Dear fellow Toastmasters, Members of District 109,

welcome to the our brand new District, created on July 1st, 2018, by Toastmasters International to better support clubs in Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Lichtenstein, FYR Macedonia, San Marino, Switzerland and Vatican City. My name is Francesco Fedele and you have elected me to lead this new District as its first District Director, together with a great team of District Officers.

Our District is maybe the largest amongst the newly formed Districts in continental Europe in terms of distance between our countries, the one with the biggest diversity in terms of culture, languages and geography. We range from Snow to Sand, and I am sure we’ll have lots of Sun and lots of Fun together.

We would like our District to consolidate and grow in a sustainable way, with continuity with respect to the past, with unity in its new structure, and developing quality at every level: in our support as well as in the quality of service to the members that our clubs provide. Our team will do its best to ensure that we, together, reach this goal, and maybe even go beyond!

We are bringing forward the experience and traditions of District 59 and 95, of which our countries were part until a short time ago, but we are also adding new ideas to go beyond what we have ever done and find new ways to support all the almost 100 clubs in the District and to serve in the best way our over 2.600 Members. We want to hear from all of you in order to provide you the best possible support – let us know how we can help.

We will have plenty of occasions to meet: the training of our District Officers in Sofia in September 8^th/9^th, 2018, and in Vienna, February 2^nd/3^rd, 2019, our floating TLI ALLeGRO! on December 1^st/4^th, 2018, our District Conference in Genova, Italy, May 17^th/19^th, 2019, as well as our online DCM, Webinars and Open meetings will all be occasions when we will have an occasion to meet, in presence or virtually.

Give us feedback, tell us how we can improve, but also tell us what we are doing right, so that we can continue doing it! The motto we have chosen for this year and that we think summarizes all the above is “Together, beyond!” With the support of all our District and Club Officers, with the help of all Members, together, we can go beyond what was ever done before, and reach into a new level of excellence.

Francesco Fedele, DTM
District Director 2018/2019
District 109