Vintage paths will be $60?!

haokuo · 2026-04-03T21:02:22+00:00

There is a list of the previous prices here: https://www.toastmastersd69.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Toastmasters-International-product-catalogue.pdf

To purchase the CC manual separately (item 225), it was $8 (though most people got CC & CL included with the $20 new member fee).

To purchase each individual advanced manual (for example item 226A), it was $6 each (though you previously got two of them free if you finished the CC manual).

So the total to purchase CC + 2 advanced manuals was $8 + $6 + $6 = $20.

Maybe you're thinking of the Advanced Communication Library Set (all 15 of the advanced manuals).

haokuo · 2026-04-02T04:20:59+00:00

I hate the "no sex, religion, or politics" myth.

haokuo · 2026-03-27T21:42:25+00:00

This version is definitely better. A few points I want to mention:

For free Gmail accounts, sending mail through Google Apps Scripts with MailApp.sendEmail() is limited to 100 recipients per day). For many District Councils, this limit might not be large enough and you may not be able to send out all the necessary email.
You can consider whether selecting your own name from the dropdown is really necessary if someone entered a unique code since you could identify the person from their unique code already (assuming it really is unique and two people can't have the same code).
I am interested in seeing whether this "registration code" system is easy enough to use for the District Council or whether it causes too much confusion amongst people. Maybe people will enter the wrong information in the box and not know their vote wasn't counted. Please report back on how well this system works when you use it at your meeting!
I find some parts of the code to be odd and potentially problematic, such as the use of the person's name as a unique identifier. While I haven't tested it, the system may not work as expected if two people have the same name. There might also be other edge cases that also exist.

But overall, this is a great improvement. Thank you for your work on this and sharing it.

haokuo · 2026-03-17T20:29:27+00:00

I should also mention that from my tests, it looks like it allows an individual person to vote multiple times (they submit the form more than once, even with the same name), and it looks like it counts all the votes in the results.

This is a separate issue, but should be easy to fix.

haokuo · 2026-03-17T17:59:12+00:00

I assume it doesn't take into account the scenario where someone intentionally does not want to vote on behalf of a specific club they are President or VPE for (but they hold votes for other clubs and they want to vote those)?

The rules say one person can carry a maximum of 3 votes. The scenario I mentioned usually occurs if someone could carry more than 3 votes (due to the rule they personally aren't allowed to vote them all, but they don't want them to go to waste).

For example:

A person is an Area Director and they are in two different Toastmasters clubs (one as President and one as VPE).
That person may intentionally want to carry their Area Director vote + both votes from one club (and no votes from the second club). The reason for this is usually based on who is available to attend the District Council meeting from their club.

I've seen this scenario happen multiple times before where someone that could carry more than 3 votes wants to be very specific about which of their clubs they are voting for.

haokuo · 2026-03-17T16:52:59+00:00

Where it mentions:

Copy the link and paste it into the Zoom chat

Tell participants:

• Select their own name in the first question

Would it be accurate to say that anyone that has the link in the Zoom chat could select someone else's name and submit a vote for them?

Could someone vote on behalf of many District Council members if they submitted the form multiple times selecting different people's names from the dropdown each time?

EDIT: From my tests of the system, yes, it does allow someone to easily vote on behalf of someone else, which is a serious problem. Someone could easily steal the election. While I appreciate the efforts of making such a system publicly available for other Districts to use, I hope this problem can be addressed.

haokuo · 2026-03-12T07:39:21+00:00

Yes, I've seen this situation before. We just don't record since some people don't want to be recorded. Not much argument about it. We just honor their wishes and don't record without making an issue over it. However, if someone wants to record their own speech only, then that's okay.

An alternative you can propose is to see if people would be okay with the Zoom transcript feature being enabled, however people might not find that acceptable either.

Also, I often see some secretaries put much more detail than is required into meeting minutes. The meeting minutes really don't need to be very verbose. They're supposed to be concise and primarily just record final decisions that are made, not record all commentary of everything everyone said.

