District Officer Resources
This page contains a wide range of useful resources for District leaders in District 71.
Check out this video for details of recent updates to the website that will help you build your network and find information easily:
Table of Contents
Recent News
Planning for success
District Leadership Handbook
Describes District leader roles and the responsibilities of the District Council, District Executive Committee, Division Councils and Area Councils
Serving clubs through visits
A useful guide to successful Area Director visits. The Club Visit Report template provides further details. Please remember to record the details of your planned club visits and your reports in District Central.
Dashboards
Consult the Toastmasters International dashboard for information about club DCP achievements and District success. Check out this video for guidance on how to use the dashboards
Division Success Plan and Area Success Plan
The success plan documents provide useful guidance on how to work with your Division Council and Area Council in order to support our clubs
Financial support
Each Division and Area is allocated a budget that can be used to help support the District mission. Expenses incurred in line with the expense guidelines (link to be provided) can must be claimed through the Concur expenses system. If you have any questions about eligible expenditure, please contact Anthony Phelan, Finance Manager before any expense is incurred.
- The budget for each area director in the division is €275/£235
- Area director budgets may be pooled with other area director budgets, and division director budgets for division-wide activities (e.g. a division COT etc.).
- Travel/mileage expenses are separate, and are not part of the budget listed above.
- As Area Director, it’s important to be aware of this budget, and not exceed it during the year.
- Plan your expenditure for the year now, and it will help avoid any shortfall in the year ahead. For any in-person COT trainings, it may be a good idea to get 3 quotes if possible from venues, to ensure that you get the most out of your budget.
- Alternatively, online COTs are free, and allow you to use your budget for other activities in the area such as marketing and recognition.
- Please refer to the document “2023-24 Financial Guidelines and Concur”.
- Pages 13-15 cover what expenditure is eligible for your budget, and what expenditure is ineligible.
- There is also an excellent training video, demonstrating how to use Concur. See the link below:
- Be careful to ensure that any expenditures that are incurred for your Area are eligible, because any ineligible expenditures cannot be reimbursed. If in doubt, contact me for clarification before any expenditure is made.
- Zoom licences are NOT eligible, and cannot be reimbursed. The District has already purchased a Zoom licence for your Division. This can be used by you, your Division Director, and also your fellow area directors. Your Division Director will have access to this Zoom account, and you can contact them to gain your access as necessary.
- Contest prizes are NOT eligible, and cannot be reimbursed.
- A full list of ineligible expenditures is available in the Financial Guidelines document.
Support for District officers
All members of the District Executive Committee are expected to participate in District Officer Training. The first round of District Officer Training was held online, and recordings from the 25th June 2023 and 29th July 2023 session are available.
The second round of District Officer Training was held in-person in Birmingham on 2nd December 2023 and Dublin on 3rd December 2023.
All Division Directors are part of the Extended District Leadership Team and are invited to a monthly meeting.
Toastmasters International also provides a wide range of resources for Division Director and Area Director Training.
If you have any questions about Toastmasters procedures or requirements, please contact Steve Campion, Administration Manager. For questions related to finance and expenses, please contact Anthony Phelan, Finance Manager
Checklists
Events
Deadlines and District meetings
Speech contests
- Following votes by the DEC and District Council, all Area, Division and District-level speech contests must be held in-person
- Areas with 4 or fewer clubs, 2 contestants can represent their club at an Area contest
- For Divisions with 4 or fewer Areas; 2 contestants can represent their Area
- There are plenty of useful resources about speech contests (including the rule book) in the Program Quality section and the Toastmasters International website
