Tag: DCP

Good clubs: Big districts or little districts?

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Do big districts or little districts do a better job of supporting their clubs? There’s a logical argument going either way; big districts have more resources and depth in talent, and small districts allow more focused attention. I ran the numbers.

Roughly, for every additional 100 clubs in the district base, there’s 11% higher level of distinguished clubs, e.g., from 100 clubs at 38% to 200 clubs at 49% to 300 clubs at 60%.

The performance base is the last 5 years across all districts, spreadsheet attached with graphs to make the story clear. Stratifying the data into deciles of performance makes the trend even more apparent.

Once you get past the 200 clubs level, it’s VERY unusual for the percent of distinguished clubs to drop below 40%.

I think the reason is that while areas and divisions are all about the same size regardless of the district, the trio candidates come from a much larger pool in big districts, resulting in better trios and better better club performance.

My own district (originally 30) has ranged in size from nearly 250 (2013-17, pre-split) to 80-odd clubs (post split, and still shrinking). We often had multiple good candidates for LGM/CGD before — and now we struggle to get one decent candidate and a weak placeholder candidate to meet the required two minimum. We’re recycling past PDGs/PDDs into the trio again more often as well (which we NEVER did as a large district).

So the action? When splitting, I mean REFORMING districts, I think we should set a higher threshold, like 120 clubs in the resulting districts. Let bigger districts get a little bit bigger before splitting if necessary. Close/consolidate districts sooner than a low end of 60, maybe set a minimum of 100.

The road to distinguished district

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Tomorrow is June 1, the last month in the Toastmasters year.  Lots of people plan their work around deadlines, and Toastmasters are no different.  From individual to district, many Toastmasters goals have June 30 as a drop-dead deadline.

In the next-to-last-year of the Distinguished District Program (DDP) as we know it, with four critical success factors, and exactly six Presidents and six Select Distinguished districts, people are paying attention to performance.  Let’s take a look at the May 26 report.

Out of 82 districts, three have already met all four goals and are distinguished before the end of May!  Those are:

The living DCP

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Some people say that the recognition programs focus on the numbers too much, but behind those numbers are members achieving their goals.

My favorite educational session is about the Distinguished Club Program (DCP).  But I do it a little differently, by showing what those numbers mean.  For each DCP goal, I call volunteers out of the audience who are working on that goal and interview them briefly about their objectives and experiences.

For example, on the first goal, I ask for two people in the audience who are working on their CC, and call them up on stage.  I ask them what speech they’re on, what they’ve learned so far, and when they expect to complete speech number ten.  Ditto for the rest of the education awards.

For new members, I ask for a show of hands for anyone who’s joined in the last few months, call them up (two groups of four), ask them why they joined, talk about their Icebreaker, etc.

Club officer training is similar — ask for a volunteer holding each office, ask them about their role in that office, and get their commitment to twice-a-year training.

Finally, there’s the club officer list and on-time dues, for which I return to the club president, secretary, and treasurer from the previous group.

By now, I have 16 members on the stage, and now it’s time to underline the DCP membership requirement, noting that we need a few more people to round out the club and make a total of 20 (or a net growth of five).  There’s usually a few excited audience members who missed out on the earlier interviews who are ready to run up on stage.

I wrap up by summarizing the ten goals, pointing out the members achieving those goals on stage, and presenting the crowd of 20 members on stage as a ten-goal President’s Distinguished “club”, to strong applause.

Really a lot of fun!

Lots of small clubs in your district?

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Global club size chartDoes your district have a lot of small clubs?  Over the last few years, is the number growing (bad), or are the small clubs getting bigger (good)?

Here’s some interesting graphs about TI membership world-wide, and also of each district:
http://mikeraffety.com/ClubSize/
(Be sure to click on your district number for local details.)

Fortunately, the number of clubs with 20+ members seems to be growing each year, though not in all districts, and the average number of members per club has edged upwards as well, from 19.3 in June 2006 to 20.0 in June 2010.

