Area Director: An Exceptional Experience

Last month, I was elected to the position of "Division Director" within Toastmasters.  In this role, I must recruit three "Area Directors" who will each provide insights and guidance to five Toastmasters clubs.  As I reach out to individuals and ask them to fill this role, I reflect on my experience as Area Director back in 2015-2016.  When I agreed to the role, I knew some basics of what was expected of me, but did not understand the whole scope of what I would experience until I was "on the job."  Fortunately, the surprises were overwhelmingly positive and I learned a lot.  What follows are some of my key experiences from my time as an Area Director.

Leadership Skills Training.  Area Directors in my District get to attend training every month.  While this may seem like a "responsibility," I found it to really be a reward of the role.  The year I was Area Director, we all took an "Emotional Intelligence" test and reflected on our results.  I learned about leveraging my strengths as a leader and seeking to further improve my leadership skills.

In addition to this general leadership training, these training sessions also helped us directly with our Area Director responsibilities.  We were taught exactly what we needed to do and how best to do it.  We shared observations from our club visits (next item) and discussed possible solutions to challenges our clubs were facing.  It was a wonderful community of Toastmasters learning and growing together!

Opportunity to Experience Other Clubs.  As an Area Director, a key responsibility is to visit the clubs assigned to you at least twice a year and provide feedback.  What I hadn't expected going into the role of Area Director was that "feedback" didn't just flow from me to the clubs, but also from the clubs to me!  Through my visits, I got new ideas to enhance my own club meetings.  For example, a couple clubs I visited had a "question of the day" that everyone answered briefly at the start of the meeting.  I thought that was so neat that I stole it and brought it back to my club.

The visits also allowed me to meet other members of Toastmasters and experience their excitement for various topics.  I still remember a humorous speech a member of one of those clubs gave about clipping coupons to save money at the grocery store.  I also discovered that someone I played sand volleyball with was a member of one of the clubs I was visiting, and I got to hear him speak about our sand volleyball team!  I would not have seen these speeches had I not been an Area Director.

Building Your Toastmasters Network.  Both through club visits and attending training, I made new connections with people that only happened because I was an Area Director.  As one key example, I discovered that another Area Director was working with a club that was low in membership but had a lot of potential and needed a club coach.  They ended up asking me to be that coach!  I could write a whole other article on club coaching (and probably will), but that opportunity to be a coach, and the connections with those who helped me succeed in that role, only came to be because I was first an Area Director.

Reward of a Successful Speech Contest.  Another key responsibility as an Area Director is putting on a speech contest for the clubs in your assigned area.  This is a task that can seem daunting, but with other Area Directors and the Division Director to help you, it is very achievable. Since the Area Directors are responsible for recruiting the volunteers needed to run the contest, it is also an opportunity to practice recruitment strategies and to practice leading a team of volunteers.  The best part is that with the Division Director behind you, you are certainly not alone.  I plan as Division Director to offer as much positive guidance and support as I received when I was an Area Director!

After all that hard work has paid off and a successful contest has been concluded, you can't beat the feeling of accomplishment knowing that you helped make that happen!  The smiling faces of the contestants (and especially the winners!) is second to none!  I felt a great sense of accomplishment after successfully running the speech contests.

Learning to Do What's Best, Even When It's Hard.  This experience, unlike the previous four, was not overwhelming positive, but it was just as important.  One of the clubs I supported when I was Area Director was really struggling with low membership.  They already had a club coach assigned and had two members who had become dual members joining from another nearby club and they still weren't growing.  They had ideas about how they could promote the club and grow their membership, but never seemed to have time to execute those ideas.  With guidance and help from my Division Director, we ultimately had to ask them the tough question:  "Do you really want to continue as a Toastmasters club?"

Sadly, the answer to that question turned out to be, "No."  It was not the answer I wanted.  As a result of that answer, I missed out on receiving "Distinguished" recognition as an Area Director that year because your area must end the year with at least as many clubs as you started with to be "Distinguished."  That was hard for me because I wanted to "succeed" and be "Distinguished."  However, I learned that I had to put myself aside and support the club in their decision.  And given how little time they were able to dedicate to Toastmasters as an overall group, the decision to disband the club was the right one at the time.  I learned from the experience that knowing when to say "No" is just as important as being able to say "Yes."  It's a lesson that has carried through into my own career and to the advice I give to others.

Sharing the Experience With Others.  As a result of having experienced the Area Director role first hand, I can now share that experience with others and encourage them to give it a try!  It was a wonderful experience for me.  It was certainly not without its challenges, but I learned a lot from the challenges.  I'd encourage anyone in Toastmasters to at least consider giving it a try.  If your experience is anything like mine, you'll certainly be glad that you did!