Our membership is clearly international, about a third live outside the United States. But what about services to our members?
When can you call World Headquarters with questions?
Roughly 9 AM to 5 PM, California time. Obviously, that may not be so convenient for people living in Europe, Asia, Australia, or elsewhere. It may not even be convenient for those who work 9-5 near WHQ but can’t make personal phone calls while at work.
The solution? Schedule 1-2 staffers working into the evening (perhaps 10 PM), or even overnight, and give them Skype and instant messaging accounts too. (Bonus points if they speak multiple languages!)
Where do your Toastmasters purchases get shipped from?
Southern California. All of them (except maybe personalized club banners). Manuals, trophies, contest kits, shirts, ribbons, everything. This can take weeks to deliver, at a high expense (plus import duties). It’s especially ironic when the trophy was made in China.
The solution? Paper items can be handled by regional contract printers and fulfillment services, and/or delivered electronically (member choice). Trophies and ribbons might be handled by licensing a few proven companies to produce quality Toastmasters-branded merchandise locally. This results in better service to the member at lower cost!
Where does your club send dues?
Southern California, in US dollars. In many countries, this can be done on-line with a credit card, but in some countries, credit cards may not be widely used (e.g., cell phones are commonly used for payments in Africa), and clubs may not be allowed to have their own bank accounts (forcing the treasurer to hold the club funds and/or use a personal credit card).
Plus, there’s the aggravation of currency exchange — the member will probably pay the club in a local currency, but the payment to WHQ will be in US dollars, and when it clears the bank, it may not be the same as what the member paid. The bank will probably charge a fee for the conversion, too.
The solution? For countries with enough members (more than 2000 maybe?), WHQ should set fixed dues once or twice a year in the local currency, and contract with a global bank to collect and process those payments in country (both on-line as well as by mail). The bank then remits the dues to WHQ in US dollars, taking a few percent off as their processing fee.
This takes the currency exchange risk off the member and club, who can least afford it due to their small size. It also provides the flexibility to possibly set dues based on the local standard of living.
These are just a few ideas about what we could improve. What are your thoughts?
As usual, my friend, you’re light years ahead of everyone else! I think that your ideas make a LOT of sense and if implemented, would provide an economical way to provide much better service to our friends outside the United States.
Are you an actual American? This is the most sensible, globally-astute thing I’ve ever heard from any Toastmaster! We’re in Africa and all of these things are true.
Well, except for the cellphone payments thing — that’s true of many African countries but not South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho or Swaziland, which are four of the nine countries in District 74.
One HUGE problem is that corporations who want Toastmasters clubs want an invoice in ZAR, our local currency, for accounting purposes. We’ve actually found some clubs unable to charter because of the exchange control regulations.
MIKE RAFFETY FOR INTERNATIONAL DIRECTOR.
Your timely, factual and relevant reflections on what we are doing as a district is driving part of our Cabinet agenda.
the way you package information makes our district stronger. Thank you Mike!
Thanks, Erich. Yes, I chose the cell phone payments method not because it was necessarily terribly common, but because it seems at once obvious and completely different from anything Americans currently do.
You can’t get an invoice in local currency!? Wow, I’d never heard of that problem — yet one more reason for my recommendations.
And yes, already been International Director, loved it!
By which I obviously mean
MIKE RAFFETY FOR 2VP !
Hi Mike
Absolutely! I have been saying for years that TI needs to change their dues to be relevant to local standards of living. $54 is nothing to the average US citizen, but to some communities it is a month of food, or a year’s wages even! But TI doesn’t seem to care, and is more interested in looking like a large profitable corporation. Locally sourced material makes so much sense. We need a board made up of people who can actually make these changes. I proposed an idea a couple of years ago to a prospective ID, he won, and then emailed me to say that he wasn’t able to introduce my idea which he had incorporated into his platform, because the board were handcuffed by regulations. 7
Emma
Oops, just a few days after this comment, TI decided that $54 is not enough anymore.
Emma, when I hear or see phrases like “because the board were handcuffed by regulations,” I ask for specifics. Specifics might include “which Board member?” “what specific ‘regulations?’ and ‘How do you know the plan won’t work?’ These are the kinds of questions that I know Mike asks himself. These are the reasons that I—a Plain Ordinary Toastmaster without a vote and not a formal part of any campaign at all—believe in Mike and his ideas for moving this organization ahead.
I like Mike!
My vote goes to Mike. Agree with all that you say. Strength to you.
Mike, you have some sound ideas. As a Toastmaster who started in Toronto and now is a member of two clubs in Singapore, by way of two in Japan, like your ideas. Permit me to add two more.
