Areas have Area Speech Contests twice per year, with winners from the Chapter levels going on to the Area Contest. The winner of the Area Contest goes on to the Division.

Areas also share Area goals, determined by formulas set at World Headquarters, such as "x number of chapters at 20 members in strength" and "x number of CC's in the various chapters." If an Area meets or exceeds all its goals, its Area Governor is recognized for hard work motivating the chapters.

Divisions have Division Speech Contests twice per year, with winners from the Areas coming together to compete. The Division winners go on to the District level.

Divisions have Division goals, just as Areas do. A good Division Governor will work with his chapters and Areas to increase membership and educational effort.

California has several Districts because there are so many chapters there. North Carolina, on the other hand, is a single District. England and Scotland and Ireland are one District all together, and Australia and New Zealand comprise several Districts. Smaller countries with only a few chapters each are Unincorporated chapters which report directly to World Headquarters instead of to Districts.

Each District has its own set of officers, most of whom are elected at the District Spring Conference (or Fall Conference in the Southern Hemisphere). The officers include: District Secretary, District Treasurer, District Public Relations Officer, District Lieutenant Governor Marketing, District Lieutenant Governor Education and Training, and District Governor. The last three are always elected and the first three are elected or appointed depending on local preference. They are appointed in our District; it's the newly elected District Governor who does the appointing.

And yes, Districts have their own District-wide goals. The various District officers work with the chapters, Areas, and Divisions to build membership, start new chapters, promote the earning of CC's and AC's, and so forth.

Districts have speech contests twice per year, as the Division winners come together at the District Conferences to compete for the District crowns.

If it sounds complicated, it is, but that's the price you pay for:

• having enough offices to fill that a lot of people get the opportunity to serve, and
• having enough officers on the spot to help out chapters that have problems (e.g. low membership).

Joe belongs to the Wide Valley Toastmasters Chapter (chapter 1342). The Wide Valley Toastmasters chapter belongs to Area 22, Central Division, District 83. Area 22 is the city of Wide Valley with four chapters. The Central Division is Areas 22, 23, and 24, comprising the mid-state area. District 83 is the eastern half of the state. Area 22 has an Area Governor who works with the Wide Valley chapter and the other three chapters in the Area. The Central Division has a Division Governor who works with all 12 chapters in his Division and with the three Area Governors under her. District 83 has five Divisions and its own set of officers. Joe goes to various speech contests in his Area, Division, and District and once a year represents his chapter at the Spring Conference to elect new officers and vote on other District policy matters.

Another good way to get to be a District officer is to volunteer to help a District committee. You don't get DTM credit for helping a committee or serving as a District committee chair, but you get *known* and that's usually all it takes to get asked to serve the next time around.

At the Regional Conferences, you also find speech contests, with the various District winners squaring off. Only one contestant goes on to the World level; the humorous speaking and evaluation contests stop at the Regional level, leaving the International Speech Contest contestants to decide the World Championship of Public Speaking each August at the World Convention.

Regions do not have regional goals. They're not organized bodies.

The chapters have the voting strength at the world level, with two votes each. Districts often wind up voting the proxies for chapters that don't make it to the Annual Business Meeting each August.

Currently, 23 members serve on the Board of Directors. Five members serve as Officers, and 18 members serve as Directors. The Officers (President, Senior Vice President, Second Vice President, Third Vice President, and Immediate Past President) serve an annual term of office. Each of the Directors serves two years, with half of the seats open for election each year. Sixteen of the Directors are nominated from the eight geographic Regions in the United States and Canada and two Directors are elected from Districts not assigned to a Region.

But, more importantly, you get tremendous leadership experience. With everyone a volunteer and no chapter HAVING to do what its District officers suggest, you have to develop powerful persuasive abilities to guide the chapters and members in the right direction.

The contests are:

• Table Topics - 1 to 2 minutes in length. Impromptu speaking. All contestants are taken out of the room and brought back in one by one to speak on the same topic, which should be general in nature and not require specialized knowledge which some contestants might have while others might not. Sine no contestant hears the topic before his or her turn to speak on it, you can judge their impromptu speaking abilities by the way in which each person's effort stacks up against the others. Goes as far as the District level.
• Evaluation - 2 to 3 minutes in length. A target speaker gives a speech, which all the evaluation contestants are to evaluate. The contestants are taken from the room and given five minutes to prepare their evaluations and make notes, at the end of which time their notes are taken away. They are brought back into the room one by one (at which time the contestant gets his/her notes back) to deliver their oral evaluation of the target speech. Since no contestant hears what another said about the target speech, the judges can compare the analytical abilities of the contestants. Goes as far as the District level.
• Humorous speech - 5 to 7 minutes. Humorous speaking, which must be original. Year after year, people hear the rules read to them and then stand up and present Bill Cosby routines and then act puzzled when they're disqualified. It's supposed to be a speech, not a monologue, and it must be original. It should also be "clean." So-called "blue humor" will get you zero points in the "appropriateness" column of the judges' forms. In other words, it should be a five-to-seven minute speech with a lot of humor value, but also displaying good speechmaking abilities. Goes as far as the District level.
• International Speech - 5 to 7 minutes. Any topic at all, so long as it's original. Can be funny, serious, whatever. It should be the best speech you can give, and it must be original. Did I mention that it must be original? Don't do what so many speakers do and crib at length from someone else's works and then expect that no one in the audience will smell a rat. The reason this contest is called "International Speech" instead of "General Speech" or "Miscellaneous Speech" is because it's the only one of the contests that goes as far as the World level. Each August, winners from the eight Regions and the Overseas chapters (9 contestants in all) compete at the World Convention in the World Championship of Public Speaking.