July is the month of change at Toastmasters, as officers’ terms end and new volunteers take over. For me, it marks the end of my one-year tenure as Area Director of Area F3 in District 95. The Area encompasses four clubs in the Frankfurt and Rhine-Main metropolitan region of Germany: Professional Speakers Frankfurt (my home club), Esprit de Corps (where I was a member for many years), Darmstadt Toastmasters, and Rhetorik-Club Bergstraße in Bensheim.
The Area ended up being “Select Distinguished“, the second-highest of three levels of excellence. Two of the clubs (Esprit de Corps and Darmstadt Toastmasters) even reached the highest distinction, “President’s Distinguished“ and one club (Professional Speakers Frankfurt) reached “Distinguished“.
Overall membership in the Area grew slightly from 114 to 119 members. We have promising prospective clubs, most notably those at Deutsche Börse and Deutsche Bank, which may charter in 2019/20.
We held two successful training sessions for club officers in August and January and hosted the English-language Area Contest for our Area and neighboring F4 in February.
Our Area was also well represented at this year’s District Conference in Gothenburg. Kai-Jürgen Lietz (Professional Speakers) placed third in the German Speech Contest. Franziska Wiebel (representing Rhetorik-Club Wiesbaden, but also a member of Professional Speakers) came in third in the English Evaluation Contest.
It’s been an honor serving the clubs in my Area. Of course, the successes we’ve had are primarily the fruit of active membership and the club officers’ great work. Thanks for your support!
I now hand over to Valérie Tettinek, who, coincidentally, also hails from Professional Speakers. I’m sure she will do a fabulous job!
After almost three years with challenging leadership roles in Toastmasters – first as founder and Charter President of Professional Speakers and then as Area Director – I’m happy to currently be “only“ Vice President Public Relations of my Club.
I will now concentrate a bit more on my speaking – my career as a professional speaker and a contestant in Toastmasters competitions.