Happy New Year
I would like to wish all members a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2024.
We are now about to start the second half of our Toastmasters year and if you have not already done so, I would urge you to revisit the personal and Toastmaster goals you set out at the start of the Toastmaster year back in July, and to measure your progress against those goals. Some of you will be behind where you thought you would be at this time of the year, others will be on track to achieve the goals and others of you will he’s so far ahead of your goals, perhaps you need to set new targets for the second half of this Toastmasters year.
100 years, building stronger for the next 100.
As many of you are aware 2024 is the centenary of Toastmasters international. Since Toastmasters was founded in 1924 by Dr Smedley, many generations have benefited as we are today. Together we can help Toastmasters start its second century strongly by helping to build new clubs and encourage guests to become members, by offering energetic club meetings and demonstrating the benefits of membership to others.
We need your stories – Thanks Toastmasters
Many thanks to Tom Baily and Remko Timmermans for their “Thanks Toastmasters” articles in October and November last year. We are looking for more related articles. We all have remarkable stories to tell and the share with both members and non-members. Thanks to the back-end development work by the D91 Public Relations Manager, Nikita Parks, we can now tell which articles are read most and, in both October, and November these real-life stories were the most read articles in the newsletters. They were also widely read on the internet and on our Social Media pages. Both members and potential members can relate to these stories and help clubs attract new members and retain existing members, which is why I would like anyone with a wonderful experience of Toastmasters to share their story with the rest of us and more widely on our social media pages. Please share your story by emailing Nikita at nikita@d91toastmasters.org.uk , you article should be under 500 words long, less than a 5-to-7-minute speech.
Club Growth and Membership building
Analysis has shown that every year since D91 was formed 10 years agon, that January and February are the time when most new members join Toastmasters. I would encourage clubs to promote meetings on Social Media channels including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Eventbrite and in the local newspapers. In February we will be starting the Talk Up Toastmasters campaign, where clubs receive a ribbon from Toastmasters International to attach to your club banner if they recruit five or more new members in February and March.
Pathways update information.
During the first part of the year a new user interface will be launched for six of the current Pathways. The changes should make the recording of Pathways completions and level awards much simpler for club officers and members alike. Mo and I who are attending District Officer training in the next two weeks, togther with Steve who will receive updates from Toastmasters head quarters, will report back with more information regarding the changes and the dates the new Learning Management System (Basecamp) is introduced. Those members who are currently doing one of the five pathways which are not being updated will still be able to continue with the current version of their path but will not necessarily see all the changes that the other paths do. More information can be found here and here.