Growth Opportunities Everywhere

Welcome to our newest club

Early September witnessed the charter of our newest club Epsom and St. Helier (ESTH) Hospital Toastmasters. Many congratulations and thanks to Aparna Sharma the new club’s President and to Varun Sharma the club’s co-sponsor for their hard work to ensure that the club charters in less than 6 months from the demo meeting.

There are also up to four other clubs which are about to charter or which will charter this calendar year and the district has several other leads bubbling away in the background. There are still many opportunities for club growth and the Sunday webinar on October the 17th will highlight some of the personal development benefits of sponsoring and chartering a new club.

Renewals Update

At first glance the fact that we have just over 3,000 renewals by the end of September might seem slightly disappointing. But as a district, out of the 8 districts in Europe we had the second highest percentage retention rate, and our actual number of members is only three less than the biggest district in Europe. This bears testimony to the hard work clubs have made in the past 18 months or so during the Covid lockdown. 

We also know that several clubs were late with some or all renewal payments, and the early indications are that another 300 to 500 will renew in the next day or two. 

When checking some club officers’ membership details to enter them on the Toastmasters Expenses system, with Eddy Quah, the District Finance Manager (so clubs cain claim back incentive payments), we found several club officers had not renewed and therefore couldn’t be entered onto the system. Can clubs please check that all club officers have renewed and if any have left please update the club’s entry on Club Central.

Having spoken with several club Presidents or VPM’s I know that many of you are planning new marketing campaigns to recruit new members. Several clubs are planning to hold Open House meetings and I have recently dispatched 8 Open House boxes to support clubs. Please remember that there are guidelines to help promoting and running a club’s Open House, which hopefully make the task easier and more successful. These can be found here. Please contact me if you want a box. Clubs can also claim up to £75 to cover PR and Advertising costs. 

Some of the club officers I have spoken to have said they expect many of the members who left when we had to go online to re-join, now their club is meeting face-to-face again. As it has been 18 or more months since lockdown started, they may need a phone call from a club officer to invite them back as they haven’t been following their club during the lockdown. A personal call inviting them back may just make the difference between them staying away or returning to your club.

District membership numbers are important as the more members we have the more money we can distribute via incentives back to clubs, both during this and next Toastmasters year.

Congratulations to the clubs which have won the 80/20 incentive, they will be notified in the next day or two via email.

Net 5 Award Incentive is next

The next District 91 Incentive is the Net 5 Award. This will be given to clubs which have a net growth of five or more members by 31st December above their membership number on the 1st July. If a club had 20 members on the 1st July, then it is eligible to win the Net 5 incentive if it has 25 or more members on 31st December. After the renewals round one club has already reached this target and several others are close to reaching it. Remember, the incentive is worth £50 and will help the club achieve the Net 10 Award in June worth £100.

 

Diane Richardson

District 91 Club Growth Director