The 2011-2012 Term Is Not Over Yet!

By Wes Hoover, DTM, 2011-2012 Founder's District Governor

All I can say is…wow !! What a great Fall Conference we had! My sincere gratitude and appreciation goes out to the Conference co-chair’s Dan Cossack and Jeanne Cassidy for their hard work and dedication in organizing an enjoyable event for us all.

Has it really been a year already? Time really does fly when one is given the opportunity to interact and work with fantastic people such as I have. But the 2011-2012 term is not over yet! We are at the last stretch and need your support.

As I stated during the business meeting, we still have some challenges ahead of us as we close out the current term. In our drive to being a Distinguished District, our main focus needs to be on members, both those that have left for various reasons and new members.

When we factor in new clubs and clubs that need to submit their dues, we will still be short of the membership goal that Toastmasters International has set for us. How short you ask? Close to 700 members.

While, the number seems daunting, last year at this time Founder’s District was ranked at 42^nd (out of 86) and yet went on to becoming Distinguished and ranked 13^th in the world. Currently we are ranked 33^rd and on our way to being a Distinguished district.

When we look at it from a club level, 700 members average out to about three members per club. Now, that’s achievable!

What can your club do to gain three members?

•  Contact past members and encourage them to come back
•  Have an Open House and invite as many guests as you can
• Follow up on your guests

Remember the Make your Club G8 incentive!

When you sign up eight new members, your club will receive a set of timing lights or the equivalent from Founder’s District.

We have only seven weeks left to demonstrate our “Spirit of Success,” to show our resolve in tackling the challenges as they come. It is the determination and pride of our members as we move forward that make Founder’s District so great. Those qualities, my friends, make us unstoppable!

Share your Successes

Is your club successful in bringing in new members? How are you able to renew past members? Tell us what’s working for you so we can share our best practices with clubs that may be struggling to help them bring up their membership numbers.

Founder’s District, to be the BEST and nothing less!

Remembering Will Tolles

By Lou Ann Frederick, DTM PDG

It is with sadness that we share the news of a death of one of our long time Toastmasters. Distinguished Toastmaster, Willard Tolles passed away on March 6, 2012. He would have celebrated 84 years young this year. Will was a member of clubs in the Huntington Beach area for over 60 years. His contributions and awards were numerous but his most famous and endearing role was as the District Photographer for many years; he served for at least two decades. While doing that, he spent a great deal of his personal time organizing photos in albums before “going digital”. His desire was for us all to have these special memories recorded. We only caught him as the subject of the picture in rare instances. Will was quite clever and wrote witty ditties on the spot in meetings and he could deliver an entire speech evaluation in a poetic rhyme. Some of us tragically recall after one conference when Will left the Santa Ana hotel alone in his car to be attacked just up the street by a gang where he was seriously injured. Fate and his faith intervened and he recovered.

Will played tennis into his 70’s, he was a retired aerospace engineer, and he never missed a family reunion in the Midwest. He was an important part of his church and a fantastic role model for everyone. He will be greatly missed. Our heartfelt sympathy to his wife, Lois and his children.