District Director

First of all, it’s a proud moment for all of us to be a Toastmaster member this centennial year of Toastmasters International. It’s a great marker in each of our lives and we all shall surely reminiscence this in the years to come.

As I stepped in as District Director in July last year, I also carried with me a wish list of things I should be doing. The primary drive for all those things was to lay a good foundational base and structure for the district to operate in a professional manner.  We have moved very well in that direction. I will be sharing the details at our Annual Conference coming up on April 19, 20, 2024.

Let’s get R.E.A.L. – Recognition, Engagement, Achievement, Leadership is the district’s theme. Looking back to the past months, we are doing phenomenally well in all four areas.  We moved to a whole new way of recognizing members’ achievements to do it in almost real time. We have driven member engagement to a whole new level by organizing the first ever district’s Summerfest, Winter Social and Open House. In the first quarter of 2024, we have already over 400 Pathways level completions as a district, which is an amazing achievement. I know, for sure, we will have a lot more level completions during the next 3 months. The unique feature of our top district leaders this year is that everyone of us had taken up our respective roles for the first time. Not only has it been a great learning experience, it surely has been an amazing journey this far.

For the months ahead in this Toastmasters’ year, we still have work to do in steering our district to go distinguished which effectively happens when the clubs go distinguished. It’s membership renewal time now. Congratulations if you have already renewed your membership. Membership strength is one of three factors to move clubs to distinguished. Encourage your fellow members to renew if they haven’t done it yet. Your Area Directors and Division Directors will be having those conversations with you about how to move your clubs strategically forward in being distinguished. The district leaders are working with passion and perseverance to serve you all. Please let us know if we could do things differently to be more effective.

Let’s have our core values of Integrity, Respect, Service and Excellence as our guiding principles in everything we do.

I sincerely thank you all for your active engagement with your clubs and district events. I look forward to seeing you at the Annual Conference.

Yours in service,

Sam Sukumar

District Director

April 2024