• Q&A Handling
• ..................................... Overall Understanding questions
• Q #6: I find it unclear whether it's an "and"/"or" proposal...
• ..................................... Reformation Guidelines questions:
• Q #8: Please explain why countries are placed in which group.
• Q #17: Question sent to TI: Is it possible to split a country by languages?
• ..................................... Did you consider... questions:
• Q #1: Did you take into consideration language areas? (Especially for Switzerland)
• Q #10: Is it a possibility to assign Switzerland, Belgium etc. to both districts?
• Q #5: Why do both plans would fragment the German-speaking continuum?
• Q #7: Would it be possible to keep Belgium with NL and Germany with Austria?
• Q #4: Did you consider the future of the non-districted countries ?
• ..................................... Information Requests
• Q #2: What is the potential growth of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary,
• Q #12: Do you have information about the amount of clubs "per language" in Austria and Switzerland?
• Q #13: Is this current proposal putting all other territorial extension thoughts (such as adding Italy) on hold until after the new districts are created?
• Q #14: Is it possible that the new districts incorporate additional countries directly for the term starting July 1st, 2014?
• Q #15: Is there any chance that the summer 2011 raise of member fees will cause for a slight dip in the club growth chart? And could this possibly delay the plans for another year?
• Q #11: Which districts of such geographical spread had split in the past and successfully cooperate with each other until today?
• ..................................... Personal Information Requests
• Q #3: Please can the new districts avoid the same district conference dates ?
• Q #9: Which one of the two proposals has the favor of the DG, LGET and LGM ?
• Q #16: What are the benefits of proposal A against proposal B?

Please send any question to reforming@district59.org 
The questions carry the number in the order the arrive. We will put them into  order by category. 

A webinar to help you better understand the proceedings has been held for all D59 Toastmasters on January 22nd. The recording will be made available to you soon.

Another webinar for District officers (area and division governors) has been conducted on January 15th. Recording of Webinar for District Officers (Please note that the first few minutes are the set up of the webinar until Barbara starts the presentation)

Logic suggests "or" but this (at first reading) did not jump out at me. Could you please rename them "Proposal A" & "Proposal B" to avoid confusion, especially when we talk about it.

Thank you for your remark.
 
There are two proposals to consider, illustrated by two different maps. They appear on our document online as 1.proposal and 2.proposal. (first proposal and second proposal). You are certainly right, the presentation should be clearer and we correct that in a near future.
 
Regarding the webinars, the first one will take place on January 15th for all district officers, particularly area governors. Its specific purpose is to give them the opportunity to learn all about the reformation process in order for them to efficiently and accurately explain the process during their club visits. In short this webinar is designed to train division and area governors.
 
The second webinar will be opened to all members who want to know more and ask questions.

As a German (and English, and French) speaking Swiss, I of course acknowledge it being difficult to place Switzerland if Europe is ripped into two parts. And since Switzerland has a French, a German, and an Italian speaking part (where Italy seems to be a white spot on the Toastmasters map), it is not obvious in which part Switzerland would end up.
It is a bit of a surprise though that Switzerland in both proposals ends up separated from Germany. It would be helpful for me as a member to receive some rationale of why countries are placed in which group.

Rather than seeing the reformation process as "Europe being ripped in two", we prefer considering it as a normal evolution, and a progress.
Look at what happens in a family when the children grow: one day, they have to live their own life. Some children will stay close to their parents' house, some will have to make a living far away.
It doesn't mean that any of them stop loving and seeing each other occasionally.
But life separates them even if they would prefer to stick together.
The same is happening to District 59: even if we would like to go on without any change, Toastmasters International would decide against it, because too many clubs cannot be managed in a proper way.

As you guessed, placing Switzerland in one or another district is a tricky
task, for we are certain we are going to frustrate somebody in the
process...

Why put it with the "Western" part of Europe?

For several reasons:

1) Adding 20 Swiss clubs to the German/Austrian, Scandic/Eastern part of
Europe would create a big imbalance between the two future districts, one
that Toastmasters International wouldn't tolerate. And splitting a country
is out of the question by the TMI standards.

2) Among the 20 Swiss clubs, 5 (chartered and in development) are German speaking, 2 are French speaking,
they don't form a sufficient linguistic majority for us to take into
consideration, even if we know we will disappoint and even irate many
members. We know alas that one cannot please everybody...

3) We hope that French speaking clubs will rapidly develop once the Swiss
clubs will have the opportunity to compete against other clubs in the new
district after realignment.

4) Even if we cannot include the Italian clubs in the reformation process -
we have to work with the current clubs within our boundaries - we know they
do exist and we expect them to join the "southern" district in the future:
at this point, we can envision Italian speaking clubs being created in
Switzerland too...

5) A great majority of Swiss clubs are English speaking and should have no
problem joining English speaking clubs in countries around them.

Hope these explanations help you understand the rationale behind the
proposals...

Both proposals divide the German speaking countries. That might be difficult to avoid (given, for example, the many languages of Switzerland), but my point is to take it into *consideration* and to include into the proposal how to proceed with German- French-... spoken contests. Should they be hold in the US?
Is it a possibility to assign Switzerland, Belgium etc. to both districts?

Thanks for your comments, we appreciate your legitimate concern.

The question of Switzerland is indeed a tricky one.

We know that several Swiss clubs hold their meetings in German and will certainly be very disappointed not to be able to compete against German clubs in their mother tongue anymore.

But adding the 20+ clubs of Switzerland to Germany and Austria in either proposal would create an imbalance in the number of clubs between the two new districts, and TMI would certainly not accept it. 

