Toastmasters Hsinchu: from ashes to phoenix part IV

With a healthy member size and steady influx of guests at every meeting, it was time for me to work on the attitude of the officers and the club as a whole.

The Officer Handbook and Expense Subsidies
Toastmasters Headquarters provided handbook for each officer. They were wordy and applicable mostly to clubs in North America. I broke the lengthy documents into bullet points and modified the duties to suit Hsinchu Club. Off site trainings were then conducted over dinner or lunch with all expenses paid from the club treasury. We also decided to entice the officers to attend Area level officer’s trainings by providing travel and meal subsidies.

The Distinguished Club Program
For a club to be successful, the accomplishment must be measurable. The Toastmasters Organization, in its infinite wisdoms, devised 10 achievements to measure a club’s success in leadership, teamwork, education, recruitment, and paperwork. An achievement of 5 out 10 is considered as successful. My goal was to attain that goal. Paperwork, recruitment, and teamwork (officer training) were easy, but getting members to complete their education program was tough. I had to push a C6 member to complete 4 more speeches and a C8 member to come up with 2. Funny it may sound; it was the C8 member who gave me the hardest time. He waited until the very last meeting of my presidency to complete his C10 speech. Nevertheless, the club got its Distinguished Club Award.

The Christmas Party
President sets the tone of the club. I liked to see our club as place where people can mingle, network, and at same time, pick up their communication and language skills. I wanted the words to get out, not through the website or fax, but through the month of every member. Christmas celebration seemed like a good starting point for members to invite their friends. The main attraction of the party was a raffle with first prize of NT$3,000 in cash! The cash was encased in a block of ice to symbolize the “Cold Hard Cash”. Winners had to break the ice to get to the prize. The party was a success; I got 2 more members out of it.

The District Involvement
For the past 5 years, Hsinchu club never participated in any speech contests; we couldn’t even get members to agree on a club level competition. We never sponsored any officer trainings; our officers always had to travel to another city, which was one of reasons attendance was so poor. So I volunteered to sponsor an officer training in Hsinchu even though I knew I could be the only person putting the show together. Fortunately, Bruce was kind enough to help. Despite the home court advantage, we only had 4 officers in attendance whereas Taoyuan club had 7 plus 3 more tag along members. ChungLi Club only had 3.

I guess my attitude must have moved the heart of officers and members, I started to see more attendance and more enthusiasm but when I told them Hsinchu was going to sponsor the Area Speech Contest, I quickly realized my optimism was premature; no one in the club would participate but the officers agreed to prepare the venue under the condition that I represent Hsinchu as the contestant. The contest went well; I won the area contest. A month after, I also won the 2nd place in the Division contest, which meant I was one of the finalists in the District Contest also. Yes, we only had 4 divisions at that time; each division needed 2 contestants for the District contest. Although I didn’t get anywhere in the District contest, but I made lasting impression with district officers. From that day on, Hsinchu club was no longer anonymous; we finally emerged from our shell.