Page 10 - voices-2023-10

COVER STORY
Turning Over a New Leaf
Amid the Changing Landscape!
Dr. Gwendolyn Avington, DTM, Club Growth Director
District 7 membership, we are in a new season of
growth. Growth, yes, growth…club and
member growth. We have been planting the seeds
of why and how joining and/or remaining a
Toastmaster can benefit you personally and
professionally. This year as Club Growth Director,
we are looking to turn over many new leaves. The
wind of change and renewal is in the air. Can
you feel it? We can all work together to ensure we
strengthen our district presence. Our goals are
to reignite existing members and clubs by helping
them reconnect with ‘why’ they joined
Toastmasters and ‘why’ their club chartered in the
first place. Also, we look to rebuild clubs with
lower than eight members and build new clubs, one
member and one club at a time.
As the Club Growth Director Team and I looked out
over the vast landscape of our district in
years past we realized that District 7 has experienced
a dip in membership and a dip in clubs. I
don’t say that as a negative. The Club Growth
Team and I are looking at this as our opportunity
10 ONE COMMUNITY
to find out the challenges individual members are
experiencing, find out what individual clubs need
to thrive, and find areas of opportunity to build new
clubs. We envision members and clubs stabilizing
and robustly marketing their clubs through social
media, radio, and cable interviews. Members of
the Club Growth Director Team and I will visit clubs
throughout the Toastmasters
year.
The Team
We began the work in July with a needs assessment
survey sent out to the membership. The survey
was a way to hear from you, instead of assuming
your situation was the same. As your Club Growth
Director, I realized that the approach we needed to
take to rise above adversity and achieve excellence
was a team effort. Therefore, I asked a total of 15
people to join me on this
Club Growth Director journey and they did. We
have been working on new leads through the
Club Extension arm of Club Growth. Likewise, we