Public Relations

Thanks Toastmasters! 2023 Edition.

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Thanks Toastmasters

You may have seen on Social Media channels the return of our “Thanks Toastmasters” membership building campaign after I underpinned our district website and made coding improvements. Many thanks to our past PR Manager Susan Rayner without whose help I’d still be scratching my head. The fulcrum for our campaign is our Club Finder which lives at the web address included on the adverts: https://d91toastmasters.org.uk/find. I’ve also included the club finder here for you to try out. Clubs have been categorised according to the day of the week on which they meet and whether they meet online or have hybrid meetings. 

Please check that your club information is correct and shown as you would like it to be. Please update the details at TI Club Central if needed and then let me know so that I can update them here. If your club is missing, it is either because it has restricted membership (this applies to many of our corporate clubs), or because it has no email address on record, and enquiries on our website cannot be forwarded to you. 

      Our back catalogue of “Thanks Toastmasters” adverts is in the Digital Templates page of our website. We are using them on our district external PR channels and we would encourage you to use them too. We will be augmenting them with new material and suggest you bookmark the page in your browser and check for updates occasionally. Our first features Toastmaster Tom Bailey. Please read his article in this newsletter.

      Choose a Start-up Mentality

      In my past career, I sold Digital Analytics solutions. It’s true that high profile brands think nothing of spending six figure amounts on Digital Analytics every year. None the less, it came as a surprise to me just how few companies would engage with us, with our under 5000 members and modest budget of a fraction of the cost of one postage stamp per member, looking for a better solution. Customer Relationship Management vendors not engaging? It’s their business to create engagement! There was evidently a learning point to tease out.

      I estimated Toastmasters International’s global revenues based on our membership subscriptions and joining fees. I was very surprised to find that if TI globally were a UK Educational charity, it would not even rank within the top 300. I estimated that we would fall about 306th, just ahead of centuries old Queens College, Cambridge, and just behind 15 years old Help for Heroes. Our District 91 represents just 1.5% of TI’s total. 

      I invite you to perceive our district differently: not as a well established 100 years old institution, but as a new start-up that has just got going. Our diminutive stature compared to other educational charities suggests that our potential for growth is enormous. Let’s all take personal responsibility for getting our message across: that Toastmasters delivers on its promise of life enhancing benefits.
       

      Thanks Toastmasters! 

      Best wishes, 

      Nikita Parks, PR Manager 2023-24