A group of Wellington Toastmasters - Erin Rose, Mark Casson, Christine Wren and Rose Wyse - have been working to build a Toastmasters club at Police National Headquarters in Molesworth Street. With support from Five Crowns Toastmasters club, especially President Kinnie Vermeulen, building the club has been "a fun journey", says Erin. The club has been meeting regularly since July, and by December there were enough members to officially charter the club with Toastmasters International.
When starting a new club, one of the biggest challenges can be filling all the meeting roles. Erin and Mark were very pleased to have roles in early meetings filled by Toastmasters keen to help out, including Peter Scholtens, Owen Winter, Denis McCord, and Mary Clarke.
At their final meeting of the year, the club enjoyed summer-themed table topics and a speech from Division Director Gael Price welcoming them to the Division. Gael's speech was competently evaluated by brand-new Toastmaster Kirsten Newman.
Police Toastmasters at their first meeting as a fully chartered Toastmasters club, December 21 2015.
Rose and Erin say the new club is in good shape and excited to be joining the Toastmasters community.
"Everyone is working through their manuals and learning about the program," says Rose. "Next we'll start thinking about club speech contests!"
Chartering a club is an exciting time for everyone involved. Erin and Mark have been working hard as sponsors to get the club chartered, and now they can begin to move into the background as the mentors take over. In mentoring the club, Christine and Rose take on the role of supporting the new committee and helping them understand the world of Toastmasters. Mentors must work with their new club for at least six months, but some mentors choose to stay longer.
By sponsoring and mentoring Police Toastmasters, the four organisers have all become eligible for credit toward their Advanced Leader Silver (ALS) awards. The ALS is one of the most difficult awards in Toastmasters, and building a new club forms a significant part of it.
More important than the educational recognition, though, is bringing Toastmasters to more people. The 18 new members at Police now have the opportunity to enjoy Toastmasters in their workplace - all thanks to the hard work of the experienced Toastmasters who got the club underway. Well done team!
Well Done, I know the effort and work that goes on unseen in the background.
ReplyDeleteGreat for NZPolice. Mike
I'm working towards starting a new club within my company. I'd be interested to hear more about how you structured the early (pre-charter) meetings.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I can put you in touch with someone from Police, but here are three tips from my own experience chartering Pipitea Toastmasters a few years ago.
DeleteRoutine and regularity are of utmost importance right from the start. New people who aren't sure if Toastmasters is for them are easily turned off by unpredictable meeting times, days or locations. Having selected your time and venue for a first meeting, stick with it! Only change if there's a very strong reason (such as a schedule change that affects the majority of your members and means they would all prefer a different meeting time).
The meetings themselves should be run by new Toastmasters, starting as early as possible. Your demonstration meeting will probably have all the roles filled by experienced Toastmasters, but the very next meeting is a chance to get your guests involved. Once they're giving speeches and learning to evaluate, they'll begin to feel ownership of the club and will do your membership-building for you. Try to sequence their introduction to new roles like you would with a new member, but don't underestimate what they're capable of - a brand-new speaker who's seen a few evaluations is usually quite able to evaluate a CC3, and it's better to give them the opportunity than to overstretch your team of experienced people. As soon as the club charters, some of these new people will be in committee roles, so it's never too early to start them leading.
Finally, expect to explain the roles at every meeting for quite some time. In the club-building phase, not only do you have new members walking in the door all the time, you also have people who are still getting to grips with the Toastmasters program and are potentially confused by the jargon we sometimes use. Build in a standard slot on your agenda for a quick run-through of all the meeting roles by someone who's familiar with them, and encourage your chairpersons to briefly explain each role again as they introduce people.
Hope that helps!