D53 Leadership Team News and Letters
- January 2006: A Letter from District Governor Paul Young, DTM
- January 2006: A Letter from LGET John Lynch, DTM
- January 2006: A Letter from LGM Will Ryan, DTM
- January 2006: A Letter from Jim McNearney, PRO
January 2006: A Letter from District Governor Paul Young, DTM
Happy New Year! This letter is the second in a series of bi-monthly letters from your District 53 Team. The last time that I wrote you I expressed sincere feelings about improving communications among toastmasters members and the District leadership team by way of these letters. I am very focused on improving the health of all of our 120 clubs in District 53; this is what a District Governor signs up for. A healthy club has a full meeting with speakers, evaluators, table topics and all of the supporting roles, the members and guests learn something every time they attend, that is why we come back time and time again. Your Club’s Distinguished Club Plan Report is a good report card on club health, for your club’s report please [ click here ]
Now that I have your attention I will mention club officer training, it’s a must, I encourage all members that are interested in helping their club’s success to attend a training session, you will learn officer responsibilities first hand. I assure you that this will be a rewarding experience that will lead to another step in your toastmasters growth.
- Thank you to every member that has taken the D53 member survey, we appreciate your time and consider your feedback very important as we plan the district’s future.
- If you noticed a few empty seats at your last club meeting call the missing members, they want to know that you value their presence at the club meeting.
- Get ready for an Area Governor visit in the near future; he or she will help you to rev up the club meeting environment! Ask questions; make a special event of the visit. These officers are a resource for your club and your first point of contact with the District.
- Look around the room during your next club meeting, if you see the same faces that are at the same place in their development that they were last year without earning a CTM, ATM, CL or Al, your club is not growing and fading fast. The faster you call your Area Governor for help the faster we can send a CLUB COACH in to assist you to revive your meetings and teach the program once again! Spring always comes after winter, let us help you.
- OK, now that you want to reenergize, how do you get the word out? You may have missed VPPR officer training in the summer, we are ready to serve you with a public relations training session in January. We are going to record the first training session in order to make it available on the D53 website.
I am focused on keeping the District 53 Team well trained and ready to help you find your voice and serve your world!
MINDING THE GAP
Paul Young, DTM
District 53 Governor 2005-06
January 2006: A Letter from LGET John Lynch, DTM
Fellow Toastmasters: As the official second half of the Toastmasters year kicks off, are you going to achieve your goals? Will the members of your club reach their highest aspirations? It’s crunch time and I know that many of you have set personal success goals to provide the best club meeting environment for every member.
What do I mean by meeting environment? Every meeting should have a full agenda. Focus on having all of your speaking slots and all roles for every meeting scheduled in advance. Once this is done, the speaker is responsible for finding a replacement if they cannot fulfill their obligation when it is less than one meeting away on the schedule. If they need to reschedule at any other time, they can do that with the Vice President of Education. Every member should be working out of one of the Toastmaster’s Manuals and toward their next goal. By doing this you will provide the member with a mutually supportive and positive learning environment that will enable them to reach their goals and beyond. Remember, you have made a personal commitment to the members’ success as much as they have made a personal commitment to their club’s success.
While doing this will get most of your members to become comfortable with speaking before their home club, the thought of going outside that comfort zone becomes more of a challenge. Well here is another opportunity for your members to grow and experience delivering a speech outside the club environment. Encourage all of your members to compete in either the Tall Tales Speech Contest or the International Speech Contest at the club level. Please be aware of the requirements for the International Contest so that no one is disappointed. The winners at the club level will then have the opportunity to compete on the Area level. What a growth opportunity! I encourage every club to hold a contest so that the winners can move on to the Area, Division and District levels. And don’t forget to encourage those not competing to support their club’s contest winners at each level!
While each of these suggestions will generate enthusiasm for your members, they still need to strive personally. Everyone is different. Understand that some people will just feel comfortable speaking in their Club environment while others are striving to become a Distinguished Toastmaster, and searching for experiences on higher levels. Your duty is to identify their needs and provide the appropriate opportunities for them to succeed. If you are able to do this, you will have members achieving their Competent Toastmasters and Advanced Toastmasters Awards, and the Distinguished Club Program status will display positive results, but most of all your members will be attaining their own levels of personal success. As your members reach 5 speeches toward their Competent Toastmaster Award, contact me with that information. E-mail me with their names and I will send them a District 53 “½ CTM” Certificate.
