Guest post: Who was Colin Perfect?

Today we are very pleased to feature a guest post from Past Distinguished District Governor Joy Ackrill. At our request, Joy is sharing some memories of PDDG Colin Perfect. Every six months we remember Colin at the Division E conference by presenting a trophy to the club that achieves the highest attendance at conference. The Colin Perfect award was donated shortly after Colin's death by senior Toastmasters who had worked with him; today, we find out more about the man behind the name.

When I came to the end of my term as Area E1 Governor in 1998, I approached Colin Perfect as a potential replacement. At that stage he wasn’t ready to move into a District role. However, the following year he took on the Area Governor role. In 2000 he became Division E Governor where he was Division Governor of the Year.

Subsequently he took on Top 3 roles, culminating in District Governor for 2004-2005. His theme was Achieving Success Together – Haere ngätahi. He led the District to Distinguished status (14^th of 76 Districts) and also received the Excellence in Leadership Award for three consecutive years as a Distinguished District.

Colin Perfect's District Governor banner (2004-05), bearing his motto "Achieving success together".

Colin stood for election to the Toastmasters Board of Directors at the August 2006 International Convention in Washington DC. He was unsuccessful, being beaten by George Yen who went on to become International President.

Colin joined the Public Service Club in Wellington in October 1991 and kept this club as his home club through to his sudden death in September 2008. Over his Toastmasters career he belonged to many other clubs including The Gourmet, WOW, Mt Victoria and Victoria University.

Outside of Toastmasters, Colin was an architect with a special interest in heritage transport. He project managed the restoration of Grip Car number 3 which is displayed at the Wellington Cable Car Museum. After much searching, Colin found a craftsman he believed capable of conserving the Grip Car. This was the Wheelwright Shop at Gladstone in the Wairarapa. We had one of our WOW meetings at the Wheelwright Shop with speeches that day focusing on heritage restoration - Colin talking about the Grip Car, Sarah Harper talking about her Dutch street organ and me talking about my floating crane Hikitia.

Colin was interested in all forms of transport. At the time of his death he was working on restoration of a whale chaser from Peranos in the Marlborough Sounds. Earlier in 2008 he delivered a presentation about whaling and his involvement with the heritage side to the Maritime Archaeologists Association of New Zealand (MAANZ). The video of this presentation is available through the MAANZ library (if you would like to see the video, ask any District officer for Joy's contact details).

Colin was on jury service when he died. He told the Court Bailiff he had some indigestion which he attributed to a meal he had eaten the previous evening. In its early stages a heart attack is often mistaken for indigestion and this was the case with Colin. He collapsed and died aged 64 in the jury box. He had often said he didn’t think he would live to 65.

At Colin’s funeral, Warwick Lowndes (Distinguished District Governor 2002-2003) spoke on behalf of Toastmasters and John Reimers (Distinguished District Governor 2006-2007) was a pall bearer.

After Colin’s death Geoff Moss approached me saying he would like to anonymously donate a trophy to Division E in memory of Colin. And so we have the Colin Perfect trophy. When Division E split into Divisions E and J, Geoff donated a further trophy to Division J. Geoff has agreed his name can now be public.

Colin was an inspirational, supportive and encouraging leader whose favourite word seemed to be ‘tremendous’. Truly Mr Perfect.

Colin Perfect DTM, PDDG 2004-05

26 September 1945 - 30 September 2008