My Community Club is Struggling–Help!

Membership and interest is dwindling in your community club. What happened? What changed to make a once-successful club suddenly unpopular? Here are some points for you to consider as you contemplate what to do:

Location

• is the meeting place in a conveniently accessible part of town?
• is it easy to get to the meeting place, or do people get lost or stuck in traffic?
• are the meeting facilities conducive to Toastmasters, or are they too noisy?
• do people enjoy meeting there, or does it not suit the corporate culture?

Very few clubs can say with pride that they love their meeting location. For most, it’s a matter of “well, this is the best we could do.” It’s very hard to find a good location, but it may be worth taking up the search again if it’s keeping members away.

Meeting Time

Think about the time of day your club meets. Does this sound like you?

• Early morning: doesn’t interfere with daily activities, but only a minority of people enjoy getting up even earlier.
• Lunch: most common time for corporate clubs. Community club members may not appreciate being expected to buy lunch (if meeting at a restaurant), or may find it inconvenient to bring one (if not meeting at a restaurant).
• Mid-morning, mid-afternoon: only works for people who are not working, have a unique work schedule, or have the freedom to set their own schedule.
• Evening: most common for community clubs. However, some people have other activities scheduled for then.

Does your group of people match the time of day you want to meet? If a substantial part of your group isn’t happy with your meeting time, odds are that you know it… but it’s worth asking to see if one of the other times better reflects their culture. If your group isn’t composed of early risers, maybe it would be better to try evenings. If people have too many activities going on at night, can they meet for lunch instead?

Meeting Day

Is the day your club meets on the best day? Granted, there is never one day that will work for everyone. No matter what you choose, there is someone who will be sadly left out because it doesn’t work in their schedule.  But it may be worth it to examine.

• Wednesday evenings and Sundays can be bad for people who attend church regularly.
• Friday evenings can be bad for people who tend to go to the bar then every week
• Weekends are off-limits to many Toastmasters… very few clubs meet then, and certainly not one that meets every week. But it works for some.

A word of caution: again, as there is never one day that works for everyone, some clubs bring up the idea of having meetings one on day some weeks, and on a different day some other weeks. I have never heard of a club that makes this work reliably; the membership wants a simple, reliable schedule.

Meeting Frequency

When attendance is low, the temptation is to meet less frequently. This can be a valid strategy; the existing membership burns out slower, and you may have higher attendance, if officers are unable to make every meeting. On the other hand, this means fewer opportunities for visitors to attend, and a more complicated schedule to keep track of (as they have to ask “does the club meet this week, or not? I don’t remember.”

It may help, but use this strategy with caution. If you do cut down the number of meetings, make sure to funnel the energy you save into having more vivacious meetings: put more effort into the theme, perhaps more speeches, etc. Don’t just have less of the same.

Individuals

Individuals can have a massive amount of influence in a Toastmasters club. One person can be responsible for accumulating most of the club’s Distinguished Club Program points, single-handedly bring in multiple new members, or just seem to brighten up every meeting with their presence. Obviously, losing a person like this is a crushing blow to the club. As club officers, however, you have to remember that you all need to be that person… to make meetings fun and interesting, to let your passion rub off on other people, to invite guests and lead by example in working towards your other awards.

Of course, if you happen to know another such person, beg them to be a part of your club and, hopefully, draw in other members.

On the other hand, there are… people… who may make other club members distinctly uncomfortable… or even be the cause for other people leaving. Perhaps they make some politically incorrect comments. Perhaps their evaluations are extremely harsh. Perhaps they criticize or gossip, or make jokes that other people do not find funny. If you have such a person, take them aside and, Toastmasters-style, give them an honest, balanced evaluation designed to encourage change without being completely negative.

If worst comes to worst, you can always vote the person out… that is, if you voted them in. It is very important to hold a club vote (with the potential new member out of the room) when accepting a new member for this very reason. 99 times out of 100 it won’t be important… but when you get a troublemaker, you’ll be glad you did. (Often these people have a reputation and move around from club to club, so you can often prevent them from joining in the first place.) If you didn’t vote them in, the best you can do is ask them to leave. This is a very uncomfortable situation, but would you rather that they leave… or those other members and would-be members leave because that person is in the club?

Education

People may not be going to the club simply because they feel they aren’t getting value.

Speech evaluations can be a major component of this. If typical comments and evaluations consist of “good job,” some people will not attend, simply because they are not learning anything. If this is the case, either people need to be encouraged to provide more useful feedback, or more experience needs to be brought into the club. Giving an educational session on proper evaluations may help, but best of all is to lead by example; if several experienced Toastmasters consistently give great evaluations and the general evaluator makes notes about the evaluation quality, you may be able to get the rest of the club to follow suit. If there is a lack of experience and people do not know what to look for in an evaluation, then invite Toastmasters from other clubs to visit.

On the other hand, evaluations can be too harsh. Feelings can get hurt, pride can be wounded, or people may simply feel feedback was unfair… and this can drive them to leave. Yes, we all need to learn to take feedback properly, but we need to learn to give feedback in a way that makes the speaker excited about giving their next speech, not ashamed to ever return.