How does D71 (Britain and Ireland) manage to have less than 6% of their clubs at 0-12 members, what’s the secret to their success?  D46 (New York area) and D85 (China) aren’t far behind, so it’s not just a matter of being overseas.

The Distinguished Club Program (DCP) has an interesting effect on membership; when graphing clubs by size in a histogram, there’s a sharp increase at the 20-member threshold.  While there’s just 247 clubs at 19 members (on June 30, 2010, worldwide), there’s 1,362 at 20 members.

There’s a lot of clubs eligible for club coaches, 23% globally as of June 2010.  I’ll be talking more about club coaches in my next blog entry.  So many districts don’t take advantage of this very effective program!

Feedback is appreciated!

How’s your district doing with the DCP?

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The new Distinguished District Program requires 40% of base clubs to be distinguished (goes into effect July 1, 2012).  How’s your district doing so far this year, 1/4 of the way through?  Here’s the answer:

http://mikeraffety.com/DDP-DCP.html

I believe I have a reasonable way to measure that success, without having to wait for April dues to post, and it’s really surprising how well districts are doing with this goal.  I’ve written a program to:

  1. Calculate the number of distinguished clubs needed for each district (40% of start-of-year club base)
  2. Identify the clubs farthest along in the DCP (most goals earned to date)
  3. Add up their goals (but capped at 5 goals per club, since a club with 7 goals doesn’t help a club with 3 goals be distinguished)
  4. Divide that total goals by 5 times the number of distinguished clubs needed
  5. The resulting percentage should hit 100% exactly when the district achieves the 40% distinguished clubs goal.

Except that there’s also that membership requirement for the DCP.  So I’ve counted up the number of members that those clubs (making up the 40%) are short of whatever is required for them to be distinguished (+5 or >=20 members) and show that as well.  This number isn’t terribly meaningful until April dues are posted, of course; we only lose members twice a year, April 1 and Oct. 1.

D84 (north and central Florida) is already 63% of the way there!  11 districts are at least halfway there, and almost every district (80 of 82) is over 25%.  It will be very interesting to see how these numbers evolve in the coming months!

Feedback and comments are appreciated!

How would your district do in the new Distinguished District Program?

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By now, most district leaders have probably heard about the new Distinguished District recognition program (DDP).  It goes into effect July 1, 2012, and basically does two things:

  1. Eliminates the competitiveness; every district can be President’s Distinguished, or Select Distinguished.  The objectives to meet those recognition levels are set for each district independently, as percentages based on the district size.
  2. Replaces the CC and AC critical success factors with Distinguished Clubs (and also eliminates the other point-accumulating goals of Distinguished Areas and leadership education awards).  Note that these education award goals are already in the Distinguished Club Program (which is unchanged), six of the ten DCP goals are education awards.

Here’s the breakdown of the new DDP goals.  The old qualifying requirements of completing and filing a District Success Plan Matrix and training at least 85% of Area and Division Governors by Sept. 30 are unchanged.

  1. Club growth (July 1 base to June 30 end of year) of 3% to be Distinguished, 5% to be Select, 8% to be President’s.  3% is the same goal as past years to be Distinguished.
  2. Membership payments growth (July 1 to June 30 as well) of 3% to be Distinguished, 5% to be Select, 8% to be President’s.  In the old program (still in effect this year and next), this goal is 2%, so this is an increase, but now it’s consistent with the club goal.
  3. Distinguished clubs (as of June 30, as a percent of the club base) of 40% to be Distinguished, 45% to be Select, 50% to be President’s.  In the old program, districts began accumulating points at the 30% threshold, topping out at 75%.

To reach any of the three recognition levels, the district must meet all three goals!  A shortfall in one goal is not made up by an excess in another goal.