More and more, we are seeing clubs developing communication skills in languages other than English. We even have a French speaking club here in Singapore. It would be very handy to be able to look up clubs by language. Not difficult to do given the technology is there, just the addition of another field and sufficient information on the clubs. It would help potential members find the right clubs (not all have the language in their names…as I found out the hard way once) and it would help build networks.
The much more difficulty challenge for North American-centric people – host an International Convention outside Canada/America. I strongly believe it can be done and, with careful planning, can match or exceed the number of attendees at North American conventions. In the mean time, is there live streaming of key components?
Wayne
Wayne, funny enough, I e-mailed the head of IT at WHQ last year about adding a language field (or two, for bilingual) to the standard club information, and he thought it was a good idea. I think it’s in progress, just a matter of priorities and time.
And yes, we need to hold a convention outside North America, as was originally planned for last year! The Aussies worked so hard for it, they deserve it.
Finally, I absolutely agree with the idea of streaming portions on the Internet to build excitement, such as the board briefing (last February’s was recorded on video and posted a few days later), opening ceremonies, business meeting, and the speech contest (possibly the latter would be a fundraising mechanism as well).
Mike, why only “one or two for bilingual”? My home club has meetings in English, Spanish and Catalan. 🙂
Good point — probably needs to be an open-ended list of languages and checkboxes, not just two (or three) drop-down menus.
hmm. Nerdy thought. In modern computers you can store 64 bits (=options) in one single computer word. Probably won’t even notice in the size of the club database. I wonder how many actively used toastmasters languages there already are. And that will obviously go far beyond the languages in which the manuals have been translated.
Mr Raffety;
I see that someone finally has some common sense ideas for a Global Organization like TM. Sometimes we are to attached to the ways we do it now – even if there are more practical and economical ways to improve. Change is hard to implement in an organization such as this because of the bureacratic nature of it and because they may be afraid of potential failures if something does not work as planned. Hope you get elected soon – They definitely need you on board!
Hopefully the organization does not suffer to large a drop in membership due to the recent increase in membership dues. I will be dropping two of my club memberships after September and maybe stay in only one club. I have been in for Twenty Two years in Toastmasters so far!
Desi, thanks, some of it just seems like common sense, standard practice in any multinational organization. I hope to make a difference!
I’m afraid such logical thinking will never fly at TI but you get my vote!
I have visited your site earlier, but the recent, unplanned increase in the TI fees prompted me to leave my message…
By localising not only could TI reduce overall costs, the experience of being a local but International brand would have been higher. Look the the Rotary, Lions and other international forums, they lead by being truly customised to the region they serve.
Today TI is all about the American experience, from the merchandise, to call center to conventions. This mind set needs to change. We do hope that a couple of years from now there are equal representation from across the world event at a Board level. Some day we may be happy to host the International Convention in India! All the best to you!
Brillian, exactly so. Note though that after Proposal A, the board has strong overseas representation — out of 22 members, 5 are from the eastern hemisphere, and 4 more are from Canada, leaving just 13 Americans, less than 60%. I’d love to attend an international convention in India!
Mike we would love to host the international convention in india too!
I think that would be great! However, India requires advance visas for all visitors, including Americans and Canadians, and I *think* some vaccinations are advised as well. While I believe the U.S. and Canada require advance visas for visitors from India, there’s an advantage in places like Australia and Malaysia, that no advance visa is required for most visitors (and no vaccinations).
An excellent question backed up with three sub-questions.
I indeed have been wondering why it is so difficult to reach the HQ. It seems to me they are understaffed as emails take rather long to answer, and I only managed to phone them once by phoning them at 20.00 local time. Not a big deal, but still a nuisance.
Being from the Netherlands I have never experienced the other two issues, but I can imagine the trouble and costs other members go through. Having a (more) local distribution point would make it a lot more accessible for non-american, non-western Europe countries, and thus may help spreading Toastmasters.
oh, Gertjan, you might add your little story of the pretty excessive EU import fees that have recently been slapped on to the manuals if we order them in bulk. I’m still wondering if that may be remedied by something as simple as labelling the packages slightly different, so they get classified as non-commercial when they arrive at our European borders.
Mike, there is an Internet Service provider her in Australia that maintains call centres in Western Australia (HQ), New Zealand and South Africa. This gives them 24 hour coverage with each centre only working their normal 9-5 day. Perhaps TMI could operate a call centre elsewhere in the world too.
I love your analysis above. Why aren’t you international president??
It would be difficult to train up people in other countries for a small operation like WHQ runs, 120 people right now. But, they could have a few people in southern California working an overnight shift, answering calls 24 hours a day, 5 to 7 days a week.
Or … volunteers like you and me keep helping out with the bulk of the questions, just like this. 🙂
I think I can perhaps have more influence from the outside right now.