Editor’s Note
Add up every grain of sand from every beach, every desert, and you will get a very large number. Yet, it will be less than the number of ways to successfully coach a Toastmasters club. The unique personality, experience and expectations of the coach combined with the unique challenges facing each club ensure a unique coaching appointment each and every time. Like a grain of sand, some coaches work and meld with the club to form a uniquely beautiful piece of glass, while other coaches are abrasive pieces of sand that scratch and mar any potential masterpiece This edition of Club Coach Weekly features the stories of two club coaches. These contrasting stories highlight the importance of your approach. Esther Paris listened to the Toasters of ARI Club. She had the support of the club president and provided key resources that empowered the members to succeed. In contrast, Bob Jensen relates the experience of a coach who did not understand the coached club. At every opportunity, this coach urged the coached club to act like her home club. The take home message is: pay attention to the coached club. It is very easy to tell the club to be like your home club; however, they are not your home club! They face unique challenges, so listen and give the requested help.
A Toastmaster Gives a Pep Talk, and Becomes a Club Coach
The Toasters of ARI Club is for the full-time employees of Amgen (Rhode Island site). The club chartered with 31 members in January of 2006. It won the Distinguished Club Award six months later. Its membership never again reached the high of 31 members. In 2010, a variety of factors led to diminished numbers in the club, and only six members remained. Shirley Thomas, ACS, ALB, Area G4 (District 31) Governor, had a conversation with the remaining members. How would the club survive and does the club want to do the work? The answer to both questions was ‘yes’. Shirley then approached Esther Paris, a Distinguished Toastmaster and former Division Governor, for help. Esther visited the club to give them a pep talk and suggest that they recruit a coach. The club must have been impressed with Esther because they asked her to serve as the coach. After a few requests, all ending with please, Esther accepted.
Esther used the tremendously valuable club assessment form found in How to Rebuild a Toastmasters Club. It provided a valuable set of questions that can help any club. From the checklist, she determined that the club only lacked members and a familiarity with the Toastmasters program.
Plan
To overcome low membership and a lack of familiarity with the Toastmaster program, Esther created a two-part plan: advertise the club and get the members focused on goals. She didn’t meet with the club’s officers for there were no opportunities. (Visiting the club during its noon time meeting was difficult for her schedule.)
Implementation
The rebuilding effort began with six members who were receptive and eager to learn. Esther visited the club a few more times. Each time she gave an upbeat talk using an educational module from the Successful Club Series: Evaluate to Motivate, Finding New Members for Your Club, Distinguished Club Program and the Toastmasters Educational Program. The talks were all arranged several days in advance. As a result of these talks, the members learned about Toastmasters and were able to focus on their goals. It was also understood that they had to work to make the club a success.
Esther relied on the club president to communicate with the club and to implement the plan. Holly was only a member of the club for a few months before she was elected president. She is a very vibrant, charismatic person. She was able to draw people into
the club by her charisma. Just like the other members, she wanted to learn more about Toastmasters and she was eager to learn. Holly would meet Esther at the entrance, and during their walk to the meeting room they would talk about the club’s progress. E-mail was also a key form of communication for the trio of Holly (President), Shirley (Area Governor) and Esther (coach).
The second part of the plan focused on promoting the club. Holly contacted a Vice President of the company. She convinced the Vice President that Toastmasters was worthwhile and beneficial to the employees. The manager agreed to address the Toastmasters group and visitors at an “open house” style meeting, Esther brought a box full of public relations material: every brochure, magazine and flier that she could get her hands on. They advertised the party for a few weeks. The party featured the VP who spoke about how Toastmasters can help the employees’ careers. A few weeks later the club had another, small party. It was merely pizza and applications, but it helped the membership recruitment process. The free food was definitely a draw. FREE FOOD are the best two four-letter words you can put together, says Esther. Never underestimate the power of FREE FOOD.
Lots of people attended either or both of the open house events. Approximately 14 people joined the club during these events! Esther continued her strategy of visiting regularly and gave pep talks each time. Once it was clear that the club had met the net growth of five goals required to achieve Distinguished Club status, Esther’s and Shirley’s focus turned towards helping the group achieve the requisite five DCP points. Previously, one person had achieved her CC. So, Esther encouraged Holly to finish a CC award. Another member achieved his CL award. That counted for two points. All those new members from the pizza parties counted as two more points. Their officer list had already been submitted on time, and their renewals were on time (the fifth point).
In the final months, Esther made a challenge. She offered a small gift to each member if the club achieved Distinguished by the end of May 2011. It was easy to get the gifts because the Cross Pen Company is near her home. The club ended the year with two Competent Communicators, one Competent Leader and 19 members – Distinguished Club. Every club member received a Cross pen or a Swiss Army keychain knife. Holly, the dedicated, enthusiastic, talented, charismatic club President received a special pen and pencil set.
Lessons Learned
As a successful coach you are a role model with valuable, proven ideas. The material that comes straight from TI is backed by years of experience, research, and success. The club evaluation matrix is an essential starting point. It’s imperative to know if a struggling club’s problems have to do with its location, time, leadership, cliques, misunderstandings, ill- tempered members, or simply low membership and lack of familiarity with what TI has to offer people. Do not skimp on the evaluation step. Honestly answer every question in the survey and you will learn much about the club; it will also help you start to formulate a plan for rescuing the club.
