Toastmasters Coronavirus Update
Area/Division/District Meetings
As committed to this week, we continue to monitor the situation with the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic which has resulted in a major change effective immediately.
District events are no longer permitted in person from now right through to at least June 2, 2020 to prevent the further spread of this global outbreak.
In response to this, we held our District 96 Executive Committee meeting (Area Directors, Division Director, Conference Co-Chairs, District 96 Chief Contest Judge) this morning.
The following was agreed:
- Cancel our District Conference. We will no longer be hosting our annual conference in Richmond. The Conference team will work with the District to determine if they will host the workshops and keynote speakers online or if their presentations will be postponed to a future in-person event. Additional information will be sent to the conference planning team and presenters.
- The Division B, Division H and Division S contests will be held online. We are working closely with the Division Directors to coordinate these three remaining division contests. The good news is that we may have more available judges and audience members if we host it all online.
- The District 96 Evaluation Contest will be held online.
- The District 96 International Speech Contest may be held as a hybrid meeting, as we want to ensure the quality of the video that is sent to headquarters for the World Quarter Finals International Speech Contest. The contestants, timers, contest chair and videographer will meet in a room for the contest. The contest itself will be viewed by judges and audience online. All those involved in the videotaping of the District 96 International Speech Contest will keep a social distance in the room and take reasonable precautions. Division D will conduct their online contest in Prince George. The Division D speech contestant, videographer and timers will be in the room.
- Clubs are encouraged to meet online or as hybrid meetings. The decision to meet face-to-face or by online or hybrid meeting is up to each of the clubs to decide for their club. Please reach out to your District Officers (Area Director, Division Director or Trio) for support if you have any questions at all during this challenging time or need some extra help moving your club meetings online. We have given each Division Director a pro account with Zoom and they should be able to schedule your regular meetings for online immediately once your club presidents requests it.
- District 96 Business Council Meeting - will be held online on April 18, 2020 from 2pm-4pm. We will be sending out the meeting announcements and processes for voting and for proxies - later this week. We have experience with running the fall Business Council meetings online and do not anticipate any issues.
If you have registered for the District 96 Conference
- Please contact the Executive Hotel at Vancouver Airport at 604-278-5555 or Toll-free at 1-800-663-2878 to cancel any hotel reservation you have.
- Those registered for the conference will receive a full refund for their registration fees. We are determining the simplest method to issue refunds as soon as possible. This may take us some time, as we determine the process and return any payments.
As of this moment the Annual Convention in Paris, France is still planned. Please continue to monitor the Toastmasters.org website for any updates on the Annual Convention.
Sincerely,
Louisa & the Trio