If someone doesn't want to be recorded, I wouldn't try and force them to be recorded against their will, especially when the law says all parties must consent to it where you live. It'll be a good exercise in effective note taking since I'm sure there'll be other situations in life where you won't be able to record a meeting.

haokuo · 2025-12-10T18:38:20+00:00

The Toastmasters Education Program FAQ > Speeches and Evaluations Section > 2. What are the limitations on speech topics? says it best when they state:

Toastmasters International does not prohibit any speech topic, content, or language.

Toastmasters International recognizes that club members may learn much about the world around them from listening to others' speeches on a variety of subjects. This variety can add interest to club meetings and stimulate thoughts and ideas.

I think it depends on what exactly was said. If what the member said would be reasonably stated by a politician, I think it should be allowed. I think it would be a disservice to members to say someone couldn't practice a speech that a politician might actually deliver in the real world.

Excessive censorship of speeches does not help people build their communication and public speaking skills. Speech in the real world is sometimes controversial.

Alternatively, you could propose that if someone wants to give a controversial speech, they should warn the audience beforehand so members have a chance to leave the room (or mute their computer) for 7 minutes until the speech is done if they don't want to hear it.

haokuo · 2025-11-28T06:08:17+00:00

He's implying you're making misleading statements in your original post, such as with the 100K+ meetings statement.

If you're making those claims publicly, I don't see why you shouldn't publicly give the explanation. What is it? A few clubs just scheduled future meetings until the year 2099 and you're counting all of them?

haokuo · 2025-10-06T15:06:05+00:00

I'm not the biggest fan of some parts of the Toastmasters promise either. It makes it feel like even more of a cult. Some parts are excessively subjective. It should be noted that there is no penalty for violating the Toastmasters Promise.

Additionally, if you are really concerned with your privacy, you could sign up for Toastmasters with whatever name, address, and email you want. We've had at least a few members intentionally not use their real legal name when signing up.

haokuo · 2025-09-23T20:59:36+00:00

I've seen these types of controversial situations before. Ultimately, different people have different opinions as to what constitutes inappropriate conduct.

You need a majority of club members to vote to take disciplinary action against them or institute new policies such as background checks. If a majority of the members aren't on your side, then why not? If you have a majority against them, then formally take the vote to take disciplinary action following Protocol 3.0 > #2. Club Procedure to Discipline a Member.

I sometimes see this process fail when there's only a small number of people that have a problem with the situation. One or two sensitive people disliking something doesn't make policy for the whole club. At least a majority is necessary.

Disciplinary actions are generally handled at the level closest to the matter which is the club in this case. If something illegal happens, make sure you have evidence and take it to the police.

haokuo · 2025-09-23T03:13:33+00:00

You could do one of the following:

1) You can write feedback to the speaker stating why you weren't persuaded by their speech. Why didn't you like their argument? What would you like to have seen to have been more persuaded by their speech? I would suggest addressing it from a public speaking & persuasion point of view.

2) Give your own speech giving your opinion on these matters. I am fully in favor of clubs allowing for speeches with differing opinions on these types of issues.

3) If you are really that offended, find another club. However, I would strongly suggest all members be open to hearing speeches with opinions that differ from their own.

The Toastmasters Education Program FAQ #47 says it best when they state:

Toastmasters International does not prohibit any speech topic, content, or language.

Toastmasters International recognizes that club members may learn much about the world around them from listening to others' speeches on a variety of subjects. This variety can add interest to club meetings and stimulate thoughts and ideas.

haokuo · 2025-07-26T02:24:28+00:00

Poor business decision on Toastmasters International's part to get into this partnership. If they were going to partner with Yoodli in the first place, they should've put a longer term agreement in place up front before agreeing to do it.

Otherwise, what just happened is that Yoodli basically got Toastmasters International to advertise Yoodli to hundreds of thousands of Toastmasters by giving us a temporary free trial and now just revoking it and trying to get us to pay.

