6/25/20
Friendly and upbeat is how I would describe this club. Although they only have seven members and four educational awards, they press on with confidence. Steve and I logged on 15 minutes early and there were two members already there. They quickly greeted us and began a conversation. As other members began to arrive, we were introduced to all the other members. That has never been done before. Although I wouldn’t be able to remember all the others names, I appreciate the effort.
We had 11 attend the meeting including 3 visitors (Steve and me). The other visitor said she would be joining the club soon. The person that gave her Ice Breaker speech had just transferred from another club. This means the club had 100% attendance; you rarely see that. But I can understand it. They had friendly banter before the meeting and throughout. They all acted like old friends and quickly swooped us into their friend circle. I felt very wanted.
Peggy, was quick to respond to Steve’s email about coming to our club. That should be a given, but you would be surprised at how many people do not respond. Could this have anything to do with poor attendance at other clubs? Peggy said we were welcome to join their meeting and they had the roles of evaluator and speaker open and would we like to fill those roles. We quickly responded that we would be happy too. We looked forward to taking part in this meeting. After the meeting, Peggy sent an email thanking us for attending and inviting us back anytime. Sometimes people forget those little gestures that could mean so much to a visitor. It could be what makes a person go back and actually become a member.
They had two speakers, including an Ice Breaker, which was fantastic. The speaker checked all the boxes in the compelling way a speaker should speak. The second speaker was completing his 10th speech in the Competent Communications (CC) manual which is supposed to be an inspirational speech. He gave a PowerPoint presentation about how to do PowerPoint presentations and committed three primary power point presentation faux pas. He had way too much information on each slide, the font was too small and barely readable in some slides and he read off each slide for his presentation. Big no-no’s for me. This definitely was not an inspirational speech. However, in Toastmasters you get credit for doing the work, not in how well you do it. So kudos to him for completing his CC and from his comments it sounds like he took a LONG time doing it.
Although, I thoroughly enjoyed the club meeting, they really are struggling in membership. From this one meeting, it isn’t obvious why and I don’t know their history. However, here are a few thoughts from my limited experience:
- Work the educational program. Another long time member mentioned that she still has not completed her CC.
- Dress up the website; make it more compelling to visitors
- Don’t wait on others to log on. When the meeting is supposed to begin at 8:00, then begin promptly at that time.l
- Make better use of the chat feature. After the speakers, spoke the Toastmaster of the Day, said “we don’t usually do this but you can put a love note in chat to tell the speaker how they did-not anything bad.” First, use chat more frequently and put “feedback” in chat for the speaker. We are here at Toastmasters to help the speakers get better not give them lollipops. They can’t improve if they don’t know what to improve in. Feedback is not bad. That attitude needs to change. I used to hate giving evaluations when I first started Toastmasters. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. After a while I realized, I was hurting them more by telling them they were great instead of giving them constructive feedback in a positive way, which I have figured out is harder than it looks.
So kudos to Twilight Toastmasters to a good meeting! Keep up your energy and welcoming open arms and may your numbers increase.
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