As club officers, I encourage you to pick two goals that will help your members become more successful and write them on a sheet of paper. Then make the commitment to yourself to help them achieve those goals before June 30th. Let the leader within guide you.
John Lynch, DTM
Lt. Governor Education and Training (LGET)
January 2006 : A Letter from LGM Will Ryan, DTM
Dear Fellow Toastmasters,
We’re half way through the year and as Lieutenant Governor of Marketing, I am bullish about our year-end results. Although membership is one of the biggest challenges we all face, our “Membership is Everyone's Business," campaign is showing results. Yet it takes all members doing their part to achieve our goals.
Let's look at membership selfishly and ask what we gain as individuals when our club is at or above charter strength? We all know how hard it is to run effective meetings when only a handful of members attend meetings. Having to fill multiple roles at meetings is not only challenging, but it’s also not attractive for prospective new members when clubs struggle through meetings. The largest return on member's investment of time and money occurs when meetings are run effectively, thus providing an environment for productive personal growth. And remember, each of us made Toastmaster's Promises when we joined. In voluntary organizations, the success of the whole is dependent upon the success of the individual as well as their commitment to the health of the organization.
While we're on the topic of the promises, do you remember the promises you made when you joined? As a reminder, consider the following examples of those promises:
- To attend club meetings regularly;
- To prepare for and fulfill meeting assignments (roles);
- To provide fellow members with helpful, constructive evaluations;
- To serve my club as an officer when called upon to do so; and
- To bring guests to club meetings so they can experience the benefits Toastmasters' membership offers.
Now it's time to look inside and ask yourself if you're living up to the promises you made. Are you actively involved in strengthening your club? Do you think about Toastmasters between meetings and consider those who would benefit from being more effective speakers, listeners and leaders? We all interact with large networks of people on a regular basis. I encourage you to recommend Toastmasters. Ask people in your network to attend a meeting as a guest and check it out for themselves. Toastmasters is not for everyone. Still I have never seen the program fail to deliver significant personal growth to members who follow proven processes. Toastmasters offers incredible value for the cost, so it’s easy to invite friends and business associates to check it out if they're interested in self-development and increasing their self-confidence.
By the way, if you haven't seen a member for some time, I recommend calling them to tell them what they've been missing (great speeches and enhanced camaraderie). Some clubs keep a supply of post cards on hand at meetings and use them to write messages from all members in attendance to those who've been missed. Personal messages yield impressive results. Club growth includes member retention!
Just remember your promises to Toastmasters and invite guests to your club meetings ... you'll be glad you did since your personal growth depends upon a strong club.
Minding the Membership Gap,
Will Ryan, DTM
Lt. Governor Marketing (LGM)
January 2006 : A Letter from Jim McNearney, PRO
Best Wishes for the New Year,
From the time that we are infants, we learn the vast majority of our skills and behaviors by observing and listening to others. We emulate those around us. This process continues throughout our entire lives. Since no two people do things in exactly the same way, it stands to reason that the more people we are exposed to, the greater the variety of skills and behaviors we will acquire.
Let’s bring this concept into Toastmasters. The greater the number of people whom we observe and listen to in our club meetings, the greater the variety of speaking skills and behaviors we will acquire. I couldn’t count how many times I’ve listened to a fellow club member deliver a speech and thought to yourself, “I like they way he/she did that, I’m going to add a bit of that technique to my own speaking style.” My guess is that you’ve probably done the same.
Our Toastmasters experiences will be greatly enhanced by having an increase in the number of actively participating members in our clubs. Each and every member offers us something unique and different in his/her speaking style. Therefore, it behooves each of us to enthusiastically promote membership growth and active member participation in our clubs.
For 2006 (and beyond), I am challenging you to make it your personal mission to promote both membership growth and retention in your clubs. Your reward will be that for every additional actively participating member, you will become a better speaker. Like a sponge, you will be soaking up a little bit of how to more effectively use body language from one member, some vocal variety techniques from another member and a more effective use of humor from still another member. More members means more speaking variety. And, as the old saying goes, “variety is the spice of life.”
VPM’s and VPPR’s can get an especially good start on promoting club membership by attending Club Officer Training in January or February. If I can be of help in any way related to generating Public Relations for your club, please feel free to contact me.
Thanks,
Jim McNerney
Public Relations Officer
(PRO)