We have guests attend our meetings.  However, most of the guests don't join our club.  How can we improve our club so more guests join?

The first step is to make your guests feel welcome.  The Sergeant-at-arms is the master host.  S/he should greet the guest and introduce him/her to the officers before the meeting.  If the guest comes by their self, introduce them and have them sit next to an experienced member.  This way they can ask questions during the meeting.

We all attend too many poorly run meetings.  If your meeting isn't a meeting worth copying, why join?  The meeting needs to start on time and the members need to be prepared.  The speeches need to serve a purpose and not just people talking for a while; the best way to do this with manual speeches.  Many people remember being criticized at school.  Evaluations should be encouraging with positive feed back.  They, also, need suggestions tactfully presented.

Toastmasters International has two programs that can help you club decide what areas it needs to work on.

• The Moments Of Truth manual from the Successful Club Series talks about the important characteristics of a successful club.  It also provides an evaluation guide for your club.   If you have a good core membership, you may want to have a club member present the material.  If not, you may be able to get someone from the district to lead it for you.
• One of the exercises in the Success/Leadership Module Effective Evaluation involves accessing your climate.  This is an excellent module.  That also provides excellent information on improving our evaluation skills. The entire module is two hours long.  It can be customized to fit in one or more of your club meetings.

Last Updated: