Mike Raffety, DTM, PID

Toastmasters Resources

Most of these are resources I developed myself (with a few exceptions noted otherwise) -- you're welcome to use them, but please keep my name on them for credit. (You may need to right-click on the links and select "save as".) (photo in Hong Kong)

Perhaps the most widely-useful document is something I've written called "Toastmasters Best Practices", which includes tips for every role in Toastmasters, from meeting timer to district governor. This is still growing, please feel free to send me your tips!

The daily calendar with Toastmasters tips and deadlines and anniversaries that I gave out at the August 2011 convention was very popular. You can also see just the daily entries in a spreadsheet.

• District Governor resources
  • Distinguished District calculator to help set goals in the Distinguished District Program, including Select and President's Distinguished status.
  • Area governor duties and expectations to help ensure a clear understanding of the commitment involved in this critical job.
  • List of distinguished area goals by size of area (number of clubs).
  • Toastmasters Leadership Opportunities, summarizing the progression from member to club officer to district officer to International President.
  • A flyer encouraging members to sign up for the district Yahoo group.
  • A discussion of how to increase contest attendance through the district allowing two contestants to proceed to an area contest when the area includes four or less clubs.
  • The District 30 directory, with individual contact information (district and club officers) removed for privacy. This is mostly automated, it takes about 6-8 hours to generate each annual edition now.
• Education resources
  • Toastmasters Leadership Institude handbook from Pam Melick, everything you could ever want to know about running a great TLI.
  • The District 30 Conference Planning Guide, a compilation by PDG Bruce Burrow with hundreds of tips about how to put on a great district conference.
  • Competent Leader manual summary, including corrected table of projects and requirements.
  • A little quiz for DEC members to see if they've been paying attention, maybe more useful towards the second half of the year.
  • Club officer training guide for divisional make-up training.
  • An older presentation on the treasures to be found on the TI web site, and through Google.
• Marketing resources
  • New club charter fees calculator to figure out how much to pay for a club chartering across the dues increase period in 2011.
  • A team approach to virtual club coaching, a good solution when you're having trouble finding potential coaches near a club.
  • The Club Coach Playbook, by Bill Jacky and Richard S. Hockett, the book I wish I had written about how to be a club coach.
  • A tear-off sheet asking people for ideas on where to build new clubs.
  • New club checklist, taking you from finding the location to celebrating the charter party.
  • Hundreds of membership-building ideas (from Lark Doley), I gave out several hundred copies of this as LGM to help clubs.
• Division Governor resources (Jason Akai's great newsletter for DivGs; he says feel free to e-mail questions to him, address is in the newsletter below)
  • Compass for October 2008
  • Compass for September 2008
  • Compass for August 2008
  • Compass for July 2008
• Area Governor resources
  • Spring area governor visits Tips on making club visits and filling out the visit form.
  • Things I wish I knew ... Words of advice from the 2006-07 District 30 DEC.
  • Area Governor checklist listing key dates throughout the year for AGs.
  • Brief summary of what Area Governors should do when visiting a club.
  • Checklist of things to do for a contest from finding a location to notifying the next level of the winners.
  • Contest promotional flyer (MS Publisher).
  • Contest program (MS Publisher).
• Club resources
  • Club officer evaluation forms, from the 2009 edition of the seven individual club officer manuals (missing from the Club Leadership Handbook).
  • The Missing Club Central Manual, courtesy of Debbie Hardy (and in French too).
  • 25 ways to build membership in a corporate/government club or a community club, courtesy of PID Heath Suddleson.
  • A club guest welcome packet, just add the membership application as the last page. (The essence of this came from a club on the Internet, and I cannot find the original source now.)
  • New member orientation from Balaji Bhushan (PowerPoint)
  • An example of my club agenda, including things like speech project names, timing, and "the back page" (information every guest and member should have).
  • A dictionary of Toastmasters terms and acronyms, very helpful to newer members.
  • A brief reference guide to the Toastmasters International web site in two pages; just a copy of the two site maps (general public, and members).
  • The original 50 chartered Toastmasters clubs, by David Lewtas.