Tag: membership growth

The MAX Plan from District 72

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Looking for ways to help small clubs, but can’t find coaches to help them?  D72 (New Zealand) has developed a very interesting group/virtual coaching approach, the MAX Plan, based on the Rising Star Program from D10/D28/D61.

They’ve developed a 40-page document that explains just how to go about it, and they’ve had some very strong success.  The prime target is small clubs (12 or less members without a coach), and secondarily, medium-size clubs that may have stagnated (13-18 members).  Often, distance is a problem, some clubs may be hours distant or hundreds of miles away from other clubs.

The goals are to help the club become distinguished (like a club coach), but also to be positioned for long-term growth, through educating officers and improving awareness of the Toastmasters program potential.

It starts with a half-day foundation workshop (usually done at the division level), followed up by virtual coaching, and 4-8 months later, a follow-up session.  A full set of handouts and an outline of the presentation material is included, with some great resources.

With the permission of the author, Murray Coutts (District 72 Lt. Gov’r of Marketing), I’m posting the document (also on the Resources page on my web site), in hopes that others will benefit from this unique approach to helping small clubs improve.  Take a few minutes to download it and skim it over, talk about it with your fellow Toastmasters leaders.  If it seems like it might work, give it a try!

In the comments here, I’d love to hear what you think are the biggest challenges to finding club coaches, and whether this virtual team approach might help.

Two easy steps to building membership

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  1. Public relations, get the guest in.
  2. A good show, let them see what they’re getting.

Now perhaps I over-simplify a bit, but if you get these two things right, your club will be overflowing with eager guests and members.  I can hear you now, “But how do we create good PR?”

In my experience, guests show up at a meeting mostly through one of two ways:

  1. Word of mouth, a personal invitation from someone they know
  2. Via the Toastmasters International “find a club” page and (if it exists) the club web site

So this tells us that we need to get our members to invite their friends, family, co-workers, barista, bus driver, and nanny.  At the next club meeting, hand out a blank sheet of paper and without telling them why, ask each person to write down the  names of ten people they know.

After they do so, ask them to pick five of them to invite to the next meeting (this lets them leave out some people they might think wouldn’t be such a good membership candidate).  Follow up and keep score on who brings guests, split into several teams and recognize achievement.

At the same time, make sure your club details on the TI “find a club” page are accurate (like meeting days and address!), that the phone number and e-mail address go to someone who is ready to return messages promptly and sell the guest on coming to the meeting.  Be sure the club web site is attractive and up-to-date, and includes some recent pictures of the meetings and membership.  Include something unique about your club, especially if you’re near other clubs.  (Club web sites could be the topic of a whole article itself, and probably will be.)

Now, we’ve got lots of guests coming to the meeting, what’s next?  Put on a good show!  Let them see what the Toastmasters program is all about.  Be sure every meeting is demo quality, as you never know who might show up.  Manual speeches with constructive positive evaluations are the key, and then table topics to get everyone else involved and practicing off-the-cuff speaking too.

Have a guest welcome packet that includes:

  • a welcome letter from the club president
  • a brief outline of the Toastmasters program and the benefits members derive from it; remember “what’s in it for me”!
  • important contacts (president, VP-Education VP-Membership, and treasurer, at a minimum) with e-mail and phone
  • the exact amount of the dues for each of the 12 months of the year (don’t make them do the math), who to make the check out to, who to give it to
  • a membership application with the essentials already filled in (club name and number, district, etc.)

Be sure to conclude the meeting with asking guests what they thought about it, and invite them to fill out a membership application.

Yes, your club can grow, you can draw more guests and sign them up — every club can and should be at 20+ members and distinguished!

Districts with NO club loss?

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It is easier to give birth than raise the dead. — Unknown

Every year, in the Hall of Fame at the August international convention, we recognize districts that have built the most clubs (“President’s Extension Award”) and the highest percentage of clubs at 20+ members (“President’s 20+ Award”).  Many people have no idea what these awards are.  I suspect few districts set them as a goal, and may even sometimes be surprised to hear they ranked well for these.

