Spartan Speakers Spartanburg, South Carolina

5/28/20

You ever have the feeling something is wrong but you can’t quite put your finger on it.   On paper the Spartan Speakers agenda was very similar to Midway Toastmasters.  They started on time and 2 members were even logged on 15 minutes before the meeting and greeted us both. They did have a few empty roles as the meeting opened and I volunteered to be Table Topics Masters.  They said they usually do not ask guests to fill roles but if I wanted to I could.  I certainly didn’t mind, I enjoy helping out.   Early in the meeting they gave an inspirational quote.  And assigned someone to watch for “crutch” words.  Which I assume is like our “filler” words, i.e. like, so, you know, and. The General Evaluator did not cover the role very well and his mic was not working well.  All in all though it was very similar to my home club.  However,  I did not come out of the meeting exhilarated but I did not come out of it exhausted either.  Not sure why.  Can’t put my finger on it.  And if I was the club coach (which she was there and was TOD), I would be hard pressed to tell why my experience wasn’t great.  They greeted me.  The meeting flowed well.  People seemed to have a fairly good grasp of technology. 

I was told in the beginning by the two early arrivals that the “coach” has really helped them.  The club had fallen to 3 members and she has helped build them and now they have 11 members. The club has been around a long time and they have two very veteran members that asked us before the meeting started what district officer roles we had held.  It was clear that titles were very important to them.  One of them said he started TM in 1997 and the other was in 2002, I believe.  They do have a lot of knowledge and experience behind them.  So what’s the problem?  Why isn’t this club thriving?   Steve and I coached a club in Lexington, that was very similar.  They had dropped down to very few members but as a meeting it ran it very well.  This club’s main problem and continues to be are the veteran members.  They were there at the inception of the club.  They know all the old ways of doing things.  And that’s the problem.  They do not want the old ways to change.  While other clubs are adapting, to new ways of getting visitors through the doors and having special meetings.  They will not embrace change and makes it known and the newer members listen to them and when they can’t move a brick wall,  the newer members end up moving on.  This club gets a lot of foot traffic due to its location but the back door is wide open.  Many club members join then leave within 2 years.

 

So I am thinking possibly this could be the problem with this club(or maybe the problem is with me).  But I wouldn’t know for sure unless I decided to spend more time there.