Tag: recognition

Districts with NO club loss?

Posted on (Updated: )

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!

[poll id=”4″]

How’s your district doing with the DCP?

Posted on (Updated: )

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!

Award overload

Posted on

Ever been to a district conference where it seemed like everyone got an award?  Some districts have what feels like hundreds of awards.  At one district, I swear, they handed out an award for the conference education chair’s brother-in-law’s dog’s fleas.  Well, almost.

Awards are great things.  It’s the primary form of recognizing and rewarding our members’ accomplishments.  I wish we could give every CC recipient $1,000 like McGraw-Hill does, but alas, it’s probably not in the district budget.  Nonetheless, it’s critical that we do recognize our accomplishments.

Have you ever sat through a Lt. Gov’r of Education droning through a list of 50-100 CC recipients at a district conference, or a list of all the members who sponsored a new member?  Did this do anything to motivate them, or to motivate others to get that award?  It doesn’t seem likely.

Too many awards can dilute their value.  Handing out awards with no explanation for the accomplishments that earned the award has little value.  Reading lengthy lists of names as quickly as possible will bore the audience, and isn’t going to achieve anything useful.

Here are some key tips:

  • Recognize major accomplishments in the context of your audience.  Reading out a lengthy list of CC awards at a district conference isn’t helpful, though having them (and other awards) in a printed keepsake “Hall of Fame” booklet is a great idea.  Instead, recognize those recipients at the area or division level (depending on the size of your district).  If you must recognize a large group, ask the audience to hold their applause until all names have been called, and have them stand at their place.
  • Explain what the individual did to earn the award.  One of the best examples is a well-done DTM ceremony.  While the new DTM is walking down the reception line shaking hands, the emcee reads 2-3 paragraphs about the recipient, especially including details on their year of district leadership service and their high-performance leadership project.  Be specific with the praise, just like a speech evaluation.  (Yes, it requires some advance preparation!)
  • Present awards in a timely way, as soon as possible after the accomplishment.  Rather than waiting for the end of the year to present an “Area Governor of the Year” award, why not also have four “Area Governor of the Quarter” awards every three months?  (Same for Division Governor and even Toastmaster of the Year/Quarter.)

If you haven’t handed out many awards, consider doing the “Presenting an award” project in the advanced manual “Special Occasion Speeches” (this works especially well with someone else doing the “Receiving an award” project in the same manual).  There’s a skill to the “grip and grin” routine for the camera!  For more award presentation tips, TI has a good page on this topic.

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

Posted on

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!