Dialogue Page 5

Player's Lineup

From now on, any definition of a successful life must include serving others.

George Bush

Your success will always be measured by the quality and quantity of service you render.

Earl Nightingale

Avoid Speed BUMPs on Road to Your DTM

By Betty Chavira, Club Coaching Chair

Inevitably, on your challenging journey to achieve your Distinguished Toastmaster goal, you will hit a speed bump. You may be motoring along quite nicely, progressing through your speeches and attaining your Advanced Communicator Gold. You have navigated through your Advanced Leader Bronze. Now what? You will need to complete your Advanced Leader Silver before you can receive the coveted DTM. Do not wait too long to schedule completion of these projects – they can be time-consuming. The following accomplishments must be finished to attain your ALS. In addition to completing the “Old Competent Leader Award” or the Advanced Leader Bronze Award, you will need to

Serve one year as a District Officer. Many Toastmasters fulfill this requirement by serving one year as an Area or Division Governor. You must be assigned to this role by the District Governor no later than September 1 of any Toastmasters year, and preferably much earlier. Those of you who have missed this deadline will need to queue up for the next Area Governor/Division Governor year starting July 1, 2011. If overflowing

you can serve as a District Officer in one of these roles starting July 1, 2011, contact your current Area or Division Governor.

Serve as one of the following: Club Coach (successfully coaching a club to Distinguished Club Status within one year) OR Sponsor for a club in the formative stages up to the point of Chartering, OR Mentor for a new club for the first 6 months after Chartering. Each of these roles can be very challenging. You will need to dedicate from 6 months to up to 2 years in one of these roles.

Complete a High Performance Leadership Project (HPL). You can serve as an Area Governor or District Governor AS your HPL project. You can also serve as a Club Coach/Mentor/or Sponsor as your HPL project. You will work with a Guidance Committee over the course of your HPL project and make 2 speeches to your home club as you progress. If you choose to complete another project as your HPL, you will still need to plan, execute, report, track, and evaluate progress on your HPL journey.

Each of these milestones takes time and advance planning. The sooner you start working on them, the less pressure you will feel. Do not let these requirements of the Advanced Leader Silver Award be the speed bump in your road to a DTM! Contact Betty Chavira, bettychavira@msn.com, if you would like to serve as a club coach.