You can see the full list of the 2009-10 scoring for these two awards here:

http://reports2.toastmasters.org/Ext20.html

A net growth of 63 clubs in one year is a truly awesome event, one quite worthy of recognition, as D82 (India and Sri Lanka) did last year (they built 74 new clubs and lost 11).  That’s almost two thousand charter members discovering Toastmasters in one district alone!  Since this metric is based on club counts, not a percentage, large districts have a large advantage.  A district with hundreds of clubs has far more resources to build clubs than a district with 60 clubs.

Maintaining clubs at 20+ members is also important.  Clubs with less members often have poorer meetings due to members serving in multiple roles simultaneously, and generally are not providing as good an educational experience as they might.  Keeping clubs at charter strength ensures guests see the Toastmasters program at its best.  As of June 30, 2010, D71 (Britain and Ireland) had over 87% of their clubs at 20+ members, which is amazing.  (By comparison, the median percentage of clubs at 20+ members in the districts is about 52%, and it goes as low as 22%.)

But here’s another important measure: How many clubs did a district lose? Not total paid clubs (where you can make up for a lost club by building a new club), but based on individual clubs — did any district manage to keep every club that they started the year with?  For 2009-10, by my math, it turns out exactly one district did that.

D33 (central California and southern Nevada) lost zero clubs in 2009-10. Every single one of 171 clubs renewed!  And they built 12 new clubs and were distinguished!  Three other districts lost just one club each (D12, D24, D64).

This is a metric that smaller districts can do better at, since they have less clubs to try to maintain.  And one equally worthy of recognition at the Hall of Fame.  It’s also non-competitive — we could have many districts earning this award, just like in the new Distinguished District Program (DDP).

Club rebuilding is just as important as club building. The club coach program is a key tool that few districts use effectively (more on this in a future post).  While it may be easier to build new ones, most sick and struggling clubs don’t require a miracle to be saved, just a coach (or two) who is passionate about bringing Toastmasters to more people.  Plus, any guests who visit a struggling club are likely to get a poor impression of Toastmasters.  Sure, sometimes you run into a club that just can’t be saved (such as loss of company support or loss of meeting location with no alternatives), but those are rare.

Help your district save every club possible, make sure even small clubs present Toastmasters in the best possible light to guests, build their membership and bring the club to distinguished, and you’ll be part of a team recognized for your efforts at the district and international level!

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Top 10 reasons to be a club coach

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The club coach program is the best tool districts have to help struggling clubs, yet many districts don’t promote the club coach program very well.  There are districts with 30-40 or more clubs eligible for coaches, but only a dozen or so assigned.

They’re effectively leaving these struggling clubs to fend for themselves, or whatever the Area Governor can spare.  Official training is available, and it’s perfect to include in Toastmasters Leadership Institutes (TLIs).

Any club with 12 or less members (according to WHQ rosters) is eligible for a coach (there can be two coaches per club), and a coach can be anyone who is not already a member of the club at the time of appointment.  To volunteer, contact your district Lt. Gov’r of Marketing!  To find a club that needs a coach, click here, then click on your district number and scroll down in the right-hand panel to the “Clubs that need coaches” section; click on club numbers for meeting information.

The club coach’s goal is to bring the club to distinguished by the second following June 30.  Simple, right?  Of course, the biggest challenge is usually rebuilding membership to be eligible to be distinguished (a whole ‘nother topic!).  A good place to start is the Successful Club Series module Moments of Truth.

Top 10 reasons to be a club coach (some good, some bad!):

10. You’re bored on the night they happen to meet

9. To fulfill the requirements for your Advanced Leader-Silver and DTM

8. To help the area/division/district be distinguished by keeping its clubs

7. Because your Area Governor asked you to help

6. To get more speaking and education session opportunities

5. To exercise your leadership skills in a new environment

4. To help organize a membership-building drive

3. To bring ideas from your club(s) to a new club, and vice versa

2. To network with the members in a new club

1. To give back to an organization that gives its members so much

What’s YOUR reason?  Add it in the comments!

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!

Large community club spin-offs

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I’ve been involved in building many new clubs, both community and company, and they tend to take rather different paths.  Company clubs are relatively easy to build, but also easy to lose (e.g., management changes priorities for time and/or funding).  Community clubs can be a challenge to build, but given a good start, tend to stick around a long time.

