A Bump in the Road, but We Continue to Grow!
Since the 1st October 2021, more than 170 new members have joined District 91 Toastmaster clubs. The other good news is our membership renewal rate was the third best in Region 10, which is the eight districts covering the whole of Europe. The number of renewals we had was down on the number who renewed last year, which was expected. But we are already starting to regrow, thanks to the hard work and support of many clubs and members across the district.
We also had the best club retention rate in the region and came eighth in the world. You may wonder why this is important? The amount of money we receive to spend each on incentives is decided by the district’s budget which set by Toastmasters International Headquarters based on the number of members we have. Quite simply, the more members we have, the more budget we can return to clubs as incentives the following year. So far this year we are slightly down on the number of members compared with the same time last year. However, we now have many more pre-charter clubs and requests for demo meeting from a wide range of organisations than we had last year. What is more, this year we have already chartered two new clubs with more to follow. The trend is towards membership growth by the end of the year.
Happy New Year! Time to Start Planning.
Now is the time to start planning your marketing activities for January and February. Traditionally many members first visited a club and then joined in either January or February. Many clubs I know are planning Open House meetings and plan to run advertising campaigns around this time when many people are looking for something new do to in the New Year.
I have both Open House and Demo kits ready to be sent and several clubs have asked for leaflets as they plan to post leaflets locally.
Want to be a Video Star?
Well at least for a day! To help boost membership, I am asking members to make short 45 second videos (you be a second or two either side). We hope to show the reasons why members have joined, why they stay as members and how they have received help from being members. The full briefing document and list of questions can be found here.
Each video must be this short as we’ll be adding an opening sequence and a “Call to Action” at the end of each video. Each video should answer one question, but members can make as many videos as they like.
Some of these videos will be posted on TikTok and YouTube shorts which have a 60 second time limit, others will be posted on LinkedIn and Facebook etc. The aim is to post 3 or more different videos on different social media channels per day if we receive enough videos. This will help improve both the district’s and participating clubs’ social media profile’s, which will increase awareness leading eventually to more members.
Guest to Member
Several club Presidents have asked me for advice on how they can turn guests into members. To help clubs I have made a presentation which John Drinkwater delivered at a Thursday Dash recently. Watch John’s video on our YouTube channel and download the slides.
If you want to start a new club or to grow your existing club then please contact Club Growth team so we can support your plans.
Diane Richardson
District 91 Club Growth Director