Today’s guest post is from Bob Jensen, a fellow Champions’ EDGE Member. In his post, Bob discusses Club Coaches and how a coach can assist struggling Toastmasters clubs. Bob’s article is a great overview of the club coach program and I am grateful for his contribution.

Toastmasters International recognizes that there is a natural ebb and flow to club membership cycle. Unless proper care and feeding is given to a Toastmaster club’s membership program, an otherwise strong club might find itself facing a precipitous decline in membership in a relatively short period of time.

Once a club has 12 or fewer members, the chances of the entire club folding are very high.  “Club Coaches” are promoted by Toastmasters International as the official remedy for clubs on life support.

Why does club membership decline?

Toastmasters International points out that there are many factors affecting club membership, such as unexciting/routine programs, layoffs in corporate clubs, etc.

What I’ve noticed are several distinct trends, in particular:

• Corporate clubs start out very strong, but around the 18 to 24 month mark in a club’s lifecycle, membership drops off as members get their Competent Communicator award and do not wish to pursue any of the advanced manuals. This is typically around 35% of a club’s membership! Without a steady stream of replacements within the company (new hires and newly interested employees), a club chartered at the usual strength of 20 can dip down to a precarious 12 or so members very quickly.
• Some clubs have a number of “grizzled veterans” who have plans to become professional speakers. They have completed many advanced manuals and now use their club to practice their off-manual speeches. New members may join but often get frustrated after delivering their icebreaker speeches and disappear.
• Many clubs will have a year being led by very successful “Type A” leaders. These leaders often do a less-than-adequate job of grooming their successors, or promote “followers” who lack the leadership experience to continue a club’s success in subsequent years.

Enter the Club Coach

A club that hits the magic 12 member threshold can (and should) request a club coach from their District Governor as soon as possible.  A District Governor can appoint up to two club coaches to a specific club.

I’ve seen three types of club coaches:

• The hard-charging energetic newcomer, relatively inexperienced in Toastmasters (maybe has a CC) but has the enthusiasm to make a difference.
• The midlevel Toastmaster, three to five years experience, who is looking for the checkoff required on the DTM requirement to serve successfully as a club sponsor/club coach.
• The Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM), who has done this before and enjoys doing this….or is doing a favor for the District Governor.

Each of the above club coach types has its own unique benefits and pitfalls. A DTM, for example, while having a wealth of experience, may be somewhat older and set in his/her ways.

It is vitally important to negotiate a good fit between the club coach and the toastmasters club. It is perfectly acceptable to ask the District Governor for a trial period (60 days should be fine) to see if a Club Coach is agreeable to your members. Make it very clear to the District Governor that your club reserves the right to seek a replacement club coach if it feels there is not a good fit!!

Club coaches do receive training from Toastmasters International, however, a good many coaches tend to disregard some or all of this training. Some club coaches arrive at a club with the intention of remaking the club into the image of their “home” club, in direct contradiction of Toastmaster policy.

Members should realize that the primary function of club coaches is to provide advice and direction.

Beware the Ides of ….APRIL?

Toastmasters collect club dues in October and April of each year. Quite often, club membership will decline in the April dues period to the magic number of 12.

There is a special situation you should watch out for in April: there is a certain type of Toastmaster who sees an opportunity to get a “quick” club coach credit by volunteering in April with the intent of manipulating the system to get a quick DCP credit by June 30th (the end of the Toastmaster year). In essence, these Toastmasters want to compress a year’s assignment into a few short months. Be particularly wary of accepting any club coach in this period. They’ll often join your club and contribute a CC or an advanced award they’re working on, and will focus almost entirely on membership building, including applying heavy pressure on former members to rejoin  (offering unofficial “club discounts” for renewals) and occasionally signing “phantom members” (club coach spouses being first and foremost). These club coaches won’t fix underlying issues, they merely supply a fresh coat of paint over a rickety foundation.

Club coaches CAN help

Like everything else in life, there is a vast range in the quality of Toastmaster club coaches. Some Toastmasters can give great speeches but cannot supply club leadership, and vice versa. A club coach is only as good as the Toastmaster filling the role. Make sure you have a good fit with your club, have expectations  discussed and agreed to in writing, and work as equal partners with your club coach and a faltering club can right itself and become successful once again.

Bob Jensen is a District 14 Toastmaster living in Peachtree City, GA.  He is a member of the Peachtree City Toastmasters club.

Note from Chris:  Today’s guest post is from Stevie King. I am excited to have Stevie post, because he is one of only a handful of speakers left competing in the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking. So let us learn from Stevie about, “The BIG thing.”

Project three in the basic manual of Toastmasters International is titled, “Get to the Point”.  The project has the speaker work on identifying both a general and a specific point to their speech.  Most of us don’t have a problem identifying the general purpose of our speeches.  If you are a professor, your speeches inform.  If you are doing an after dinner speech, you typically are there to entertain.  If you are speaking at a graduation, often you will want to inspire.  Often times, lost in all the emotion of a rousing motivational speech, the specific point is lost.

