First, the excited part: A guy in the Toastmasters club that I’m the president of, in the area that I’m the governor of, just won the division’s Tall Tales Contest! Woot! I just got home and I’m still kind of wound up.
Now, the mildly frustrated part: I have no SO to share this news with. No one waiting for me to get home, no one expecting a call to tell them how the contest went, blah blah blah. And I realize that it is exactly moments like this that keep me in the dating game, despite the fact that dating completely sucks.
This Mundane & Pointless Moment brought to you by the letter “Q” and the sound “pllllfth.”
(If anyone wants to know what the Toastmasters stuff I just mentioned means, let me know and I’ll 'splain … for now, thanks for letting me share!)
It was a pretty tall tale: the title was “Bear Hug,” and it was the story of his (fictional) encounter with a bear on his property. The competition was tough, but he did a phenomenal job – in fact, I was worried that he might get disqualified for going over time because he got way more laughs at this contest than he did from either the area or the club!
Yeah, but you had us here to share the news with, right? That’s near-'bout as good as coming home and telling someone IRL, right?
No? You say NO? Geez!
OK then come here, sit down on the couch and tell me all about it again. First let me get a beer out of the fridge for you.
Now, earlier you requested that someone bite you. I won’t do that, but maybe a little nibble on the ear if you’ll entertain the notion…
That’s cool, Misnomer. I never made it out of any of my clubs in the Humorous or Tall Tales contests, but I keep trying.
I won the Table Topics contest for our club. Unfortunately, they put off scheduling the Area contest, and put it off, and eventually scheduled it at the last second and I couldn’t attend, having already had a prior commitment. So I missed out.
Your Toastmasters group sounds a hell of a lot more fun than any I’ve ever attended. (Well, that’d be a grand total of two, but still.) And I’m still looking for a MENSA group that isn’t a drawer full of dull tools.
I’ve given up on the dating thing. Now I just explain things to the voices in my head. I’ve considered buying a mirror so that I can talk to myself face-to-face, but I fear I’d end up doing Travis Bickle impressions. “You talkin’ to me? You must be talkin’ to me, 'cause there’s nobody else here.”
Anyway, good on ya’, and keep cranking away until you find someone or descend into a loneliness-induced psychotic episode. Either way, it’s a good ride with a crash at the bottom.
That sucks! And is the sign of a severely disorganized Area Governor (Division Governor, too, for letting it happen). Definitely keep trying!
I just became Area Governor about 2 weeks ago, right in the midst of contest season: luckily, my predecessor had already scheduled the Area contest. At last night’s contest the Division Governor announced that the spring Division contest has already been scheduled (!), so when I get to work on Monday I’m going to schedule the spring Area contest ASAP.
Wow, it’s kind of cool to be able to talk a little Toastmasters here.
Yeah, the old Area governor had just resigned, and the delay was partly due to the Division folks finding a replacement, and the replacement not being available in time.
Of course, they didn’t exactly publicise they were looking; the first that I heard that the Area gov position was open, was when we heard this excuse for why the contest was scheduled at the last minute. So they weren’t exactly publicizing it or anything.
Next up is the district contest, on 11/5, which takes place during an all-day conference in DC. There are 7 areas in our division, so he beat 6 people on Friday, and there are 6 divisions in our district, so next month he’ll compete against 5 other people – all of whom won their division, area, and club contests, just like he did. The speech quality at the club and area levels can be a little iffy, but it really picks up at division – at district there will be some awesome tall tales (and table topics, which is the other contest taking place at this time). To give you an idea of the competition, there are 20-30 people in a club, 4-6 clubs in an area, 4-6 areas in a division, and 4-6 divisions in a district.
Ok, I promised myself I wouldn’t ramble about Toastmasters to non-Toastmasters in this thread, so I’ll stop now. But thanks for asking!
That’s because Area Governors are appointed, even though every other officer – at the club, division, or district level – is elected. It’s not a position that you can run or apply for, so openings don’t get “advertised.”
Oh, I know that, but in the previous district I lived in, they would at least inform people that there was an opening, so that a) the clubs knew to look elsewhere for help and info, and b) people would recommend good candidates. In spite of the fact all these people need something like this for their AL, every district I’ve been in has always had trouble finding enough qualified people to fill out the medium offices - div and area govs.
Good points. I know it would have been helpful if my club had been notified before I got asked to fill in: we suddenly got an e-mail from a guy claiming to be the interim Area Governor, but never heard from him again, either. We didn’t find out the date of the Area Contest until the week of it … as you say, it would have been nice to know that we should have been going elsewhere for information.
I’ve only been a Toastmaster for about 1.5 years, but I’ve noticed this, as well: last year our area didn’t have a governor for the first 2-3 months, and then this year the new guy dropped out. I was actually asked to do the job back in the spring, but declined because I wanted to focus on leading my own club (which I founded) and working on grad school. I accepted this time because I knew there wasn’t anyone else willing to do it, and my class this semester had a lighter workload than I’d expected. I’ll take just one class again next semester (and will try to make it an elective or something), but after my term is up I won’t be progressing to the division level or anything. I want to relax and just be my club’s VP of PR next year, and not have to worry about how much work my grad school classes are.
At Friday’s contest I was talking with another guy from my area, one of the Table Topics contestants, and he expressed an interest in being Area Governor next year. He’s been a Toastmaster for 20 years, and is very personable and outgoing … I’m so relieved, because I know that in April they’re going to start asking me to find a successor!