WHEN TMI IN INDIA WAS JUST ‘82’
Published on : Tuesday, 29 September 2020
WHEN TMI IN INDIA WAS JUST ‘82’
By TM Sunitha Pereira, PR Team
(Inputs from DTMs Dr C K Ballal and M N Pai, information and visuals from https://www.toastmasters.org/ )
Currently, the newly formed District 121 of Toastmasters International (TMI) comprising the states of Karnataka and Kerala has around 150 clubs and over 3500 members. But in the 1990s when this movement first began in India there were just ten clubs – eight in Bangalore and one each in Chennai and Delhi, and they in turn were preceded by the first club in Sri Lanka, Colombo Toastmasters.
Some of these pioneering clubs were chartered early on:
- The Colombo Toastmasters Club in 1983
- Garden City Toastmasters Club (Bangalore) in 1992
- Toastmasters Club of New Delhi in 2000
- Winners Club in Mangalore in 2001
- Kochi Toastmasters Club in Kerala in 2004 and
- Chennai Toastmasters Club in 2004.
The first step towards becoming a District under TMI is the formation of a Territorial Council (2005) and the potential growth of at least 20 clubs. Clubs under the Council function in much the same way as a proper District with one major difference – members can participate only in the Video Speech Contest (earlier known as Taped Speech Contest). However, a District number was assigned and ours was 82.
Two years later (2007), with the growing number of clubs in India and Sri Lanka, our status changed to Provisional District as the number of clubs crossed the required limit of 45 and Bosco Abraham became the first District Governor (as they were known earlier).
Once a Provisional District has more than 60 clubs it is eligible for full District status and in 2008, District 82 was formally declared a full-fledged District with most of the clubs located around Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, and ofcourse Sri Lanka. Can you guess who were the first District officers? Familiar names?
- District Governor, Venkat, Bangalore
- Lieutenant Governor Education and Training, Balraj Arunasalam, Sri Lanka
- Lieutenant Governor Marketing, Deepak Menon, Delhi
- District PRO, Nagaraja Rao, Bangalore
- District Secretary, T K Ramesh, Bangalore
- District Treasurer, Chandana Weerasekera, Sri Lanka
- Immediate Past District Governor, Bosco Abraham, Bangalore
Thereafter the Toastmasters movement in India and Sri Lanka spread quickly. In 2011, after Ovations, the Annual Conference at Infosys, Mysore, North India became the new District 41 and South India and Sri Lanka remained as District 82.
Within four years, in 2014, after Ovations, the Annual Conference at Goa, Karnataka and Kerala moved to the new District 92 and only Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka remained as District 82. An interesting milestone to remember at this point is that Dananjaya Hettiarachchi from Sri Lanka, who won the International Speech Competition at District 82 in May 2014 that year, went on to become the World Champion of Public Speaking at the Toastmasters International Convention in August at Kuala Lumpur.
In 2015, the states of central India – Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh moved into the new District 98 and the remaining states in the north along with Delhi, the seven sisters of the north-east, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan remained with District 41.
Finally, this year, 2020, following Coronation, the Annual conference of District 92, now online, South Karnataka and Kerala moved into the new District 121 and North Karnataka remained as District 92.
And what happened to District 82? Well, according to the Bylaws of TMI when a District reforms into two new Districts, the District with the oldest surviving club retains the original District number and that is The Colombo Toastmasters Club. Hence, this year Tamil Nadu moved into the new District 120 and Sri Lanka still remains District 82!
District numbers have changed, membership numbers have grown, and clubs have spread out far and wide, but surprisingly enough the Toastmasters in India are closer than they have ever been before, meeting and connecting online not just in India but with fellow Toastmasters all over the world.
