Follow the Cheese

Editor’s Note
Positive outcomes are like cheese and we are like mice in a maze. We try to find and eat the cheese. Life can be very simple once you find the route to the cheese. But, what happens when someone moves the cheese? You can continue to follow the well-worn path to the long-gone cheese, or you can pursue a new strategy to find the cheese. In the Fall of 2010, District 6 leaders moved Anne Groetsch’s cheese. She was working as a soon-to-be club sponsor: attending demo meetings, handling details and trying to charter a new club. After several months of trying, the club could not gather the required 20 members. When a neighboring club began to fold, district leaders saved its charter by transferring it to Anne’s group. The members struggling to charter their own club were now struggling to win the Distinguished Club Award. Anne switched roles from club sponsor to club coach, and accepted the goal of helping the club win the Distinguished Club Award. Her willingness to pursue the appropriate strategy helped her throughout the coaching appointment. As a coach, factors beyond your control will move your cheese. When this happens, be sure to change your strategy to get the cheese and you will be a success at coaching and in life.

From Club Sponsor to Club Coach

The idea for the Downtown Toastmasters Club began in April of 2009. I was assisting this prospective club with the aim of being their club sponsor. Five months later in September of 2009, they still had not reached 20 paid members. They were hovering between 12 to 14 members, with no sign of additional members coming on board. The committed club members were frustrated that the club still had not chartered. Our District 6 leaders decided to assist and ease the pain of the club, by letting the club take on the charter of another club that was folding. This ensured that the club would be an ‘official’ club sooner rather than later. The Downtown Toastmasters accepted the assistance, took the number #8783 and opened their doors to the community. My role changed from sponsor to coach the moment the paperwork went through that allowed the club to take on the charter of another club that had folded. With a new position, I acquired a new set of priorities – instead of helping the club charter, I needed to get the club Distinguished by June 2011. Although the club met in Area 62, the Prairie Division, it was assigned to a distant area. Despite the distance, the Area Governor visited at least once, and communicated to the Club President and myself through email. The Area Governor did all he could to support his clubs. In the Spring of 2010, however, our district placed them in Area 62 in the Prairie Division where they rightfully belonged. The need to add members and the desire to participate in the DCP are similar for club sponsors and club coaches. Every club wants to add members. It makes no difference what role you are in, a district officer or club officer, a club sponsor or club coach. At the end of the day, clubs are judged by their success in the DCP plan.

The difference is:
club sponsor: You are helping to establish and charter a new club–and need 20 members or more to get credit as a club sponsor.
club coach: You are helping a low member club (with 12 or less members) to end the TM year Distinguished, or Select Distinguished or President’s Distinguished. That means they need to be following and using the DCP plan and earning points towards those levels of Distinguished, which, in turn has the membership underpinning of requiring a club ends the TM year with 20 or more members, or a net gain of five.

As the coach, I began with an assessment.

The strengths of the club were:
A core group engaged members that wanted the club to continue. I have seen this happen in other clubs. That ‘core group’ helps maintain the club’s existence as they work to gain members.
Engaged officers: part of the core group above.
The willingness to develop and execute membership-building ideas.

The opportunities for improvement were:
Meeting attendance was a challenge. Members occasionally don’t show up even though they are assigned a role. Sometimes we hear after the fact why someone could not attend.

To review, the members understood this club was to be a newly chartered club. However, it didn’t work out that way. So they took on the charter of another club to get themselves established. After that, the officers needed to get more deeply involved and help support the club.

Our Plan Was the DCP

We used the Distinguished Club Program as the club’s plan. The VP of Ed gathered a list of member names who could commit to earning an educational award, and wrote their names down beside each educational award on the club DCP. Then, they made sure the members agreed to it. The remainder of the DCP is just completing the points for officer training, adding new members, getting dues in on time, etc. Based on my years of experience in other healthy Toastmaster Clubs, I recommended that the officers set up monthly meetings where they can discuss progress toward their DCP goals.

Distinguished Club Program (The club must also have at least 20 members or a net growth of five new members.)

