Saudi Arabia Toastmasters District 79

Toastmasters District 79 is the organization that represents Toastmasters clubs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Structure: Every hierarchical level within Toastmasters exists solely to improve the activities offered by the Toastmasters program and facilitate the implementation of these programs. The primary role of each of the levels is to serve and support the efforts of the level above it, ultimately leading to the individual member.

District 79 is located in Saudi Arabia encompasses 9 Divisions and 33 Areas. Please check the District 79 Organization for our structure.

Club: The mission of a Toastmasters club is to provide a mutually supportive and positive learning environment in which every individual member has the opportunity to develop oral communication and leadership skills, which in turn foster self-confidence and personal growth.

Area: The Mission of the Area is to provide District contact, support and services to the Club so that the club may in turn fullfill its responsibility to its Members.

Division: The Mission of the Division is to serve the Clubs assigned to it by providing District support and resources to the Clubs and Members through the Area Governors.

District: The Mission of the District is to enhance the performance and extend the networks of Clubs, thereby offering greater numbers of people the opportunity to benefit from the Toastmasters educational program by:

• Focusing on the critical success factors as specified by the District educational goals and membership goals.
• Ensuring that each Club effectively fulfills its responsibilities to its members.
• Providing effective training and leadership development opportunities for Club and District officers.

What is Toastmasters all about?
Toastmasters meetings are a safe environment in which to learn. Everyone who attends is there for the purpose of gaining the skills from the Toastmasters program. You will learn the basic techniques to capture your audience and effectively communicate your message. Participants have a variety of opportunities to learn about public speaking at every meeting. We learn by:

• Practising speaking in front of the group
• Listening to others speak to the group
• Evaluating and listening to evaluations of speeches
• Following the Toastmasters program of advancing in steps
• Mutual support and encouragement are the cornerstones of Toastmasters meetings.

Improve your self confidence
By practising speaking to a group in an environment where everyone is also learning, you become more comfortable with the task. All Toastmasters know what it's like to feel butterflies when called upon to speak. Experienced Toastmasters also know that the fear can be overcome just by trying.

• Learn at your own pace
• Toastmasters share and understand your feelings
• Opportunities every meeting to speak at the podium
• Do what you want - prepared or impromptu speeches

Improve your listening skills
We learn about listening as well as about speaking. To fully participate in Toastmasters meetings, you must listen carefully to the other speakers. We develop our skills by listening on different levels. We listen to the content but we also learn to be aware of the impact of the speech organization and presentation. You need to be alert at Toastmasters meetings because:

• You may be asked to answer an impromptu question
• You may be asked to evaluate another speaker
• We learn by listening to evaluations of other speakers

Sharpen your thinking
A Toastmasters meeting excites your brain. Participants at meetings who are not giving a formal prepared speech are usually asked to participate in "Table Topics". This is a 2 minute impromptu speech on a topic selected by the Table Topics Master with the speaker having no time for preparation.

Subjects could be on a theme such as:

• Flowers
• My favourite holiday
• The best Thanksgiving I ever had was ...

or the topic could be more challenging:

Everyone who speaks at a Toastmasters meeting has their speech evaluated by another Toastmaster. Evaluating challenges you because you must always remain encouraging, constructive and positive. As an evaluator, you need to be very alert. You have to think on your feet in order to mention all the good points of a person's speech and mention some aspects that may need improvement.

Develop your leadership skills
There are many opportunities to be a leader within Toastmasters.

• Club and District Officers are elected annually in May to lead and represent the club and District from 1 July
• Members chair meetings and take on other responsibilities
• Toastmasters is an international organization with leaders from each geographical area represented on the International Board of Directors

District

A "District" is an administrative body of Toastmasters International and consists of divisions, areas and clubs.

