In this video, Freeman David Price outlines a strategy for recruiting new members to Rostrum by emphasizing the timeless leadership skills the organization teaches—effective public speaking and efficient meeting management. He argues that these two skills remain as valuable today as they were a century ago, especially for ambitious professionals seeking career advancement. Price suggests framing outreach conversations around the personal and workplace value of acquiring these skills, asking prospects how much they would value them. He likens Rostrum to a sports club, where regular practice and coaching lead to improvement, and stresses that larger clubs provide more models and faster learning, making bigger clubs inherently better. Throughout, he positions Rostrum as a hidden‑gem community service organization whose core offering—speaking and meeting skills—is the key selling point for turning visitors into members.
Chapters
Freeman David Price here. My friend Dave Aston in Tasmania has asked me to do a video about how you approach people to join Rostrum. Now, I have a theory which I believe is valid, and it is that the skills that Rostrum teaches are as valid today as they were probably 100 years ago. Many, many decades ago, people joined Rostrum because they wanted to learn how to speak effectively, and they wanted to learn how to run meetings effectively. I don't think that need has changed, and we certainly still deliver on both of those. So I think that the person who's in the workforce now and is ambitious and wants to move up has just as much need those 2 skills, to learn how to speak effectively and run meetings effectively, just as they would have if they were looking around 50 years ago, 20 years ago, or whatever. And so I think that's the basis on which we can approach people who may want to join Rostrum or who may be considering joining Rostrum. I believe that the 2 crucial skills of leadership are the ability to speak effectively and the ability to run a meeting effectively. And we teach both of those. And so what I suggest people do is when they're looking for people who are prospective members of Rostrom, to talk to them about those 2 skills and ask them what would it be worth to them if they could have those skills as part of the, the armory of things that they used in their day-to-day life and particularly in the workplace. And I think people would say that that is incredibly valuable. So I think that's a way in which we can start to sell Rostrum to people who are thinking of joining or people who have maybe never even thought of joining Rostrum to develop those skills. I believe Rostrum is just like a sport. If you want to learn to play squash, you'd join a club, you'd play every week, and you'd get a coach. That's exactly what Rostrum does. We meet weekly, although some clubs meet fortnightly, I know, but we meet regularly. We practice and we have a coach. I think Rostrum is one of the greatest community service organisations this country has, but it's a hidden gem. It's a hidden secret. We need to go out there and talk about the skills that we develop in people. The skill to speak effectively, and the skill to run meetings effectively. That's how I think we can start to turn prospects into members, and visitors into prospects, so that we can increase our membership. And I've been in clubs where there's been, in the old days, 45 members. And people say, oh, that's way too many. But I can tell you, those clubs were fantastic. And people grew quickly because they saw so many models there. So, I think a bigger club is always a better club. So, my own club is around 20 people. We average an attendance of between 14 and 18, but it's a good meeting. But it would be unbelievable if it was 25 or 30 people. And so, I think the more people we get into Rostrum, the better. And those 2 skills are our secret.
