Every new club should be assigned a mentor on the charter paperwork. Yet I see a lot of new clubs never get a mentor! And far too often, I see those mentor-less clubs close up a year or two later.
Clubs that lack mentors (there can be up to two) usually miss out on critical details of the Toastmasters program. They’re floundering in the dark. They don’t know about advanced manuals, they don’t use the leadership manual, they don’t understand the value of officer training, or the networking at district conferences.
Worst of all, they are probably viewing Toastmasters as work instead of fun!
Sure, a good Area Governor may be able to help out with some of these issues, and if the club is lucky enough to have some experienced Toastmasters as members, they may get by. But this seems to be rare. Many new clubs have all new members, and the Area Governor has several other clubs to support as well, they can’t be attending most meetings of the new club like a mentor should.
In a few cases, there might be no one near the new club to serve as a mentor, but that also is rare. In my home district, which is a dense urban area (Chicagoland), distance is no excuse, since any club has another within a few miles. If the new club is hundreds of miles away, perhaps a mentor can serve from a distance, by conference calls and frequent contact.
Perhaps the club charter paperwork should require naming a club mentor. To allow for those rare circumstances when it simply is not possible, a brief statement from the District Governor explaining the omission might be allowed in lieu.
Mentors are crucial to the long-term success of a new club. Make sure every new club has that experienced resource so they get everything they can out of the Toastmasters program!
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Mentors are invaluable to a new club, and D-8 almost always has at least 1 mentor in place before a club charters or names a mentor not long after chartering. In fact, we attempt to have at least 1 mentor begin meeting with the club as soon after the demo meeting as possible–especially if it appears that the club will charter in the near future and if a suitable mentor can be found that quickly.
However, we have experienced a few instances in which some clubs (usually corporate) feel that they are too sophisticated for a mentor . . . especially if they have 1 or more experienced Toastmasters on their membership roster. In those instances, we offer/encourage the appointment of a mentor, but we do not insist upon a mentor in order to avoid alienating the club’s membership entirely. We also have other new clubs that will accept a mentor, but they still strongly resist learning the “details” of the Toastmasters program and make it clear that they want little, if any, involvement beyond the club even though the advantages of such involvement is explained to them.
Having said all of that, most D-8 clubs do accept and greatly benefit from the appointment of mentors.
Dori Drummond, D-8 IPDG
Dori, interesting comment on some corporate clubs thinking they don’t NEED a mentor. One might think corporations would be most familiar with the value of a mentor. If it were presented as a part of the club charter, not “do you want a mentor?”, I wonder if they might be more accepting.
But overall, agreed, that’s probably another “exception” case that would be a possible reason for NOT having a mentor assigned (along with distance).