Last August, at 4am in the morning, my husband and I evacuated from our home in Bonny Doon with our two fur babies and a few precious possessions due to the CZU Lightening Complex Fires. Just six weeks before I had become the D4 area director for District 101 and achieved the coveted title of DTM, Distinguished Toastmaster.
Since the wildfire, I have been missing in action at my D4 area director post because I've prioritized helping my local Bonny Doon Community above Toastmasters activities. Toastmasters values service leadership. It is a testament to Toastmasters that throughout this time, my own director has remained supportive of my decisions to prioritize my communities needs.
Since the fire, I've only attended one of the club meetings in my home club and one officers meeting, I've resigned from being VP of PR (public relations) and have decided not to renew membership at my home club for five years but instead make Surf City Advanced Toastmasters club my home club; the club where I completed my High Performance Leadership project and learned to "Lead with Love." I formed my leadership team in January of last year when all clubs were meeting in person. My project was to chair the area's speech contest for my High Performance Leadership Project. Our team steered that project through a disaster, the covid pandemic. The leaders throughout District 101, Silicon to Surf, rallied together to support all of the contest chairs determining the best tools and protocols to assure fair contests. They clearly wanted contestants to have the best opportunity to compete fairly. People were nervous about delivering their speeches online; it was our contest team's job to gain experience with the new tools and create an environment of harmony to help them do their best.
That demonstration of service leadership in Toastmasters inspired me volunteer to lead an area of my own. In July, I became the D4 area director in District 101. I began the term with great enthusiasm to share my experience with officers leading the clubs in my area reaching out get to know them. Only six weeks later, I would be evacuated from my home due to the CZU Lightening Complex wildfires.
When our community was allowed to repopulate, I was in a position to distributing food to people at my Bonny Doon Church. People who were repopulating were were faced with no electricity, no water and severe smoke damage. Once again, I was leading in the midst of a disaster. Drawing from my experience leading the Toastmaster contest through the covid pandemic, I focused on cultivating a team of people that felt appreciated. I focused on creating a safe environment for people to connect with their community and find help as they repopulated.
It seems surreal that this month, my Toastmaster area is in the middle of contest season once again. Last year, I spent three months preparing for our contest and this year the contest chair in my area has planned our contest in a matter of weeks. She has the benefit of lessons learned from the virtual contests held last year, however it is an extremely short timeline.