1. Two Competent Communicators
2. Two more CCs
3. One Advanced Communicator Bronze, Silver or Gold
4. One more ACB, ACS, or ACG
5. One Competent Leader, Advanced Leader Bronze, Silver or Distinguished Toastmaster
6. One more CL, ALB, ALS, or DTM
7. Four new members
8. Four more new members
9. At least four club officers trained during each of the two training periods
10. Club officer list and one membership dues renewal report submitted on time.

Engaged Officers and Members Persevere

Our main plan was to complete our Club Success Program and win the Distinguished Club Award. Along the way, a few fortuitous events greatly helped our efforts: club officers did a great job of organizing and hosting an open house. The second year of my club coach experience (2010-2011), I had a club president who was very engaged and wanted the club to end Distinguished. In fact, she was working on her HPL as a club president, and I was on her guidance committee, so it was a great partnership and team goal to get the club Distinguished. She was a very good facilitator of the club officer meetings, and used the strengths of the officers to assist the club. As an example, the VP of PR and Membership, did marketing as her full-time job, and thus had connections and training to get the word out about the club. She placed an ad in the Monday Morning Memo, a weekly electronic newsletter distributed by the St. Cloud Downtown Council. It was emailed to the members of the council and others in the local community. The President also suggested a Fall Open House, which she herself did a great deal of PR for. She created a letter of invitation, which was shared with a colorful flyer. To get better attendance at our open house, we selected an outside speaker who was well known in the Downtown community and a former Toastmaster who still supports the club today. As a result, we had a wonderful guest turnout, and some of the guests in attendance at that open house joined the club. In June of 2011, we accomplished the addition of our net gain of five new members and the club ended Distinguished with six DCP points and 13 members from a base start of eight. YEAH!

We met our goals! But it did not occur simply through my support and coaching. The club members needed to get on board and step up to the plate to assist themselves. At the end of the day, what did it take? That’s easy, continual perseverance and a positive attitude. And again, engaged officers and members.

Lessons Learned

1. Communicate! Communicate! Communicate! Introduce yourself, and let the club members know why you are there as a club coach and what your overall goal for the club is: that is, that they need to end as a Distinguished club within a two year timeframe. If they don’t understand about working their DCP plan, you need to take time and explain the DCP plan to them. For example, I started the DCP discussion with the officers. Then the officers would communicate out to the club members. Reminders about goals by me would often occur at club meetings and officer meetings. The club President my second year was also very good about discussing and acting on club goals.
2. Set expectations. You can’t get the club to be distinguished by waving a magic wand. You need their buy-in and commitment. How do you start? Where do you begin? See item #3.
3. Be engaged with the club officers. Everything begins with the club officers. Educate them on the DCP and the importance of using it. Provide testimonials of clubs who have had success using the DCP plan. Encourage monthly officer meetings at minimum and ask to be invited to the meetings. Provide guidance and direction as needed. Be sure to praise your members when they achieve awards or add another member.
4. Execute on the DCP. Make sure the DCP is an agenda item at every officer meeting. Where is the club status with educational awards earned? Officers trained? Membership growth? Officer list and dues in on time?
5. Encourage the club members in their pursuit to be Distinguished, but don’t dictate. If the officers and members are at all engaged (and this club was), they will use their own creativity to help the club grow its knowledge base and members.

Downtown Toastmasters Club (DT TMC) #8783 District 6 By Anne Groetsch, Successful Club Coach

Letters of Praise
“As a club coach Anne was always accessible and ready to help in whatever way she could. She helped out at our meetings, answered our questions and guided us when we were met with conflict or questions.” By Angie Boecker, Immediate Past President

I met Anne three years ago when she helped with a demo meeting for the Downtown Toastmasters in Saint Cloud, MN. She became the club coach shortly after and was a tremendous help in establishing and maintaining the club. Anne was always available to help with questions or difficult situations we had as a club. She is very busy with work and her home life, but you would never know it because she makes everyone feel important in conversation – in person, on the phone, or in email. Anne is consistent in her answers and works with many different types of people with great ease. She is personable and professional in all her dealings. Anne stayed with and encouraged us when our club was almost non-existent, and helped us work to get the Distinguished Club Award. Anne is great example of a Toastmaster club coach. I am honored to have had the opportunity to work with her in establishing the Downtown Toastmasters Club! Thank you Anne for all you do for Toastmasters! By VP of Ed-Kari Cedegren