One technique I’ve seen work well for building community clubs is to grow an existing club so large that it can spin off a new club.  This method allows you to gradually grow the “new” club from within the existing one, and every guest sees what a good strong club looks like.  The more traditional approach with a community club might start with a handful of people (which can result in difficulty producing a good meeting), and then new people sign up largely on faith that it will eventually charter.

Once a club reaches 40+ members, spinning off the new club is mostly a matter of paperwork; the hardest part, the membership building, is done!  Things to decide are which members go into the second club (needs to be a good mix of new and old), club officers, and a new club name.  The only money is the $125 club charter fee.

Selling this to the club can be quite an exercise in leadership though.  The biggest concerns I would discuss are:

  • Club officer workload: How does the VP-E schedule 40+ members, finding a big enough room, collecting dues from so many, etc.
  • Meeting speech slots: Even in a weekly club with 5 speeches per meeting, that’s 250 slots a year, divided by 40 members, means each members gets to speak an average of six times a year, once every two months!
  • Leadership opportunities: A second club means the members now have 14 officer positions for practicing leadership instead of 7.
  • Lost membership: Many large clubs have a remarkably high member turnover rate, since they are unable to schedule members to speak often enough, and they can feel like a small cog in a big machine.
  • Members must feel welcome to visit back and forth between the two clubs regardless of which club they’re formally paying dues in.
  • Clubs may meet no more than once a week: It’s not in the club constitution and bylaws, but WHQ has issued statements that a club may not regularly meet more often.

I believe that the highest recognition of a club’s quality is that it is so successful, it spins off new clubs (perhaps regularly!).

Which clubs are eligible for this process?  You can find a list for your district on the page below, the last bullet at the bottom (select your district number from the menu):

http://mikeraffety.com/reports.shtml

Members vs. customers

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Over the years, I’ve noticed that some of our members really don’t act like members. They act like customers. They get in with specific goals, get what they want, and get out. They don’t want to help run the place, they just want to be customers!

Imagine what might happen if you walked into a retail shop and were treated as a “member”.  The people already there start asking you questions about what they should inventory, what their opening hours should be, whether so-and-so should be promoted to store manager!

Now, this might be something you really like, if it’s a store you feel passionately about, and want to make a big part of your life (maybe Apple Computer?).  But for many, they just want to buy a package of cookies and a carton of milk and get on with their life.

Apply this to Toastmasters.  Some of our members don’t want to help run the place, and that’s OK!  Sure, make them aware of what they’re missing out on, but don’t press on endlessly.  They may not be our future leaders (yet), but others will be.

When you talk to someone who’s just joined, ask them how involved they want to be.  Do they just want to work on some manual speeches, overcome some verbal tics, gain some confidence speaking (customer), or do they have an interest in helping run our organization, be a mentor or club officer, learn leadership skills, and help others (member)?

We need to make sure we have what our customers need — speaking opportunities, strong evaluations, opportunities for learning specific skills, even contests.  No matter how they join, ask what they’re looking for.  Match it up against our offerings.  Be sure they know we can help them with what they’re joining for, regardless of whether they are a customer or a member.

In my experience, very few people join Toastmasters as a member — they start as a customer (despite paying “membership dues”!), and then after a few meetings, a few months, even a few years, once they find out all that we offer, then they become “members”!

By the way, if you’re reading this, you’re probably a member, not just a customer!

Countries with the most membership change

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I saw an interesting discussion on LinkedIn asking about what areas experienced the most membership growth — or loss.  I modified my club type script and ran it against the 2009-10 data, and got some interesting data.

First, to no great surprise, the country with the greatest loss was Haiti, down 323 members (net change, July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010).  Not far after that was Taiwan (down 166), Netherland Antilles (down 47), and Kuwait (down 29).

The biggest gains were United States with 1,962 members (net increase), Canada (up 1,079 members), India (920 members, no surprise there!), China (881 members), Australia (620), and Malaysia (481).

Within the US, Virginia had the biggest net membership loss (down 197 members), Alabama (down 116), and Indiana (down 103).  The biggest increases were California (up 1,962 members!), Texas (up 1,219), Florida (up 935), New York (up 766), and Illinois (up 504).

Here’s a graphic showing the data — brighter green is more total members added in 2009-10 (NOT adjusted for population!).