Thoughts on the NSW Toastmaster District’s Amalgamation

“We’ve got to have him back!” These were the ecstatic words of the MC at a D70 Toastmasters Conference held at the Bankstown Sports Club in 2013. They came at the ending of my story, “The Runaway Auster.” The story was delivered at the breakfast session on the conference’s final day.

Well, I didn’t get invited back. Shortly thereafter D90 was formed and although I remained a member in D70 in the GOA Club (Sometime later Michael Said told me I was D70’s longest serving member) once GOA folded my days at D70 were seemingly over.

Not any more!

Now D90 and D70 are re-combining to form, once again the mighty (and long standing D70 District again. I’m hoping that “We got to have him back!” will carry forward from all those years ago. I still tell stories.

Of course, I’ve been into Storytelling for well over forty years and running Storytelling workshops in Toastmasters since 1998. D69, D70, D73, D89 D90 and D112, and in some of these districts at their conferences more than once.

Unfortunately the numbers of “Educationals” has contracted since our Semi-Annual Conferences were deemed “out of order” by a Toastmasters Head Office edict around eight years back. Squeezing four contests into a weekend brought this about.

It wasn’t always like this.

I can recall doing a Storytelling workshop in the Adelaide Hills for D73 back in 2008. There were three workshops all being run in the same time-slot in three different rooms. Toastmasters had the option of picking which one they wanted to attend. Then at D90’s inaugural conference in 2014 (it was a semi-annual) members had the option of attending my workshop or one being run by Demian Coorey a few rooms away. The audiences split across the two roughly 50:50.

Such a pity the Semi-annual Conferences were given the chop. They provided so much more opportunity to both presenters and to members attending. Whether they, like the amalgamation of D70 and D90 will ever occur again, who knows. As a conference goer, I’d like to see that happen.

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Article by Tom Ware DTM (Dundas Toastmasters)