Page 16 - 2016 April Voices
P. 16
Back From The Brink: Club
Coaches to the Rescue
Scott Stevenson, DTM
When clubs charter, the members have a vision, FreeToastHost-based website to
which is to keep up the excitement, have fun, and reach show photos of the members and
their individual objectives. Yet, over time, many clubs help market the club. The coaches
seem to run out of steam. They start to stagnate and recommended that the club officers
begin a slow spiral that could end in the death of the be visible and available, as well as
club. Memberships decline and ultimately these clubs participate in managing the club’s
will fail if nothing is done to stop the slide to oblivion. business. Both coaches became
officers at the next elections. A club
In early 2014, Civil Tongues Toastmasters had a success plan was developed and
membership that hovered around 12 members. The the club had a clear path to being
club was approached and asked if they would like a successful.
Club Coach assigned, and the response was “why not?”.
As a result, two coaches (Carrie Henderson and myself) The suggestions were not always
were assigned to the club and, whether the club knew well received. For some members
it or not, the journey to being a distinguished club had who were happy with the status quo,
begun. the suggestions were taken as intru-
sions. Over the course of the next
The first step in the club’s recovery was for the year, they left the club. Initially, net
coaches to assess the club’s strengths and weaknesses. membership growth was negative.
They observed that the club had several experienced The coaches did not view this as a
members, but made little effort in trying to grow the setback, but as part of the rebuilding
club’s membership. In fact, the prevailing attitude process. We wanted new, younger,
was that the current membership level was OK. The high-energy members that could
meetings were low energy, not very exciting. The club’s make the club’s leadership and
treasurer was non-existent; no one knew how much meetings more visible to members
money the club had to help market itself. and guests alike.
The coaches began to offer suggestions to help The strategies began to pay
market the club, such as adding signs to show where off. As guests were welcomed and
the meeting was taking place. Adding name cards to encouraged to join, the membership
the club’s inventory, a box to store the name cards and decline began to slowly turn around.
meeting tools, and to find a place to store the club’s After a year of rebuilding, the newer
meeting materials. They also spruced up the club’s members began to step up and fill
the officer roles. An air of excitement
and anticipation began to build.
The club was on its way back from
stagnation to being THE CLUB we
all wanted to belong to.
With the membership growth,
enthusiastic officers, and a vision –
Civil Tongues started off this year
with an achievable objective for
itself: Be Distinguished by April
1, 2016. The club started the year
with 13 members, and on April
16 Volume 2 Issue 10 - APRIL 2016
