AREA 41 NEWSLETTER

FEBRUARY 5, 2005

Greetings to the Area 41 Clubs! How time flies! We are already past the half-way mark in the Toastmasters year. I’ll come back to that later.

Congratulations on Toastmasters Achievements.

I offer my congratulations to the following Area 41 Club members for reaching Toastmasters levels since June 30, 2004:

DTM: Curtis Harvie, Quesnel Toastmasters Club

AL: Curtis Harvie, Quesnel Toastmasters Club

ATM-G: Kerry Deschamps, Spruce Capital Toastmasters Club

ATM-S: John Baragar, Hart Toastmasters Club

CL: Brad McClain, Hart Toastmasters Club

Kerry Deschamps, Spruce Capital Toastmasters Club

Rummona Slusarchuk, Quesnel Toastmasters Club

CTM: Simon Rose, Cariboo Toastmasters Club

Shawn Everett, Cariboo Toastmasters Club

Sandra O’Neil, Hart Toastmasters Club

Steve Staves, Spruce Capital Toastmasters Club

Vern Peever, South Cariboo Toastmasters Club

Lana Johnson, South Cariboo Toastmasters Club

Vera Enshaw, South Cariboo Toastmasters Club

Congratulations to these people for their accomplishments! I encourage Club VP’s Education to monitor the Toastmasters International website to ensure that all educational accomplishments have been applied for and recognized. Also make a big deal about these at your Club meetings; these recognitions have been earned.

Club Officer Training, February 12, 2005, 1-4 pm at Canfor’s Northwood Pulpmill Training Room, Prince George

Please promote this training at your Club meetings, and stress that it is not only for Club Officers, but for all Toastmasters. I offer a few comments on the agenda items:

The Challenges and Opportunities discussions will be based on your input about issues that affect your Clubs. In case you say that you have no concerns or issues, I have a backup set, but I’m sure yours are more applicable, so bring them to the workshop. This session will be facilitated by either Darlene DeMarzo or me. Darlene is currently President of Cariboo Toastmasters Club and Assistant Area 41 Governor.

The Toastmasters Resources on the Web will feature Greg Jonuk. Greg is Vice President Public Relations of Hart Toastmasters Club and Webmaster of the Prince George Toastmasters website. His session will explore a number of useful web-based resources for Toastmasters.

Coaching for Leadership Development will be facilitated by Kerry Deschamps. Kerry is currently President of Spruce Capital and Canfor Toastmasters Clubs, and a past Area and Division Governor. The topic is one that has often emerged from requests and observations, and deals with a key issue for Toastmasters leadership: achieving success through effective Toastmasters leadership.

Discussion of Area Club Realignment will be facilitated by Sandy Dawson. Sandy is currently the Division D Governor. The discussion involves reducing the number of Clubs in Area 41, but some options for this involve Area 49 also. Sandy will consider the comments in this discussion when recommending the motion that District 21 will put to the District 21 Business Meeting during the District Conference.

I hope to see a good turnout at this training session. Remember that besides the valuable content just described, there is a Distinguished Club goal for Clubs whose officers attend. There are also refreshments, including Shirley Shorter’s memorable cookies: all this is free; such a deal!

Distinguished Club Program: Statistics to December 31, 2004

The following information was gleaned from the Toastmasters International Website. Whether you are competitive or not, you should be concerned with how your Club is performing. As you know, the DCP focuses on 3 main performance indicators: Club membership size and growth, Club educational completions, and several Club administrative items.

CLUB

BASE MEMBERS JUNE 30/04

TOTAL MEMBERS TO DATE

GROSS MEMBER LOSS JUNE 30/04- OCT 15/04

NEW MEMBERS ADDED JULY1/04- DEC. 31/04

NET GAIN JULY 1, 2004 – DEC. 31, 2004

REQUIRED ADDED NEW MEMBERS JAN. 1/05 TO JUNE 30/05***

TOTAL DCP GOALS ACHIEVED, JULY 1, 2004- DEC. 31, 2005

Cariboo

20

18

7

5

-2

2+ Loss**

3

Hart

15

14

4

3

-1

6+ Loss **

3

Spruce Capital

19

15

7

3

-4

5+Loss **

2

Quesnel

21

19

9

7

-2

1+ Loss **

4

Williams Lake

10

11

4

5

+1

4+ Loss **

2

New Dimension

16

11

5

0

-5

9+ Loss **

1

City Centre

28

23

7

2

-5

Loss-3 **

1

South Cariboo

20

22

_

0

+2

Loss-2 **

2

Area 41 Average

18.6

16.6

5.1

3.1

-2.0

2.8 + Loss **

2.3

Division D Average

16.4

14.8

4.4

2.7

-1.6

NA

1.7

District 21 Average

19.3

17.5

5.8

4.1

-1.7

NA

2.3

**Loss is the number of current members that do not renew at the April semi payment.

***Number of additional new members (Jan1/05 to June 30/05) required to give total Club membership of 20 on June 30,2005, or a net gain of 5(June 30/04 to June 30/05) , whichever is least.

Some thoughts on membership goals:

Since Clubs usually lose several members each time semiannual dues are collected, you need to take this into account when setting your new member goals. By the time April statistics are known, it may be too late to revise your goals.

Keep track of members who are not attending regularly. Do you know why they are not attending? Is there anything the Club can do to help? These are potential non-renewers of membership, but it’s generally to late to deal with such problems if you wait until dues are due.

Membership building contests may be quite successful. These can take various forms; challenge your VP Membership to develop an enjoyable and fruitful contest for your Club (or even challenge another Club).

Some thoughts on educational goals:

If someone is falling behind in achieving an educational goal, the VP Education should find out what the Club can do to help. Sometimes assigning a coach/mentor can help. One method that can help is to split the Club into small groups, or even one-on –one discussions to help a person with their next project. This can be done profitably during a Club meeting that has a gap in the program because of a missing speaker, or no speakers available.

Use the Nickel and Dime Award Certificates to recognize progress towards CTM and ATM’s .

Club Success Plan Contest

I am offering a cash prize to the Area 41 Club which submits the best Club Success Plan to me by February 28, 2005. The Club Success Plan is the plan that each Club should develop that describes how that Club intends to reach the goals that it set in the Distinguished Club Program. The Club Success Plan is described in the booklet (Distinguished Club Program/Club Success Plan) that each Club President received at the start of the 2004/05 Toastmaster year. There are forms in that booklet, but more comprehensive forms were distributed at the summer/04 Club Officer Training. Basically, the idea is that the Club Success Plan is a working document that describes who will achieve the Club goals, and specifies who will follow up progress towards these goals, and when the followup dates are. The winning plan will be the one that best shows how well your Club sets and follows up all of its goals. Thus the winner will not necessarily be the Club that sets or achieves the most goals; judging will be based on how well the plan describes the setting of goals and the subsequent followups.

If you have any questions, please contact me.

Contests and Conferences

Please encourage your Club members to enter one (or both) of the forthcoming contests ( International and Evaluation).

Area 41 Conference: Prince George, April 9, 2005

Division D Conference: Prince George, April 23, 2005

District 21 Conference: Victoria, May13-15, 2005

I hope to see you at the Training February 12.

Bob Larmour