The Annual General Meeting of the Budapest Toastmasters Club was held at the Central European University last Monday, 30th May, 2011. We are pleased to announce that Andras Barath was elected to be our President for the year commencing 1st July, 2011.

Convening the meeting

It was duly established that there was a quorum. The meeting and election was conducted by Peter Fekete as Chairman of the Nominating Committee. President, Hans Peterson, presented the report of the Outgoing Committee. The report was adopted by the Assembly with one emendation proposed by Mary Murphy. The full report follows at the end of this article.

Martin Herget and Geza Levai were appointed as vote counters for the ballot. There followed four proposals put forward by Peter Fekete and seconded by Andras Barath for changes to the constitution of the Club. These were

1. To create an Exco position of VP Mentoring 2. To create an Exco position of VP Information Technology 3. To change the title of the Sergeant at Arms to VP Hospitality and to alter the responsibilities of that position accordingly. (See below in the addendum.) 4. Conduct of elections: in event of uncontested elections to proceed by acclaim rather than by secret ballot. Daniel Farago proposed a 5th item. 5. A resolution that the incoming Exco should investigate the possibility of establishing an advanced club of dual members.

Mary Murphy also called for a clear distinction between the roles of the new VP Mentoring and VP Information Technology and that job descriptions should be written for these roles. This request was duly noted, but no vote was taken on it. Voting on the five proposals was by secret ballot and the results were as follows.

1. Passed unanimously by 25 votes to 0. 2. Passed by 24 votes to 1. 3. Passed unanimously by 25 votes to 0. 4. Passed by 24 votes with 1 abstention. 5. Passed by 22 votes to 2 opposed and 1 abstention.

Election by acclaim

As resolution 4 was passed without contrary vote, the election proceeded by acclaim. The following officers were duly elected in order. 1. President: Andras Barath 2. VP Education: Anna Laszlo 3. VP Public Relations: Istvan Szurop 4. VP Membership: Balázs Kuzsel 5. Treasurer: Istvan Grafjodi 6. Secretary: Imre Pakozdi 7. VP Hospitality: Attila Szabó 8. VP Leadership: Peter Fekete 9. VP Mentoring: Bea Bince 10. VP Information Technology: David Saddington All were elected unanimously except VP Hospitality, where there was one abstention.

The election and AGM was duly closed by Peter Fekete, who handed over to Hans Peterson for the conduct of the second part of the evening.

Speeches by Roxanna Laszlo and Lila Suka Dasa

After a well-earned interval during which refreshments were served there followed a more regular meeting during which Roxanna Laszlo gave her 10th speech and Lila Suka Dasa gave his first. Roxanna’s speech was evaluated by Mary Murphy and Lila Suka Dasa’s by Peter Fekete. The Club was also host to visiting members from the Vienna clubs who were conducting research into the Hungarian Reform Programme.

Andras Barath has already called his first Exco meeting for Wednesday 3rd July.

Outgoing Executive Committee Report 2011

During the year the following officers served: Hans Peterson as President András Baráth as VP Membership Dániel Faragó as VP Education István Deák as VP Public Relations Anikó Kiss as VP Hospitality István Grafjódi as Treasurer Marya Kaska as Secretary Peter Fekete as Past President and VP Leadership Track.

It has been an exciting and eventful year full of successes for the Budapest Toastmasters Club. It began with the introduction of a new venue for the Club at the offices of ExxonMobil. This development was inspired by ExxonMobil manager Ian Woodhouse, whose witty responses in Table topics competitions have astonished many. The mantle of the organisation was taken up by the brilliant team of Barbara Metz and Balázs Kuzsel, very ably assisted in their endeavours by Krisztian Berta. The event, held on Thursday evenings, regularly draws a large crowd of both ExxonMobil employees and regular members, and is becoming increasingly popular. The recent promotional video, in which many members of the ExxonMobil team participate, is a fantastic display of humor and professionalism and should serve to draw in more members in the future.

