Congrats to Boise Club 61's New Officers!

Last night Boise Club 61 held its elections for the 2014-2015 Toastmaster year.

Serving 6 months in a club officer role is a requirement towards earning the Advanced Leader Bronze (ALB) award as part of the Leadership Track for Toastmasters International.

This group of people will lead the club to another year of earning President's Distinguished for the 2014-2015 year. Before announcing the newly-elected officers, now would be a great time to thank the previous slate of officers serving out the next two weeks as "lame ducks":

President Jamie Parker
Vice President of Education Annette Krause
Vice President of Membership Michael Pluto
Vice President of Public Relations David Coney
Secretary Carin Pluto
Treasurer Keiko Knudson
Sergeant at Arms Lynda Clark

You guys did a great job leading us to a good 2013-2014 year where we once again met all of the goals in the Distinguished Club Program for another year of President's Distinguished standing.

These folks will have some big shoes to fill, but like always the rest of the club is there to support you as much as you support us.

Boise Club 61's slate of officers for the 2014-2015 Toastmaster year are:

President Carolyn Stogdill
Vice President of Education Steven Hurst
Vice President of Membership Tim Hastings
Vice President of Public Relations Lynda Clark
Secretary Annette Krause
Treasurer Luke Gallegos
Sergeant at Arms Phil Vansickle

Hopefully we will get some posts from these folks to the Club 61 Blog.

Officer Elections Results

Boise Club 61, after several elections, finally has a full slate of officers for the 2012-2013 year.

President: Brett Kennedy
Vice President of Education: Carolyn Stogdill
Vice President of Membership: Brian Vetter
Vice President of Public Relations: Carin Pluto
Secretary: Jamie Parker
Treasurer: Adam Bland
Sergeant at Arms: Dave Manning

These officers will lead us into the next year and hopefully to another President's Distinguished Club again.

Congratulations folks!

Election Day!

It is that time of year when we have to select new Boise Club 61 officers to lead us through the next Toastmaster year.

Annette Manning, who was recently elected District 15 President, headed up the nomination committee for tonight's elections.  If you've already thrown your name in the ring, thank you for volunteering.  If you haven't, but wish you did, never fear because we do accept nominations from the floor.

It is never too late to step up and help lead the Club!

Speeches Outside the Club

One of my jobs as Vice President of Education (VPE) is to help record member's speeches as they progress through the manuals.  During normal club meetings it isn't a problem, and if your club is using easy-Speak that task is automated so you don't need to even do that small amount of work.

If you happen to give a speech outside of your normal club you have to let the VPE know about it so it can get recorded properly.  If your club uses easy-Speak the process isn't nearly as straight-forward as other speeches are.

Because these "outside" speeches don't happen very often, it is easy for them to get missed.  I gave an "outside" speech today and wouldn't you know it was difficult for me to remember how to record it in easy-Speak.

The first step is requesting a speech in easy-Speak.  If you don't know how to do that you can read this entry.

 Once the speech is in as a request, all you need to do is go over to your speeches page, which is My Participation > View My Speech Progress.

That will take you to your speeches page, which looks like it is entitled My Communicator Progress, even though it should list all the manuals you have started.

At the top will be a box showing Requested Speeches.  All the speeches you have requested but not recorded as given will be in that box.  The slightly confusing part is that off to the right of your requested speeches is a little rather unremarkable arrow.  If you mouse-over this arrow you'll get a tool-tip that reads, "Speech was presented at an external event".  Clicking on this will bring up the needed pop-up window that lets you mark this speech as given.

That's it!

Club Officer Elections Coming Sooner than you Might Think!

It may seem early, but now is the time to start thinking about club leadership positions for the upcoming Toastmasters year which starts July 1st.

Why now?

Elections are just over a month away and now is the time that a nomination committee is being formed to find those that would like to run for office in this upcoming year.  If you really don't want to hold an office then maybe you'd like to help Annette finding those who do.

"They" say the best offense is a good defense, but I say the opposite hold true as well.  If you don't want to hold an office the best way to not get questioned frequently is to help Annette find those who do!

Club Officers

While Boise Club 61 Officer Elections are months away, now is the time to be thinking about what role you'd like to take within the club in the upcoming year.

