent Toastmasters District. I want to thank Distinguished Toastmaster Ben Smith, Distinguished Toastmaster Dave Gibson, Distinguished Toastmaster Michael Carlton, Distinguished

Toastmaster Kimberlee Redington, and Distinguished Toastmaster Gopu Shrestha! These Distinguished Toastmasters, your past district directors, have positioned this district for success and demonstrated the leadership qualities which have empowered our success. Thank you to our Past District Directors!

It has been a privilege to serve as Program Quality Director alongside District Director Gopu Shrestha and Club Growth Director Katy Hursh. We are vastly different personalities, but we were steadfast in our commitment to work together as a team dedicated to your success.

SIGN THE BANNER!! Pass the word: I have a District 106 “Empowering Members” banner which I am asking District 106 members to sign! It will be coming to a club or clubs near you. Visit and sign the banner. That signed banner will go to the Toastmasters International annual meeting and will cross the stage with Gopu, Katy, me, and Matt! We’d like to be “joined” by as many of you as we can by carrying your signatures with us! Make this part of your celebration. SIGN THE BANNER!!

I challenge each of our clubs to plan a minimum of four (4) open house meetings between now and 30 June 2024! If your club only meets monthly, then perhaps two is a more realistic goal. We are a warm and inviting Toastmasters District. Our clubs are safe and supportive environments in which our members thrive in pursuit of their communication and leadership skills! As we begin our task of repeating Distinguished recognition for our District in 2024, let’s not take our foot off the pedal!

Our member numbers are growing. Our club numbers are growing. Let’s be intentional about inviting more people to join us! New members. New speeches. New opportunities to mentor! Together we can grow and succeed!

Edward Aylward, DTM

District Director, District 106

Congratulations to D106 for achieving President's Distinguished recognition!

From the Desk of the Program Quality Director

Congratulations District 106 in achieving President’s Distinguished as a district. In August, our Trio will get to walk across the stage in the Bahamas with possibly 8 or 9 other districts in the world who have accomplished this goal and be recognized. Thank you for your efforts and accomplishments. We are so excited and proud of all of you who made this possible. We couldn’t have done it without you. 

I encourage you to attend the International Toastmasters Convention in person or online. There are workshops, keynote speakers, the Golden Gavel, and the Championship of Public Speaking. To learn more, checkout the Toastmaster magazine at the end of this newsletter. 

As we step into the new Toastmasters year and prepare for success, remember to:

1. Attend club officer training both Fall and Spring
2. Update your club’s website - when & where your club meets, and how often
3. Schedule a Moments of Truth
4. Plan an Open House

This year we are reaching for the stars to achieve Smedley Distinguished status. We believe in you! As leaders and members, let's be excellent in doing our part to make our clubs stronger by giving speeches and inviting friends to join our clubs and reach their fullest potential. The world can have a better voice and presentation when Toastmasters is part of the equation.

Katy Hursh

Program Quality Director, District 106

Discount on Dues!

Renew your membership by July 31st to save $15.

From the Desk of the Club Growth Director

President’s Distinguished District 106,

It’s my honor to be your Club Growth Director for the 2023-2024 year. This year we are excited to continue the great success our district had last year. I am happy to report we started this year with a bang by doing two demo meetings in June. I am also happy to report we have a new club that joined our district at the end of the Toastmasters year, CPC Corporate Club. Please welcome them to our district.

I am so excited about my Club Growth Team for 2023-2024. The team is put together to help our district grow strong clubs, but also to find new leads, new members, and new clubs to sustain the growth of our

district. We are the marketing train for our district. We are going to work hard this year and are looking for ideas on how to reach the maximum potential in our district. If you have any ideas on how we can promote Toastmasters, please reach out to us. We would love to hear from you.

Let me introduce the team to you: our Club Extension chair is Denise Sundquist, our Club Quality Chair is Yves Prevost, our Club Retention Chair is Dave Hoffman, our Club Coach is Anna Gaichas, and working

on a new partnership with Rotary will be Susan Lau. I also have a great group of Toastmasters that will participate in demo meetings. If you would like to be part of the team, don’t hesitate to reach out.

It is clear we have a lot of strong clubs in our district, and many strong Toastmasters. However, we have some clubs that could use a boost. I would like to encourage Toastmasters of D106 to visit other clubs, bring prepared speeches, and participate in Table Topics. Clubs that have less than 15 members might really benefit from a visit. This little gesture will go a long way in supporting and re-energizing clubs that might need it. I want to challenge all Toastmasters to attend another club in the next couple of months; with technology we can do this a lot more easily. Encourage each other, share information and ideas, and let’s work together. With a little teamwork, there is no stopping us.