Beyond that, what educational value are people getting out of the club? What can you do to make people feel they are learning valuable skills? Guest speakers? Training on advanced table topics? A humor workshop? Brainstorm.

Fun

We don’t just go to Toastmasters because of the networking and skill-building. Fun is important. It’s very hard to get people to attend, no matter how valuable it is, unless they enjoy the meetings.

• Are your meetings overly formal? Are people afraid to laugh? Perhaps some parts of the meeting can be mess less formal… and again, lead by example. If a few officers are having fun in the meeting, others will feel more comfortable.
• Do you have a Jokemaster to start off the meeting with some humor?
• Do your Toastmasters of the Day pick meeting themes that they, and other meeting roles, can have fun with through jokes, props, costumes?
• Does your group ever do anything outside of regular club meetings, just for fun?
• Do you ever have meetings in a completely different format… instead of a typical meeting, having a stand-up comedy meeting, having cake to celebrate the anniversary of the club’s format, etc.?

Professionalism

I’m not talking about wearing suits. Unless the culture of your membership thrives on it, being overly formal can be detrimental to a club. However, there’s a difference between being professional and being formal.

• Are your club meetings consistently on the same day and time, rarely canceled, and only canceled with several weeks’ notice?
• Can members count on your meetings starting and ending on time? This is very important.
• Are members in meeting roles, such as the Toastmaster of the Day, organized and seem on top of the situation, even when there are last-minute changes?
• Are member achievements encouraged and recognized?
• Is there an efficient process for filling meeting roles, or does it seem haphazard to visitors?

Members need to have confidence in you. It isn’t enough to sell them on Toastmasters… you have to sell them on your group, to convince them that you are as good as you want them to believer. However, remember, it isn’t necessarily how much you have prepared, but rather how confident you seem as you run the meeting. Just like giving a speech, “fake it until you make it.”

Okay, Now What?

The above were just some points to consider. It’s possible a few points may have resonated with you and made you say “yes! I think improving in this area would make a substantial difference!” If so, great. Try it out.

Here are some ways you can get a few more people:

• Let other clubs know you need roles filled. In San Antonio we have a Google Group, Toastmasters Speech Openings in San Antonio, which is essentially a mailing list to help clubs with open speaking roles find speakers who want to speak in other clubs. Even without such a tool, just talk to other clubs.
• Bring a friend. It sounds cheesy, but if everyone took the time to invite people they knew once in a while, sometimes those other people would say yes.

If attendance is a bit on the low side, immediately jump in to shore it up. Immediate action is vital. It is extremely difficult, once you only have 2-5 people attending a meeting, to build back up again. Why? When people walk into a meeting that has so few people, they immediately feel that the group is not large enough to be fun, and not successful enough to be capable of helping them. Just about everyone would rather be part of a healthy, stable group than one that appears to be on the verge of extinction.

If your attendance is a little low, you can add in a few more people easily enough. If your attendance is very low, it is practically impossible to build up one or two people at a time, for the reason listed above.  You need a massive action that will get many people at once. How can you do this?

• Hold a Speechcraft workshop, meeting with the participants each week. After they finish, encourage them to join the regular group. You can ease the transition by applying their workshop dues towards membership, making the workshop day and time as close as possible to the meeting time, or even holding the final workshop session as a joint session with a club meeting, congratulating the workshop graduates, introducing them to the membership and giving them a taste of the regular meeting.
• Have a guest speaker. Either the name or the topic needs to draw people in.
• Hold a joint event with another group; perhaps another Toastmasters club, or even an entirely different kind of club.
• Many professional organizations are constantly looking for guest speakers; if your club can briefly give them a valuable lesson on public speaking, some of them may want to join and continue learning.
• Publicize one event. Remember, it isn’t enough to get guests one at a time if your attendance is really small; do as much as you can to get as many people as possible to come to one individual meeting and make it special for them.
• Advertise, advertise, advertise! Get everyone to tell their friends. Create a Facebook event and share it. Get on LinkedIn to reach professionals and post in some relevant groups. Put up a flyer in the library. Decide what works best for you.

Also try to get a club coach. Any club with 12 or fewer members can request a club coach from the District Lieutenant Governor of Marketing. If you don’t know who to talk to, ask  your area governor. The club coach is an experienced member who will attend your club and lend their experience to your struggles. If nothing else, it’s another body in meetings, but their fresh perspective and insight may give you some valuable ideas.

Last-Ditch Alternatives

Is it time to give up? Of course, nobody ever wants to see a Toastmasters club fold, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. You still have options, though. Remember to talk to the Lieutenant Governor of Marketing for your District!

• Merge with another club. Use www.toastmasters.org to find nearby clubs and see if your remaining members can be absorbed into them.
• Move the charter. If there’s a group of people elsewhere wanting to start a Toastmasters club, then only a few of your members need to move for that group to use the existing club charter and name. The club can get new life, and it can make it easier for that other group to enjoy Toastmasters.
• Let the club go, but make sure to email your membership (even the ones not attending) with a list of other clubs that may work for them.