On Saturday, June 28th, District 3 held its Summer Toastmasters Leadership Institute in Phoenix. If you're not familiar with TLI, here's the short version: it's the official training event for every club officer in the district. Twice a year, officers from across Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Texas come together to sharpen their skills and learn how to run their clubs better.
TLI runs two types of sessions simultaneously. Nuts and bolts sessions are deep dives into specific officer roles — a room full of VPEs learning from an experienced VPE, or a room of treasurers working through the details of their job. At the same time, a keynote session runs in the main room for all the other officers. Two nuts and bolts plus one keynote, running in parallel, all day.
It matters for the club, too. Sending four officers to TLI earns one point toward the Distinguished Club Program, and you need ten points to reach President's Distinguished. At Gilbert, we don't send four. We expect full attendance from our officers. The only exception is the VP of Technology, because nobody talks about websites and technology at TLI. At least not yet.
This year's Phoenix TLI broke attendance records. More than 150 people showed up — so many that the district ran out of food and had to order pizza. That's a good problem to have.
Gilbert had four members on the program. Three on stage, one behind the camera.
Marketing Your Club to Success
Marie and Vincent Feutrier took the main room at 10:00 AM for a session on club marketing. This was a step up from last year, when Marie presented nuts and bolts sessions for VPPRs at both the summer and winter TLIs. This time, main stage. And they made it count.
The centerpiece of the session was a skit comparing marketing to a circus. When the circus puts up flyers around town, that's advertising. When someone shows up at your door offering a discount, that's sales. The analogy made the distinction between marketing, advertising, and sales click for the room in a way that a slide deck never would.
The audience was taking notes throughout. After the session, attendees lined up to talk to Marie and Vincent — asking follow-up questions, sharing what they planned to bring back to their own clubs. When people don't want to leave the room, you know something landed.
Leadership vs. Management
Elle Quitevis closed out the keynote sessions at 11:40 AM with a broad look at the difference between leadership and management. Like Marie, Elle moved up from nuts and bolts this year — she had presented the treasurer sessions at both TLIs last year. This time, the main room.
Elle walked the audience through each officer role, explaining not just what the role does but how leadership and management show up differently in each one. She made it memorable by mapping the roles to Star Wars characters. The leader inspires, like Princess Leia. The Immediate Past President is wise and mentoring, like Yoda. The comparisons made the audience laugh and, more importantly, made the concepts stick.
The best moment came after the session. A newly elected club president named Cindy approached Elle and asked her to be her mentor. That's the kind of impact you hope for when you step in front of a room — not just applause, but someone saying "I want to learn from you."
Behind the Scenes
Dave Zegen spent the full day recording sessions. Those recordings will be available through TLI on Demand, giving every officer in District 3 access to the training whether they were in Phoenix or not. It's the kind of quiet, essential work that doesn't get applause but makes the whole event more valuable.
What This Says About Gilbert
A keynote on marketing. A keynote on leadership. A full day of session recordings for the district. Four members, three on stage, and every one of them delivering.
Last year, Marie and Elle were in the small rooms doing nuts and bolts. This year, they were both in the main room presenting to the full audience. That's not an accident. That's what happens when you show up every Thursday, take every role, give every speech, and take the feedback seriously.
Gilbert Toastmasters has been President's Distinguished every year since 1989. TLI is one of the reasons. Not because we check the attendance box, but because our members actually go, actually learn, and then come back and put it into practice.
That's what showing up every Thursday since 1978 looks like.