How will this affect your district?  You can find out right now:  http://mikeraffety.com/NewDist.html

Here’s what you’re looking at:

Each district has one row (hover the mouse on the district number to see where it is located).  There are six groups of columns, one for each year from 2004-05 through 2009-10 (the year just completed).  In each group, you see the three goals with how the district did each year (the percentage goals from above are repeated in the column heading for easy reference).  If the goal was missed, it’s shaded in light red.

The district recognition status in the old and new programs is also listed for each year, “D”istinguished, “S”elect, “P”resident’s (or blank if not).  The ranking is also given as the small number after the letter.  Note that I invented a possible new program ranking, there is no published ranking system for the new program!  So that’s quite unofficial and subject to change.

There are also some totals down at the bottom.  If the total distinguished districts looks a little small, that’s OK, because in the past, districts didn’t focus on distinguished clubs as much.  As that becomes a factor equal in importance to clubs and membership payments, the added emphasis will bring those numbers up; people manage to the goals you set for them.  If you want to plan ahead to be distinguished in 2012-13 (and later), focus on improving DCP performance, it will take more than one year to make a significant change. (Over 80% of the clubs in D85-China were distinguished last year!)

It’s fully expected that future boards will review performance against these percentages and increase them periodically.  Hopefully, every district will reach 50% or more distinguished clubs soon, and then those thresholds can be adjusted upwards.  Remember how practically every district always hits the old AC goal, sometimes doubling or tripling it?  When a goal is reached consistently, it’s time to raise the goal, to keep stretching and getting better.

The number of consecutive years each district has been distinguished (as of 2009-10) is listed on the right (“DY”), and just three districts have been distinguished for six (or maybe more!) years: 59-Continental Europe, 71-Britain/Ireland, and 79-Middle East.  Sort of a “double Excellence in Leadership”, very impressive!

Thursday morning: Board of Directors briefing

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The board members were present for this, but had no role.  We sat there and listened as the officers (VPs and president and immediate past president) have reports summarizing our work for the week.  Full details will be on the TI web site by Friday, Aug. 20, but in short:

  • New area, division, and district recognition plan (effective 7/1/2012)
  • Numerous policy revisions, including campaigns
  • Big new strategic plan for growth!

I was heavily involved in the first one, so I’ll summarize those here:

Distinguished Area

  • Twice-annual AG visit reports for at least 75% of club base
  • No net club loss (this is a change)
  • At least 50% of base (July 1) clubs distinguished

Select Distinguished Area

  • As Distinguished, but 1 more club distinguished

President’s Distinguished Area

  • As Select, but a net growth of 1 club (same as now)

Distinguished Division

  • No net club loss
  • 40% of base clubs distinguished

Select Distinguished Division

  • As Distinguished, but 45% of clubs distinguished

President’s Distinguished Division

  • As Select, but 50% of clubs distinguished
  • Net growth of 1 club (same as now)

Distinguished District

  • 40% of base clubs distinguished
  • 3% club growth
  • 3% membership payments growth

Select Distinguished District

  • 45% of clubs distinguished
  • 5% club growth
  • 5% membership payments growth

President’s Distinguished District

  • 50% of clubs distinguished
  • 8% club growth
  • 8% membership payments growth

Perhaps the best feature is that the Distinguished District program is no longer competitive — EVERY district can be Select or President’s Distinguished, regardless of how other districts perform.

Mapping out Toastmasters

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Here’s some interesting maps showing how strong the DCP is by country, state, or province for several regions of interest.  The darker green, the higher average DCP score for each club in 2009-10.  Click on a map for full size.

US/Canada by state/province (Nevada and Quebec have the best-performing clubs, Wyoming and Vermont the most opportunity for improvement):

Europe (UK and Scotland are the strongest):

Australia by state (Northern Territory may seem strongest, but they only have two clubs!):

Southern Africa by country (District 74):

South Africa by province:

This was done using Microsoft MapPoint 2010, very interesting tool!