The solution to this problem - German speaking clubs feeling isolated - will be in creating a great number of new German speaking clubs in Switzerland, maybe in France (specifically in Alsace) to enable holding German speech contests at all levels in the future.

The French speaking clubs will find it easier in the new formation to hold competitions with all existing French speaking areas, so for them there seems to be no language problem.

We know that some Swiss members will certainly feel frustrated and we  sympathize with them.

My point is to take it into *consideration* and to include into the proposal how to proceed with German- French-... spoken contests. I guess that TMI has no idea of language problems in Europe; someone should tell them. Seems to me much more important than some 20 clubs more or less.
For me its important to have an open discussion about all this, so proposals should at least mention these points.

There are several reasons why this is irrelevant in a first step:

1. District Contests only tackle perhaps 5 % of all the members, taken into account that we have about 250 attendees compared to over 5000 members. Toastmasters serves all members.
2. The districts are the administrative body of the Toastmasters organization - voluntary! There is a lot more than contests to make sure we have healthy clubs and provide the quality we do.
3. For Toastmasters the language issue we have is an issue which concerns 3-4 % of the worldwide Toastmasters community - they won´t change their guidelines for us. The guidelines for a split or reformation of a District are financial and workload issues rather than conference or contest issues. Strictly said you find in the contest rules that a district is allowed to conduct 4 yearly contests (!) - we conduct additionally 4 German ones plus 4 others in another language. They are tolerated at the moment, but TI could request from us to go strictly by the rules.

As a result, we  aren't going to broach the German or French contests issue in the proposals: this will be the job of the two future district executive committees.

In the recent past significant factors that have made the District so successful are the German language contests.

We are fully aware of the importance of languages in our district, especially the importance of a growing number of German speaking clubs.
 
As you guessed, designing a split without creating any disappointment is quite a challenge, sometimes impossible to achieve.
 
The fragmentation you are speaking about concerns primarily Switzerland which has currently four German speaking clubs and one bilingual English/German club - chartered or in development.
 
We know that those clubs will at first feel isolated and frustrated. We will encourage them to promptly build more new German speaking clubs in their country in order for them to be able to hold contests at area, then division, then district level in the future.
 
Germany and Austria on the other hand do have strong and numerous German speaking clubs to continue their contests if they stick together - and one proposal offers this possibility.
 
The challenge here too will be to create more and more German speaking clubs in the new district and very soon the continuum will be back on track.
 
Any split brings some inevitable changes, one has to accept them and live with them!

Dutch clubs in the Netherlands and Dutch speaking clubs in Belgian Flanders now run Dutch speaking contests together.  We also want to charter sufficient Dutch speaking clubs so that manuals can be translated into Dutch.  There are currently four clubs in the Dutch speaking of Belgium which accounts for 60% of the population.

There are two proposals to consider and proposal one is exactly doing what you suggest: Belgium and The Netherlands are in one district; Germany and Austria are in another one together.
 
Please review the document and its two maps on our district website, and you'll find what you are looking for!
 
Those proposals will be voted on in May 2012 in Poznan at the District Council meeting. To ensure proposal 1 - the one you favor - will pass, cast your ballot for it - and ask a maximum of your friends to do the same!
 
Our organization is a democratic one and a majority will prevail and decide!
 
Be there at the next District Council meeting in Poznan, it's a very important meeting!

There are clubs in Romania, Slovakia and Croatia which are sure to grow rapidly in the coming years.

Regarding the Toastmasters clubs currently existing in undistricted European countries, although we know about them, we aren't allowed to actually include them in the reformation process of our district.

It will be up to the newly formed districts, if there is a desire from the part of those undistricted clubs,  to ask Toastmasters International permission to extend  their boundaries to include them.

The Reformation Committee only deals with the current and future clubs within  District 59 boundaries.

as there is only 1 club difference between proposals?

Currently there is only one club under development in the Czech Republic , that's all. We expect there will be more growth in a lear future in all these countries.

I think a major point of consideration will be the future of German speaking contests for the clubs / areas and districts in the Alps region.

Situation of the chartered and future German speaking clubs:

I'd like to see friends.

As far as the Committee is concerned, your request seems quite legitimate!

It will of course be up to the two newly formed districts to coordinate their dates.

But your suggestion is a very nice one, thank you !

Our top trio most certainly considers that both proposals are valid, if not, they wouldn't have sent them to you.

And if our top trio follows with great care and interest the reformation process, the final decision will be yours: after a phase dedicated to the necessary discussions and explanations, a vote will take place during the District Council Meeting in Poznan - Poland- in May 2012.

All club presidents, vice-presidents education - or their proxies - will then cast their ballot for one or the other reformation proposal. And a majority of votes will decide which proposal will be adopted.

Our District top officers will vote like all other members of the District Council, but their vote should remain unknown since it is their personal choice like everybody else's.

The Reformation Committee has been assigned a task: to create two or more different ways of splitting District 59 in two balanced entities.

To do so, we had to take into account a certain number of parameters and constraints, such as number and health of clubs, financial equity, geographical distances, historical links, potential leaders, potential growth, eventual expansion, to tell a few.

In our opinion, the two proposals we have come up with are equally valid and balanced. Both have their advantages and their inconveniences, depending on who is considering them.

The Committee isn't entitled to advocate one proposal against the other.

It is up to the members - and their representatives, i.e. their presidents and vice-president education in the District Council - to make up their minds and make a decision through their ballot.