“Large numbers” has been a feature of the year. Long gone are the days when one could turn up to a meeting and meet – all of two other people. It is not uncommon to have meetings of 30 or so members, and the Monday evening sessions and Tuesday morning events at the California Coffee Shop near the Bazilika are very well attended. Many thanks also to the Central European University for their continued support and hosting of our club, and a particular warm thanks to Judith Mandy who acts as our coordinator here.

There has been a good deal of partying during the year. The spirit of fun got well under way with the October conference organised by Peter Fekete at the Béke Hotel. Although this was only our Club competition it was attended by over 70 members and their guests and the dinner was a resounding success, as well. Club founder, Willy Benko gave the key-note speech on the theme of combating recidivism among Hungarian prison inmates. Table topics contestants were Martin Hergert, Daniel Faragó, István Deák, Kriszta Medgyesi, Geoffrey Thomas and Ian Woodhouse. Humorous speech contestants were Dániel Faragó, Anikó Kiss, Marya Kaska and Geoffrey Thomas. Geoffrey was in good form that day and won both competitions. Kriszta Medgyesi came second in the Table Topics and Dániel second in the Humorous speech contest. Geoffrey went on to win both competitions at the Area conference held later in Győr, and competed again at the division conference in Most in the Czech Republic.

With partying now well underway – what better than to hold a Christmas Party! This was organised by Anikó Kiss, who also came up with the brilliant idea of a competition based on making Christmas toasts. Anikó also won that competition with a brilliant appeal for sympathy for aliens from outer space visiting this bizarre planet.

In April the Budapest Club with its sister club, Morgan Stanley, became hosts to the Area Conference. The Conference was organised by Peter Fekete. It was another resounding success – this time an International affair with visitors from Austria, Slovakia, and Germany. The event was MC’d by – Hans Peterson and Daniel Szentimrey-Harrach, President of the Morgan Stanley Club. The highly experienced veteran, Leopold Ziegler, from Austria – otherwise known as “the flying toastmaster” – was our Contest Master. We were very pleased that this event gave an opportunity for our Budapest clubs to make closer bonds with our neighbours, both in Vienna and Bratislava. The Vienna clubs, with their long established experience, were able to supply most of the programme leaders. The witty Keynote address was given by the outstanding diplomat Christian Biever, and there were inspiring workshops by Austrian based professional trainers Imre Remenyi on “How Top Speakers Master Content”, and Charlie La fond on “Public Speaking: Nature or Nurture?” Olga Durakova from Bratislava and Mary Murphy from our Club gave an outstanding workshops respectively on Online Marketing and Impromptu Speaking.

The day proceeded to the speech competitions. One distinctive aspect was the German Language competition. Many thanks go to Martin Hergert, who gave a target speech at short notice, and our commiserations to Ken Ohlen, whose detailed analysis of that speech won him much fame and honour, but not the competition. Otto Schwere and Markus Albrecht from Vienna won both competitions. In the English language competition our representatives were András Baráth and Katarina Kultanova for the International Speech contest, and Peter Fekete and Michael Ulicny for the Evaluation contest. Katarina and Michael were from the Bratislava club and were invited by us to represent us at the conference as a gesture expressing our hope that the Bratislava Club will soon be able to join our Area officially. In fact, both Michael and Katarina won their respective competitions, and Katarina later won the Division contest held at Nuremberg, thus she represented both our Club and hers at District level in Lisbon, Portugal. Ken Ohlen and Peter Fekete also went to Nuremberg to represent our club there.

With all this going on one wonders whether there was time for anything else, but there were several other initiatives this year. Not least was the introduction of marathon speechathons, the work of VP Education, Dániel Faragó, ably assisted by Anna László. We had the opportunity to drink and snack then as well. We have done very well award wise: with Competent Communicator awards going to Dániel Faragó, Barnbas Szilágyi, András Baráth and Roxanna László. We also congratulate Peter Temesvary on the outstanding achievement of attaining the Advanced Communicator Bronze Award, and to Mary Murphy, with the highest crown of all, this year – the Advanced Communicator Silver award.