Esther learned something that surprised her. she can enliven Better Speaker and Successful Club modules. They do not have to be delivered precisely as the script as presented, and they do not have to be dry. Tailor them to your audience’s particular needs.
If Esther could go back to the start of the process, she would change two things. She would say yes to the challenge sooner (she didn’t realize how rewarding and fun it would be) and she would document her work.
Serving as a club coach can be a HPL, especially if previous successful coaches can be on the guidance committee. Along the same lines as “every speech is a for-credit speech”, Esther can see no reason why one cannot serve as a coach as an HPL project. Some people do HPLs by serving as district officers or starting new clubs. Saving a club is as socially responsible as starting a club. That’s one of the criteria for an HPL.
Esther’s chief advice to a new coach is Stay Optimistic and Have Faith In Yourself. You have been given this assignment because your District believes you can help a club. Use every bit of material offered to you: freebies from International, downloadable items from International, items your District will fund, back issues of officer manuals and magazines from your stash, and the like. When a club is small and its members inexperienced, EVERYTHING is helpful. Use as many of the Better Speaker, Successful Club and Leadership Excellence modules as are appropriate for the situation. You do not need to invent new material. Last, every speech a for-credit speech. Make sure that you are meeting YOUR personal goals as you spend your time, talent, and energy helping the club.
A Letter of Praise
Dear Incredible Club Coach Esther,
Thank you for helping bring our club, Toasters of ARI, to a whole new level! We had almost given up with barely enough people to hold a meeting. When we were asked if we would like to have a club coach, I was so thankful. The majority of our members were somewhat new and we knew that something had to be done to bring life back to our club. Then in walked Esther Paris! You are such an amazing addition to our team. Thank you for taking time out of your busy life to help our club. We appreciate the visits, the promotional materials and all of the continuous support. It was so reassuring to know that whatever question I had for you, you had an answer and were always willing to help. Thank you for always leading by example at our meetings. We enjoyed your encouraging talks and the emphasis on how important and easy it is to fill out our CC and CL books. I appreciate your feedback from the meetings you attended; the advice and encouragement has really helped shape our team. We are now a stronger, larger and more effective club because of you. Being a new president is difficult enough, especially when you are trying to build up your club, but having you made the adventure a lot easier and a lot more fun. You provided incentives for us to become a better club and endless support along the way. Your recognition of our hard work only helped us want to work harder to build our club and become better speakers and leaders. We could not be more appreciative of your dedication, support and encouragement.
With gratitude, Holly Fleming, Former President of Toasters of ARI “The Phoenix Club”
Case Study: Underperforming Club Coach
Background: Seven year old community club, historically averages between 17 and 25 members per year, has an unexpected large drop-off in membership (down to 12) after an April renewal cycle. Immediately requests, and receives, a club coach. Club coach is well meaning but overbearing. She immediately tries to remake the club in the image of her home club. Often heard saying “At my club, we…”. Constantly interrupts meetings with suggestions for improvements (approximately 5 to 6 interruptions per meeting). After two months of this “coaching”, 6 more members announce they will no longer come to meetings, virtually all citing behavior of club coach. Thankfully 3 new members have joined but the club is now at nine members. There is no area governor (he quit), and the club coach is a personal friend of the outgoing division governor. This is a two-part exercise. Assume you are a club officer. Based on what you know above, what preliminary actions would you take, if any?
Here’s What We Did: A new slate of officers was elected that June and installed the following July. They meet in executive session and vote 4 to 1 to remove the club coach. The club coach, new area governor, and new division governor are notified. The club coach responds that she CANNOT be removed, as she serves at the discretion of the district governor, and her appointment automatically “rolls over” to a second term since the club (obviously) did not make Distinguished status. The area governor refuses to get involved. The division governor states she has a lot of higher priorities as incoming div. gov. and will address this “when things calm down”. The club informs the club coach very nicely that they would like her to NOT attend meetings until this matter is resolved. TWO MONTHS elapse before things “calm down”. The division governor contacts the club president and states that due to the “substantial effort” that the club coach has already invested in the club (remember, the coach hasn’t attended meetings in over two months), six months total, it would be “unfair” to remove the club coach. This decision, she adds, was reached in consultation with the previous division governor. This decision, in turn, is appealed to the DEC council. The district governor concurs that it is important for the club coach to stay, as serving as a club coach/mentor is the only thing remaining for the club coach to achieve DTM status, and for her to start over elsewhere would place an undue burden on her. He further admonishes the club to “live up to the Toastmaster promise” and work well as a “team”. The division governor, in the meantime, is livid that the club has gone “over her head”, and states verbally that she will do everything in her power to make sure that club members are prevented from serving in future district leadership positions. What, if anything, would you do at this point?
Post-Mortem: The district governor ultimately declined to remove or replace the club coach. He stated that club coaches were at a premium (true) and that the district could not afford the “luxury” of allowing clubs in trouble to “shop for candidates”. The club made a deal with the club coach: she would never again attend meetings, and would get credit as a “successful” club coach when the club made distinguished status. The club went on a recruiting binge (long story) and ended the year at President’s Distinguished with 33 members. The coach got her “credit”. The division governor and past division governor made good on their threats to blackball 2 qualified candidates from the club from area governor positions for 2 years. The club coach ran from the floor for a division governor position. She cited her club coaching skills, she took a club from 6 to 33 members in one year. She was elected. The district implemented a club coaching monthly teleconference the next year. It flopped badly due to poor leadership and a general lack of direction. Contributed by Bob Jensen