Annual Awards

Area Director of the Year 2019-2020 – Ines Ben Cheikh, CC, CL

When I joined Toastmasters 6 years ago, my main objective was to improve my English. Nothing more. I had never thought of becoming a club officer, let alone an Area Director.

I did not suspect that when you integrate into the Toastmasters community and find yourself surrounded by uplifting and supporting members, you become stronger and able to achieve your wildest objectives.

However, when we are not involved with Toastmasters outside our own clubs, we don’t get a full Toastmasters experience.

When I had the opportunity of becoming an Area Director, I seized it. This enriching experience helped me grow as a leader and allowed me to become a better listener, communicator and most importantly, a better person; more empathetic and understanding.

I would like to thank our past District Leaders (Pavan Datla, Vaibhav Singh and Shyamala Sista) and their respective teams for their dedication and hard work.

I also had the chance to work with a supportive Division Director (Shoba Rao) as well as a group of fantastic Area Directors (Declan, Shanthi, Chandana and Prashant).

A big “Thank You” to all Area B5 club officers for their collaboration. It was a pleasure working with all of them.

This year I am happy to be serving District 101 as the Public Relations Manager.

Division Director of the Year 2019-2020 – Shoba Rao, DTM

“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.”–Vince Lombardi.

When I took up the Division Director role, I committed to work hard and achieve the goals as humanely as possible by me, be it getting many officers trained through COTs, increasing membership or achieving educational goals. My mission was to help my team achieve their goals while leading by example . Little did I know that it would be made a lot easier by an excellent team of dedicated Area Directors who were with me every step of the way and fun to work with. I am very honored to have been distinguished as the Division Director of the year and would like to thank all the Division B Area Directors including Declan Shalvey, Shanthi Raman, Ines Cheikh, Prashanth Bhatnagar and Chandana Kalluri for making this journey worthwhile. I would also like to thank all the various trainers and other district officers who were ready to help at every juncture. My best wishes to the incoming team of officers.Let us all work hard to be effective leaders.