Clubs
Voting to Accept New Members
Does your club hold an official club vote on every new member who wishes to join? If not, they should.
The applicant shall be declared elected to individual membership upon the favorable vote of at least a majority of the active individual members of this club present and voting at a business meeting of the club membership.
It’s also a nice opportunity to make people feel part of a special group.
This post used to contain some incorrect information. You should always vote members in. However, you can vote members out of the club, whether or not they were voted in. A misconception in some districts is that it is impossible, or at least far more difficult, to remove a member if they are not voted in. I believed this for some time. As of April 17, 2014, the Termination of Membership webpage was incorrect/unclear and linked to the wrong section of Policies and Procedures.
Instead, look section 2. Club Procedure to Discipline a Member in Policies and Protocol. This describes the detailed process the club goes through to terminate a membership. According to what I was told over the phone by Toastmasters International today, the exact same process is followed, regardless of whether or not the member was voted in.
Even so, it’s a good idea to follow the club constitution and vote members in. Not only is it official procedure, but this gives you an opportunity to turn away destructive potential members. That may be only one member in a thousand, but their reputation tends to precede them in a district. I’m not talking about members who have a minor personality clash with someone in their old club, but rather the sort of person that tends to destroy clubs, or at least cause many members to leave. If you vote in members, you have an opportunity to not allow them in (if you have heard about them). If you don’t vote in members, and a troublemaker wants to join, then you are in the awkward position of either allowing them in, or singling them out for a vote that no other member had to pass.
It’s not the end of the world if you don’t vote in new members, but I do strongly recommend it.