I'm looking forward to a wonderful year, please reach out at any time: tm.matthew.villella@gmail.com or call me at (807) 627-2148. I'm looking forward to serving you.

Matthew Villela, DTM

Club Growth Director, District 106

Email: tm.matthew.villella@gmail.com

It's Training Season! Register Today!

Club Officer Training

Club officers, please attend one of the following sessions if you have not already been trained. Earn a Magnificent Seven ribbon for your club if all seven officers are trained in the fall and spring!

Division and Area Director Training

Division and Area Directors, register now to attend monthly training sessions hosted by PQD Katy Hursh.

Story Sparks: School Daze

Come tell a story or just listen at this fun, free, and in-person

event! If you want to be a speaker, you can add your name to the hat,

and we will draw 10 speakers to tell a 5-minute story related to the

theme SCHOOL DAZE. Judges will be selected from audience members.

Speakers and Judges get free drink coupons!

Date: Wednesday, September 13

Time: 6:30 PM – 9 PM

Location: Camp Bar Twin Cities, 490 Robert Street North, Saint Paul, MN 55101

More Info and Registration Link (Free Event):

From the Desk of the Public Relations Manager

Fellow District 106 Toastmasters!

What a pleasure to continue to serve you all once again this year as the District's Public Relations Manager (PRM). I am excited - elated! - for this wonderful opportunity, and happy to take it forward with the foundation laid for a successful PRM Office by the leaders who have served in this role before me.

Please join me in saying Thank You to Johnny Harbieh, Jessica Parker, DTM, and Diane Windingland, DTM. They have all been, and continue to be, pillars in our Toastmasters PR community.

Jason Sonnek, DTM

Newsletter Editor-in-Chief

Margie Peterson, DTM

Social Media Podcast Manager

Please help me welcome and congratulate awesome TMs who will serve the PRM Office in 2023-2024: Jason Sonnek and Margie Peterson! Thank you, Jason and Margie, for serving the PRM Office, and I am sure we will do great as a team.

Calling on all Toastmasters who are interested in serving our PRM Office 2023-2024: please reach out to prm@d106tm.org. Open positions include Chief Web Editor, Social Media Manager, and Content Writer.

Johnny Harbieh

Webmaster and Chief Web Editor - Social Media

Robert Bazinet, DTM

Newsletter Editor-in-Chief

I would like to specially congratulate and thank my outgoing PRM office team members who have done an exceptional job this past year of 2022-2023: Johnny Harbieh and Robert Bazinet.

I also want to say thank you to my fellow District 106 trio members for allowing me to serve alongside them:

• District Director (DD): Edward Aylward, DTM
• Program Quality Director (PQD): Katy Hursh
• Club Growth Director (CGD): Matthew Villellla, DTM

We have a lot of work ahead of us this year. We just finished 2022-2023 stronger than expected. We were able to do this because of each one of you. Each Toastmaster who came to a meeting. Each volunteer who helped at a speech contest. Each district officer who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure our district continues to operate. It is because of you we succeeded this past year. And it is because of you we shall continue to succeed and move forward. As PRM, my main objective this year is to further strengthen the brand by continuing the

journey of encouraging the younger generation to join our Toastmasters community. To do that, we need to bring awareness of Toastmasters to Gen Z. We need to ensure that all external and internal communication follows Toastmasters International (TMI) brand guidelines, standards, and best practices. We need to be good representatives of TMI. After all, we are its face on the ground.

As the PRM, I will work with our VP of Public Relations officers across the district to help them grow their membership by adding new leaders. We will do that together by making sure everyone knows about Toastmasters, and ensuring that we look awesome from the outside in and inside out!

Before I let you go, I need to ask you to look at the numbers below and visit our social communication channels to subscribe, follow, and share! There is so much there that the PRM team does to elevate our message. Let's help take it forward and be part of the growth!

District 106 Social channel presence by the numbers:

YouTube: 148

LinkedIn: 197

Facebook: 428

Instagram: 279

Twitter: 190

TikTok: 25

Subscribe and Follow us on the D106 Website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram,YouTube, and TikTok for exciting updates, inspiration, and more.

District 106 by the numbers:

5 Divisions

105 clubs

3007 members

If you have any questions, comments, feedback, or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out!

