1. What does the VP Membership need to track? The VPM needs to track AND FOLLOW UP with guests, new members, and members not attending. Guests–make sure they are warmly welcomed to return and get feedback from them. New members–are they having a good experience? Are they getting mentored and feel included in the club? Members not attending–what...

The Toastmasters Competent Communication manual has a project specifically on organizing your speech. In fact, it’s the first project after introducing yourself to your club, which means it’s one of the most basic building blocks… it also means it’s something that people usually face when they’re trying to simply survive a speech, and...

You can follow the instructions here to make your own timing light kit. However, today I feel using one of the many smartphone or tablet timing apps is a better experience. Having it change timing signals by itself is very handy! In an earlier post, I mentioned creating a quantity of affordable timing lights for local Toastmasters clubs; some Toastmaster...

FreeToastHost is an excellent way to get a free website for your Toastmasters club, and is officially sponsored by Toastmasters International. You have little control over what your site looks like, but you do get some excellent tools to manage the club… especially the duty roster for each meeting, allowing members to sign up online. FreeToastHost 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...

How can you accommodate members in corporate clubs that only get half an hour for lunch? Corporate clubs and community clubs both have their own unique challenges. Corporate clubs have to be very strict on time; often, the meeting has to start 5 minutes after the hour and end 5 minutes before the hour to give people time to run down the hall from one meeting to the...

Club officers should be trained twice a year: sometime between June and August, and again between December and February. Sometimes experienced club officers feel that is no need for training–they they already know everything there is to know. But as Toastmasters, isn’t our philosophy one of continuous self-improvement, of asking how we can continually...