In this presentation, the speaker outlines practical strategies for building and sustaining a positive club culture within Toastmasters. The talk begins with assessing culture through informal check‑ins and the formal Moments of Truth survey, emphasizing the importance of a recommendation box. It then explores ways to foster hospitality and celebration, such as open‑house events and themed activities like Red Nose Day. The speaker highlights tailored Pathways workshops to help members navigate the educational program, and shares a technical solution that enabled a core member to attend meetings remotely after an injury. The need for coordinated teamwork among club officers is stressed, with examples of role‑coverage and communication. A personal story illustrates the impact of constructive versus negative evaluation, leading to a call for positive reinforcement. The concept of customized standing rules (e.g., Joke Master, Poem de Jour) is introduced to give clubs a unique identity. Mentor‑matching is described as a systematic way to align new members’ goals with experienced mentors. When internal efforts stall, the speaker advises seeking district leadership support for coaching or mentorship. The presentation concludes with two bonuses: a brief overview of recent Pathways interface improvements that reduce clicks, and a simple peer‑recognition exercise encouraging members to pat each other on the back for good work. The overarching message is that members themselves create the culture, and intentional actions at every level can nurture a vibrant, engaging club environment.
Chapters
Just remember that created culture. You spent 5-7 minutes here, did some exercises, but did you feel a bond? Think about it, what all you can go and do in your club. Now I'm gonna share with you some of the tools that you can help to assess your club culture. When a member joins your club, how often do you go and ask them, "How do you find the club? Is there anything that we can improve? Are you looking for something special?" That is the best way to assess your club for change. But if you want to go with the formal way, Toastmasters recognizes Moments of Truth. In your handouts today, there is a handout which is specifically for Women of Truth. You can take it to your club, ask some of the senior members to do that module, and this you can serve as a survey form. It's on the back. This has got all the 6 different aspects of a movement club, starting with what is the first impression, member orientation, etc., etc. The most important point in this is this recommendation box. Ask them or make them mandatory to write a recommendation, because once you get back Yeah, it's a good question. When you get in some pile, that is the gold. That is where you find how you can improve your comfort. Now I'm gonna do some club culture building. So hospitality, I think we all discussed about that, how how welcome you make your guests feel, how welcome you make your members feel, and how enthusiastic you keep your old club members or the members who have been there for a long time. Are you guys finding celebration? If you notice clearly, it was only member exclusive. That's why my daughter was not wearing red nose. She's not yet 18, so we need to go by the culture. But are you finding ways to celebrate? I already gave you two examples today. We did open house. This is the celebration for the Red Nose Day that we do. Think about it and you can certainly find a way to celebrate because when you have celebration, when you have fun, That's when you go on. Are you trying new things? We recognize that some of our members are struggling with Pathways, so we did an exclusive session for Pathways Workshop where we did only Pathways, help people get into the Pathways, help them with Initial assessment, help them get to their project, submit their level completion. That's it. Are you tailoring your, tailoring your meeting to have such kind of meetings? One of our members, Sherry, he got fractured last year. He's one of the core team member of our club and he was missing out on a meeting. So we got the technical help to have him join online to our club meeting because we don't want him to miss, we don't want us to miss him. We had some other celebration through Christmas, and if you look closely at your club, you can certainly find ways to have new things. Because unless you try new things, you'll get boring, as the slides— if I keep on going for 35 more slides. Now, our club officers— most of you here, I believe, are some or other club officers. But unless you work as a team, your club culture will not better. And when I say as a team, for example, your Sergeant at Arms is not coming. Do your other club officers know they are not here? Who's gonna open the meeting? If your VP of Education is struggling with pathways, is he reaching out to other club officers to figure out a path? That is what means by working as a team. Because unless we work as a team, we won't enjoy success. Now, this is a very dear story to me. This was about 2 and a half years back. I was very excited because I was going to visit a club and give my Project 6 vocal variety in a different club. I went there, it was a Nokia club. I gave my speech and I thought I did okay. But when the evaluator was called, he was an ex-army man, And he said, you didn't do this, you didn't do this, you didn't do this, you didn't do this. You should see my speech. You are not even doing this. I was devastated through the words that I thought of quitting Toastmasters. I had a good club, I had good team members, so I dropped that idea. But reflect back Are you training your members to give evaluation which does the positive reinforcement? Or are you one of those— not you, your friends— who just say, 'You didn't do this, you didn't do this, you didn't do this.' We are here to learn, to grow, but we learn when somebody says, 'You did a good job, maybe you can try this.' rather than saying, "You didn't do this." We all get that at our office, right? We don't need to do that in our club. Standing rules. Now we had a small improv game, and if you look closely, every club got their own standing rules. We are ESL specialists, We are international, we are trying this, we are a morning club. What are your standing rules? In our club, we have different additional rules. You would have heard Joke Master, Joke de Jour, Poem de Jour, Talent Counter. Are you having your own customized rules? Because when you have those, you go with confidence and say, we have a standing rule of Mentors, what happens when a member joins your club? I am the mentor, Iyazan, of the Delhi Corporate Club. So the moment I get an email from BB Membership that a new member has joined the club, I reach out to the member either through email or in person. To find out what is their expectation out of the Toastmasters journey. Are they someone who's trying to get rid of public speaking fear? Are they someone who's looking at the leadership journey? Or are they someone who's here just to have fun? And based on that, I try to map the current correct mentor. Imagine if somebody was a district champion of speech contest, and he becomes a mentor to one who's trying to be a project manager. Would that be a great combination? So as a club mentor, I ensure that the right match happens, and you can do that in your club as well. Most importantly, If you have tried everything, if you tried Moments of Truth, if you try to take feedback, but still you find you're not able to improve, the District Leadership is for your service. Reach out to them, tell them what situation you are going through. They will assign you club coach or club mentor based on your need. I think we already went through the question and answer, but if you want, we can take one more session, one more question, and then I've got actually two bonus for you. So any questions? Cool, everybody excited for bonus. Okay, this one is my favorite pathway. So Toastmasters International is is constantly improving Pathways interface. And if you go to toastmaster.org and try to log in and click on your name, you will see a kind of new improvisation screen now coming up. You can now directly go to your transcript, which is your projects in Pathways, rather than having 4 clicks. You can go— if you are a Basecamp manager, you can directly go as a Basecamp manager And similarly, you can choose a new path in Navigator. It's gonna save you 4 clicks, but if you do it 100 times, you're gonna feel the difference. Now the second bonus— I have a question regarding this. Do you get updates from TMI that these people are added? I keep doing research, and I also get— I am part of Pathways Facebook group, Toastmasters International group, things like that. So yeah, that's how I keep Okay, now next bonus is I'm gonna tell you one exercise. It's not gonna be like improv, but you can definitely try that at you first, at yourself, and then at your club members. Okay, so please raise your left hand. It's right. Okay, hold it. Pat on your back and say, you are doing good. Good. Now next time when you see a club member doing great thing, reach out to them, pat on their back and say, "You are doing good." There are some rates and credits which are on the back, but I want to leave you with this. Remember, members only create culture.