The specific point of your speech is the action item.  It is the DO of your speech.  The graduation speech needs a call to action.  A persuasive speech requires you to ask people to act on your message.  Even a lecture moves your students to further investigate your main points.  As a speaker, we often times have several themes we want to get across in a presentation.  But all of your themes must support one main idea that you are trying to get across.

My process for developing a speech goes from back to front.  The first thing I do is come up with my specific point of my speech.  What’s the main idea?  What is my BIG thing?  That point is what drives the development of your speech.  That is what instructs you what should stay in and what material should be on the cutting room floor.  Your main idea is the one thing that you want people to remember about your time in front of them.

A great speech has to have pieces and those pieces have to move your audience through a roller coaster of emotions.  Think about the great speeches you have heard through your life and undoubtedly there is one key phrase or idea that has stuck with you all these years.  That was their BIG thing. What is your BIG thing?

Stevie King is a member of Athens Toastmasters Club 1779 in Athens, GA.  He is currently competing in the International Speech contest where he will be involved in the Region 8 finals on June 27.

You can read Stevie’s district winning speech as well as follow his contest preparation at his blog www.stevieking.wordpress.com.

Today’s guest post is from a new Toastmaster in one of the clubs I am in, Katie McCartney. I asked Katie to share her thoughts on being a new member and what she looked to get out of the organization.

I joined Toastmasters recently to improve on my speaking skills and to gain some new insights in the industry of public speaking.  I was concerned going into the organization because I feared that either I was going to find a “coffee club” or advanced people in speaking that they were not interested in assisting in my quest to get better or just very competitive to win speaking contests.  Well instead of finding the click that I feared, I found a very open and inviting group.  Those who are just starting out in overcoming their speaking fears, people who are developing into a speaker, and those who are so polished that I am looking forward to sounding like them some day.  Everyone was open and honest with each other and wanted to help each other improve.

I have learned so far that public speaking is not an innate talent.  Although we may have the calling to go into speaking, speaking is something that should be practiced and refined.  Refining what you do is a part of becoming that polished speaker.  Having poise in front of everyone is indispensible in any situation whether it is in front of 1,000 people or just 1 person.  Having poise and polish under pressure is indispensible.

My goal for Toastmaster is to continue to hone my speaking skills and develop that exterior self confidence and poise that I feel that I have inside myself.  I am here to develop my whole self and put sometime in the development of what I find vital for my industry and career.

About Katie McCartney

Katie has been practicing Real Estate since April of 2007, and recently received from RE/MAX Affiliates the brokerage’s 2008 Rookie of the Year Award.   She believes real estate is working with you to manage the project of selling or buying a home.

Katie started her career in Management Information Systems right here in Columbus, Ohio 10 years ago.  SK Ventures embodies her desire to see technology used more effectively as a meaningful and useful tool to assist businesses in their never ending quest for prospects, leads, and just plain relationship building.

Katie lives in Worthington, Ohio with her husband of 9 years, Sean who is an IT Network Manager for The Ohio State University’s Business and Finance.  Katie and Sean have one child, Ron (2) and one fur child, Edy (6).

You can read more of Katie’s writing on her blog at: www.katiemccartney.com

Note from Chris:  I have been super busy the past few months, so I have started to look for people to guest post on the blog. This allows me to continue to bring you useful information on Public Speaking and Toastmasters while giving me some time to work on my free membership site youngprofitpros.com and other projects. This guest post comes from Heidi Taylor. If you are interested in guest posting, contact me.

Public speaking is not a skill which is unattainable; rather, it comes with experience and knowledge of what your audience wants.  It is helpful for many business professionals to ensure that their children get involved with public speaking from the time they are well into junior high.  There are many programs for young children to encourage speech-writing, impromptu speeches, and debates.  If you want your child to be able to speak in front of a committee or large audience, it is helpful to enroll them in these types of programs from an early age.

Once your child reaches junior high, there is a multitude of after-school programs that are academically based.  The University Interscholastic League (UIL) is one of the largest programs within junior high and high schools in the state of Texas, and participates in debates, persuasive speaking, and impromptu speaking, where the child is given a subject and must come up with a speech within five minutes.  While this type of extracurricular program is unique to Texas, many other states participate in state wide debates, and other speech-writing activities.  It has become progressively more important to educate the new generation in terms of public speaking due to the large amount of speaking business professionals have to do on a daily basis.  With the job market becoming even more competitive, it is imperative that the new generation be avid public speakers to be able to impress potential employers, as well as corporate sponsors.

Furthermore, a solid educational background will assist children in speech-writing, not only for these competitions, but also later on in life.  Ardent readers will be better informed, and therefore more apt to create well-written and rehearsed speeches; it is more important now more than ever that your children become well educated outside of school through reading literature and current events.  All of this starts with the parents, when their children are young enough to be conditioned as to how to read and speak in front of large audiences.  If they receive this training while they are still young, they are more apt to carry this with them to adulthood.

Public speaking is a very important skill to have all through your life, and it can make a difference when you enter the job market as to whether you can impress a potential employer with your skills during an interview, or impress an audience during a conference.  It is this fact that makes it so important to establish these types of expertise very early on in life.

This post was contributed by Heidi Taylor, who writes about the online colleges and universities. She welcomes your feedback at HeidiLTaylor006 at gmail.com.