What really makes a successful club?

What is success? In Toastmasters, success is clearly defined for us: successful clubs are Distinguished in the Distinguished Club Program (DCP). That means they achieve at least five goals (PDF) and also have at least 20 members by the end of the Toastmasters year.

But how do clubs become successful?

In the Toastmasters International Members Group on Facebook (which is an excellent discussion forum that I highly recommend to new and experienced Toastmasters alike), conversation is often focused on how clubs can build membership and achieve goals. Recently the District Statistician from District 57, George Marshall, posted some very interesting figures linking club success to meeting frequency and to meeting duration.

Being an economist, I couldn't resist working with those figures to produce a few simple charts.

Chart showing membership and DCP goals for the 2014-15 Toastmasters year for 15,080 clubs, categorised according to the number of days between their meetings.

Chart showing membership and DCP goals for the 2014-15 Toastmasters year for 3,882 clubs, categorised according to the number of minutes of club meeting time per month.

It looks as if a club that meets more frequently has more members and achieves more goals. Similarly, clubs devoting more time to meetings each month are more successful than clubs with less meeting time. But what does that mean?

A club with more meetings provides more speaking opportunities, meaning it can support more members and achieve more goals. And a club spending more time in meetings can get more speeches in. The argument goes the other way, too: a large club with lots of members needs to meet often and for a reasonable length of time in order to provide all those members with the opportunities they need to meet their goals. Otherwise the members could become disillusioned and leave the club, taking their educational awards with them.

Supporting members and achieving DCP goals takes time. After all, it takes 100 minutes to achieve a Competent Communicator award (7 minutes of speech plus 3 minutes of evaluation, for 10 speeches). That means it takes 400 minutes of meeting time to achieve the first two goals on the distinguished club program. To fit that in, the club has to spend a reasonable amount of time in meetings. For advanced communication awards and leadership awards, the time requirement could be even more!

So is it as simple as increasing your meeting frequency to weekly from fortnightly to get extra goals on the DCP this year? Probably not. If the members of your club are accustomed to achieving at a certain rate - say, one speech every six weeks - they'd probably prefer to continue at that rate even if there are more meetings. But that's only if they are happy with the meeting time as it stands! What if they'd be just as happy meeting more often, or for longer? Why not ask them? There could be untapped potential there for your club, which you could unlock just by having slightly more meeting time each month.

Success in Toastmasters is narrowly defined as achieving DCP goals and membership strength. But where do those things come from? They come from having active, engaged members who are happy achieving their goals. Happy members recruit more members, give speeches, achieve goals, and make your club Distinguished.

There's no magic formula - supporting your members means meeting as often and for as long as works for them. If they're achieving their goals, your club will achieve its goals. Are your members happy with their current rate of achievement? Ask them!