With Peter Fekete as our first member to attain the Competent Leadership award, he put some steam into our leadership track after Christmas and the following members are now participating in it: Dániel Faragó, Julia Fuöp, David Saddington, James Poplasky, Balasz Kuzsel, Hans Peterson, István Deák, Istvan Khel-Reinle, Barbara Metz, Barnabás Szilágyi, Krisztian Berta, and Bea Bince. We are looking forward to more members joining this group, and are anxiously waiting to see who will be next in attaining the Competent Leadership award.

Among the other administrative successes, we congratulate Hans Peterson on his successful redesign of the website that has enabled improved communication with the Club and also made it possible to avert the ignominy of being called “spammers”! The expanding needs of the Club mean that there is a further need for website development, and we thank David Saddington for his investigations into this, culminating in his report. David has also undertaken this as a project within the Leadership Track, and the results of his work will soon be apparent on our website at www.budapesttoastmasters.com.

Another minor victory, we finally obtained a banner for the Club and had it embossed with our name. Wonders will never cease! Financially, we are in good shape. Accounts for the April conference show that we made a profit of 22,724 HUF, on a total budget of approximately 500,000 HUF. We did not aim to make a profit and in fact budgeted for a loss of 50,000 HUF. The Club balance currently stands at 622,615 HUF.

Membership, under the careful direction of András Baráth, has also increased. At the beginning of the term there were 37 active members, today we have 58 members – an increase of more than 50%. This growth was due to the impressive success of adding 40 new members, since we must also report that 13 of the original 37 members have left Budapest, and another 6 have left the club for other reasons. With so many new members, of the Mentoring program initiated early this year will help to deepen our new members and reinvigorate older members given the added opportunity to develop their skills by mentoring.

Our Club last year was awarded the honor of being a Select Distinguished Club, and we are pleased to announce that we are now eligible this year for the title of President Distinguished Club, which is the highest award possible. We hope that these achievements will contribute to District 59 beating out all other districts as the best in the world as measured by achievement points. So congratulations are due all-round.

In this report we have tried to focus on the main events, and to highlight prominent contributions. But remember, the club is about all of you – your speeches, your development and your participation. It could not survive without the ongoing active support of all of you. Thank you for everything. In the name outgoing committee we wish all the best to the Club and all its members in our future progress.

REPORT PREPARED BY HANS PETERSON AND PETER FEKETE *

Addendum: The Sergeant at arms

Description of role from the International contitution

The sergeant at arms is the seventh-ranking club officer. Standards outside of the club meeting are to: Schedule meeting location; maintain club equipment in working order and check after every meeting to ensure adequate supplies are available, attend club executive committee meetings; attend district-sponsored club officer training; arrange for a replacement and for assistance if necessary; prepare successor for office.

Standards at a club meeting are to: Arrange the room at least 10 minutes before the meeting begins; make sure the lectern is in place, the banner displayed, evaluation forms and ballots distributed, awards, supply catalog, progress chart and educational material displayed, place cards arranged and name badges available; greet members and guests and arrange for guests to sit with members; greet the area governor and other visiting officers and escort them to the club president; arrange for food service at meal meetings; ensure the meeting starts on time; collect ballots and tally votes for awards.

PROPOSAL 1. Change the title of the officer role to VP Hospitality. 2. Transfer all of the responsibilities of the second paragraph to the collective responsibility of the committee. 3. Change the first paragraph to:

The VP Hospitality is a member of the Executive Committee. Standards outside of the club meeting are to: oversee the management of all social functions of the Club; schedule meeting location; maintain club equipment in working order and oversee that adequate supplies are available, attend club executive committee meetings; attend district-sponsored club officer training; arrange for a replacement and for assistance if necessary; prepare successor for office.