Mission/ Purpose

The purpose (mission) of the district is enhance the performance and extend the network of clubs, thereby offering greater number of people the opportunity as well as the benefits of the Toastmasters educational program. Each district has its own governing body consisting of the District Governor, Lt. Governor of Education & Training and the Lt. Governor of Marketing known as the District Trio. Additional district officers include: Immediate Past District Governor, Public Relations Officer, Secretary, Treasurer, Division Governors and Area Governors.

The District Executive meetings meets 4 times in a year. In the early years Excom meetings consisted of four to six people gathered together to set goals, prepare budgets and make plans. Today we have Executive meetings with more than 80 members including Area Governors and Division Governors.

The District Council meets several times throughout the year, at a specified place, to guide the success of the individual Clubs, Areas and Divisions. Twice each year the District Council conducts a Leadership Training Institute to train the Club Officers.

In District 79 we have one District Conference during the year, in spring. These provide additional training and educational opportunities, as well as conduct the District Speech Contests - the Humorous Speech Contest, the Table Topics Speech Contests, the Speech Evaluation Contest and the International Speech Contest. District Conferences have grown from 30-40 people in the early nineties to over 700 people in 2009.

District 79, operational since 2003, is one of 86 Toastmaster districts worldwide and encompasses 6 Middle East Countries – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

District Governor

A District is governed by a District Governor. As district's chief executive officer, the responsibilities include management and administration of the district operations. District Governor is elected by the members of the District Council within the district at the District Conference.

Distinguished District

A District is measured for success by club growth, membership growth, training and growth in the number of education awards earned by the members. Extra credit is earned for the number of clubs and the number of Divisions & Areas that reach the distinguished status. The time period is July 1 through June 30. All calculations are based on the numbers that the District had at the end of the prior Toastmasters year.

Given that, here is what it takes for a District to attain each level of distinction:

Distinguished District

Planning and Training submitted on time:
Submit to Toastmasters International by September 30 both the District Success Plan Matrix and proof that at least 85% of the division and area governors have been trained. This is a required action although no points are awarded for achieving it.

Membership Growth:
The total membership of the district must grow by at least 2% from the prior Toastmasters year.

Club Growth:
The net clubs in the district must grow by at least 3% from the previous year.

Competent Communicator Award Growth:
The number of CC’s awarded must be at least 3.5% of the district paid membership for the previous year.

Advanced Communicator Award Growth:
The number of AC’s awarded must equal or exceed 1% of the district paid membership for the previous year.

TO EARN EXTRA CREDIT TOWARDS POSSIBLY ATTAINING EITHER SELECT OR PRESIDENTS
DISTINGUISHED STATUS, A DISTRICT CAN EARN THE FOLLOWING POINTS:

Distinguished Clubs:
The district is given points for the percent of its clubs that achieve distinguished status. The points given range from 1 point for 30% of clubs distinguished to 10 points for 75% of clubs distinguished.

Distinguished Areas: The district is given points for the percent of its areas that achieve distinguished status. The points given range from 1 point for 30% of areas distinguished to 10 points for 75% of areas distinguished.

Leadership Awards Earned: The district is given points for the ratio of leadership awards earned compared to the base number of clubs. The points given range from 1 point for 50% of areas distinguished to 10 points for 95% of areas distinguished.

Select Distinguished District
The extra credit points for all of the distinguished districts are used to rank the all of the districts. The districts that rank from #7 through #12 are considered as the Select Distinguished districts.

Presidents Distinguished District
The extra credit points for all of the distinguished districts are used to rank the all of the districts. The districts that rank from #1 through #6 are considered as the Presidents Distinguished districts.

Join Us.

Link Us.

Follow Us.

Watch Us.

View Us.

<a href=d792010-2011/>Click here</a>

When I want to link from the main page to one of the index.html pages in a subdirectory, I use: <a href=directoryname/>Click here</a> and linking back to the index page can be either by an absolute link: <a href=domainname.com>Click here</a> or a relative link: <a href="../index.html">Click here - There are good reasons for using either way. I generally use the absolute link in that case, but it's just my own preference.