Toastmasters International has outlined the seven basic roles for a club:

President
As president, you are responsible for providing the supportive club environment members need to fulfill their self-development goals, making sure that members benefit from the Toastmasters educational program, and helping the club recruit new members and retain current ones.


Vice President Education
As vice president education, you are responsible for providing and maintaining the positive environment and the programs through which members can learn and grow. If you do your job well, your club will have satisfied members and will continue to grow.


Vice President Membership
As vice president membership, you are responsible for building membership and ensuring a strong membership base by satisfying the needs of all members. Your efforts contribute to the success of the club.


Vice President Public Relations
As vice president public relations, you are responsible for coordinating an active public relations and publicity program. Your job is vital to the growth and success of the club; your efforts help to attract new members.


Secretary
As secretary, you are responsible for keeping clear and accurate records of club business, including membership records and correspondence with Toastmasters International’s World Headquarters and others.


Treasurer
As treasurer, you are responsible for keeping clear and accurate financial records of club business and for seeing that the club remains financially stable.


Sergeant at Arms
As the sergeant at arms, you are responsible for maintaining club properties, arranging the meeting room and welcoming members and guests at each meeting.


Now is the time to talk to the current slate of officers and ask them about their position and what it really entails.  Sometimes there is a bit of a disconnect in what "the book" says about a role and how things really work out in the clubs.  It isn't a large disconnect, but it helps to know the reality of your future workload should you seek out a Club office.

Just as now is a good time to be thinking of looking at your future role within the club, it is also the time of the year that the officers are starting to look for their replacements.

Boise Club 61 DCP Progress

Just a quick update on Boise Club 61's progress towards becoming a President's Distinguished Club.  One of the information boxes on the right side of the blog contains a rather simple tracker on the club's progress.  At the time of writing this post, Boise Club 61 is 89% towards reaching our goal.

In case you are unfamiliar with the Distinguished Club Program, there is a series of 10 "action items" for a club to work on throughout the Toastmaster year, which starts on July 1st.  If a club manages to fulfill five goals they are known as a Distinguished Club for that year.  Fulfilling seven goals makes a club a Select Distinguished Club and meeting nine of the ten goals means that the club is a President's Distinguished Club.  The club gets a nice ribbon to hang on their club banner and some small measure of bragging rights is earned.

I'm certain the true purpose of the Distinguished Club Program is to create strong and healthy clubs which enable Toastmasters International to meet their overall goals of "making effective oral communication a worldwide reality".  Obviously there is a strong correlation between a active and healthy club and their ability to excel with the Distinguished Club Program.  This is NOT to say that clubs which don't obtain President's Distinguished Club aren't good, strong clubs.  Smaller clubs may well have difficulties meeting some of the goals.


Here is a snapshot of Club 61's DCP progress.  It may not completely mesh with the DCP report from Toastmasters International because I get my number updated quicker than they do (I only have to deal with one club!)

Realistically speaking, we should be 100% before the end of January.  We will be 94% after the TLI on January 7th, and 100% when one of our members gives his 10th speech form the Competent Communicator manual later in January.  I expect Boise Club 61 to go above and beyond  President's Distinguished Club and complete all ten goals before the year is up on June 30th.  This isn't a push to get us to 111%, just a statement that odds are we will attract two new members within the next six months. 

New Boise Club 61 Blog

Boise Club 61 has a new blog to help get information out to past, current, and future members of the club.  Annette Manning, the club's Vice President of Public Relations wanted this blog to help get the word out about our club.  Since I blog everyday I volunteered to help establish a new blog that all of the club officers could contribute to.

Even though the club uses EasySpeak to help manage the weekly meetings, and my wife Carolyn (Club Secretary) sends out the weekly meetings minutes, there is always more that can be done to communicate our clubs offerings.  Communicators are leaders and leaders have to be communicators.  We'd like to become both and help others to do the same.

All of the club officers will be getting invitations that allow them to contribute directly to this blog without any moderation needed.  Comments are moderated, so they will not appear immediately.  If you are not a current Boise Club 61 officer and you wish to contribute to this blog, we welcome you to contact one of the authors listed on this page, or send us a message through the comment system.