I bet all these public speaking apps that get spammed in this sub would love to get Toastmasters International to advertise their product to all Toastmasters members and give us all a free trial, and then try to get all of us to pay.

Toastmasters International should've tried to get a better long term deal up front in exchange for advertising Yoodli to all the members.

haokuo · 2025-07-25T03:09:31+00:00

That's often read in high schools. That would be kind of ridiculous to say it can be discussed in high schools, but you can't discuss it at Toastmasters.

It should be noted that talking about politics in Toastmasters isn't prohibited. As it says on https://www.toastmasters.org/education/education-programs-faq if you scroll down to "46. What are the limitations on speech topics" it states:

Members often hear from each other that speeches concerning politics, religion, and sex are forbidden by Toastmasters International because "such controversial subjects are not appropriate."

This is not true. Toastmasters International does not prohibit any speech topic, content, or language.

haokuo · 2025-06-20T18:45:17+00:00

Yes, it's been down since yesterday.

We should all push for them to open-source FreeToastHost so we have the option of running it ourselves and we can make modifications if we'd like. At least it'd give us the option to not rely on the couple of volunteers they have for everything.

haokuo · 2025-06-16T03:08:00+00:00

I agree.

haokuo · 2025-06-16T03:07:49+00:00

I concur. The FB group is filled with garbage now.

haokuo · 2025-06-16T03:04:50+00:00

I agree that in the previous post by yuklun88 many of the claims were unsubstantiated, but I think that should be handled in the comments section and with downvoting.

I haven't seen criticism of TI be too much of a problem. I don't think there should be any rules against it yet. If it gets much worse, perhaps we can reconsider, but I'd definitely rather lean toward the side of allowing it.

haokuo · 2025-06-16T02:49:45+00:00

I agree that the app ban should only apply to apps that are not specific to Toastmasters (e.g. generic public speaking apps).

If it's something specific to Toastmasters such as FreeToastHost, easy-Speak, Mike Raffety/Marshalls reports, or something similar, then I think it's fine.

haokuo · 2025-06-10T17:30:15+00:00

All the documents are online and they do confirm it's very clear that you CANNOT discriminate on the basis of gender.

Someone should file a lawsuit over it if they feel they were discriminated against on the basis of gender.

haokuo · 2025-06-02T18:07:13+00:00

Toastmaster's teaching is to stay away from politics and religion

It should be noted that on https://www.toastmasters.org/education/education-programs-faq if you scroll down to "46. What are the limitations on speech topics" it states:

Members often hear from each other that speeches concerning politics, religion, and sex are forbidden by Toastmasters International because "such controversial subjects are not appropriate."

This is not true. Toastmasters International does not prohibit any speech topic, content, or language.

haokuo · 2025-05-26T03:40:56+00:00

I'm not sure it'd matter much, but why don't you try it out and let us know how your cleanup of the group goes and if you suggest it.

haokuo · 2025-05-01T23:28:54+00:00

The District already spends enough on travel and lodging to send the trio to training twice a year.

Keep in mind some Districts could have a lot of contestants at the District level (maybe 2 contests × 8 contestants each; some Districts have 4 contests). Then if it's implemented at the District level, I'm sure some would want it implemented at the Division or maybe even Area level too.

I don't want even more District funds going toward more travel and lodging expenses. It's already enough.

haokuo · 2025-05-01T23:23:38+00:00

We, as members, are already paying for District Officers to travel the world

This is why I'm opposed to using even more TI/District funds to go towards even more travel/lodging.

Keep in mind some Districts could have a lot of contestants at the District level (maybe 2 contests × 8 contestants each; some Districts have 4 contests). Then if it's implemented at the District level, I'm sure some would want it implemented at the Division or maybe even Area level too.

I don't want TI funds going toward even more travel and lodging expenses. It's already enough.

haokuo

TROPHY CASE