PRM Team [Ashok, Jason, Margie]

Ashok Sunkavalli

2023-2024 District 106 Public Relations Manager

Email: prm@d106tm.org

Cell: (319) 431-2415

From the Desk of the Club Extension Chair

Make the Call!

Over a year ago, I had this brilliant idea that I was pretty sure no one had ever thought of in the

history of Toastmasters: to email my human resource professional group and tell them about Toastmasters. They, in turn, would go back to their businesses and find everyone that was struggling with "ums," "ahs," "likes," evaluations, and presentations and “encourage” them to join our club.

The email went unanswered. Surprised…. I followed up. Did I have the correct email? A sent a few more emails and waited patiently. They reached out to me a year later. They were looking for a sponsor for their June 2023 meeting. While we weren’t able to give a full presentation, we were able to speak to the group for a few minutes to share the benefits of Toastmasters.

During the meeting, several other people spoke and I counted a plethora of "ums," "ahs," and "likes," and that was just from the human resource professionals! I was sure my club would be packed on Friday.

No one showed up. I learned that even if my idea was brilliant, I still needed to execute it in a purposeful way. Here are five purposeful ways to reach out to an organization (I did most of these…but not all!):

1. Research your prospects before contacting them. You need to know how Toastmasters will help THEM.
2. Know what you are going to say. We wrote out a complete script and practiced it the night before even though it was only 10 minutes. We wanted to make sure we were engaging, succinct, and informative.
3. At our meeting, we had an appealing handout for each guest. We gave them essential information on when and where our club meets, and who to call if they had questions. If you meet someone in-person or over the phone, send them an email after your conversation with helpful information.
4. When you meet someone, let them do most of the talking. Then determine how Toastmasters could help them.
5. This is a relationship, and relationships take time. If they don’t visit your club, make a reminder in your calendar to reach out to them in the future.

I realize now I was a little too impatient with my brilliant initial idea. I’m excited to be on the Club Growth team and ready to perfect my message this year. Let us know if you have a great idea – maybe a new club, maybe a stronger club or maybe just connecting with a new person.

Let’s make the call!

Denise Sundquist

Club Extension Chair

From the Desk of the Club Coach Chair

Hi, I’m Anna Gaichas. I’ll be serving as the Club Coach Chair this year. We’re looking for club coaches. A club coach partners with a club of 3-12 members to add more members and bring a high quality experience to club meetings.

Congratulations to Johnathan Goossen for successfully serving as a coach for Mears Park Toastmasters, which achieved Distinguished club status this past Toastmasters year. Stay tuned for more club coach recognition in a future newsletter.

Anna Gaichas

Club Coach Chair

From the Desk of the Club Retention Committee Chair

Hi All! Who's looking for an opportunity to have fun, meet new TMers and maybe fulfill a DTM requirement? Of course you all are!  

My opportunity for you is to become a club coach. You'll help clubs gain:

• Higher quality club meetings  
• A more engaging experience for guests and members 
• Increased membership with more new and renewing members 
• Recognition in the Distinguished Club Program 
• Best practices for long-term success once the coach’s term has ended  

Drop me a note at tm.david.hoffman@gmail.com and let me know that you're in!

Dave Hoffman

Club Retention Committee Chair

Email: tm.david.hoffman@gmail.com

From the Desk of the Club Quality Chair

Greetings from 1000 Islands,

I hope you are enjoying your start to the new Toastmasters year 2023-24. Year 2022-23 for D106 was history-making in that the District, under the leadership of Gopu Shrestha, DTM, PDD, earned the distinction of President's Distinguished District. That requires meetings goals in club growth, membership, and distinguished clubs. Chartering new clubs contributes to each of these categories in making an area, a division, and a district distinguished. Great news for the District is that a new club is already ready to charter!  This year, why not earn at least President's Distinguished District again under the leadership of Ed Aylward, DTM?  

If you want to directly help in making your area, your division, and ultimately the district distinguished this year, consider serving as new club sponsors or mentors.  Sponsors work in the formation of the new club by helping find the 20 members required to charter, and guide the founding members in holding meetings to generate interest from potential members. Once the club charters, the sponsor's work is done. Then the mentors take over for at least 6 months, working with the new club to help them establish themselves and understand how Toastmasters functions.  

I hear you say, "that sounds like some work." Indeed it is, however Toastmasters International rewards those who take this on with an essential requirement to earning the coveted DTM designation. If you are working towards earning your DTM, please consider contacting me to get in on either sponsoring or mentoring a new club at yprevost123@gmail.com.

The District needs your help.

Yves Prévost, DTM

Club Quality Chair

Email: yprevost123@gmail.com