Chronicles of Champions

It’s always more complicated than you think it is - Jon Leland When I took over the Zoom Master responsibilities for this Toastmasters club, I had no idea what I was doing. To prevent you from being in the same situation, I decided to give you these tips and tricks. I’m going to start with the basics and build to the more advanced things you need to know. Caveat: there are hundreds of additional features in Zoom meetings that I have not included here. I have focused on the basics and any tips I would have found helpful to know earlier. Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay Setting up meetings To set up a meeting, there are two options – a one-time meeting or a recurring meeting. In Raising Champions, we have decided to use a recurring meeting. This enables us to use the same Zoom link for every meeting. We use this same link for regular meeting meetings and executive meetings. For that recurring meeting, which has no date or time specified, the zoom link can be use...

There's a lot of just administrative work that comes along with having employees. - Parker Conrad Reading this quote, I thought “we don’t have ‘employees’ in a Toastmasters club,” however, the same could be said about having “members”. There’s a lot of “just administration work” that comes along with being on the executive of a Toastmasters club. This blog attempts to give you some tips and tricks to make your use of Club Central a little easier. Image by Peggy and Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay Club Central is part of the Toastmasters International website and is used by club executives to manage the club more effectively. First, I’m going to give you a high-level walk-through of the tool, then I’ll get into some tips and tricks I have found useful. Here are the sections you will find in Club Central. I’ve added a suggestion of which club officer would use it most often. CLUB MEMBERSHIP Add membership – used by the Vice President Membership to add ...

Taking opportunities to recognize the contributions of individual team members shows that you are paying attention to their work and appreciate their efforts - John Montgomery Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay So, you’ve been elected the Vice President Education for your club. Congratulations! Have you got your head around all the things you are now responsible for? I certainly hope so. There’s one area that often gets glossed over when you look at the list of responsibilities and that is approving your club members’ Pathways levels. To do that, there are two steps you must do: first, approve their Pathways level in the Pathways Base Camp Manager, and second, approve the level completion in the Club Central - Submit Education Awards. This blog is about Pathways Base Camp Manager. Pathways Base Camp Manager has so much more functionality than approving the Pathways levels. Here are the three sections on the Base Camp Manager: “ Pending Requests ” is where you ap...

Coaching's not a job, it's a privilege - Lee Corso One of the most rewarding roles I have had in Toastmasters is as a Club Coach. A club coach is someone who is an experienced Toastmaster with Club Executive experience who is brought in to help a struggling club get back on track. To qualify to get a Club Coach, a club must have 8 or fewer members and the President must request a coach. Some clubs do not want a coach and continue to struggle on their own and many of them recover on their own. Having a Club Coach is not a guarantee that the club will recover and become strong again, but it helps. Clubs struggle for many reasons. Sometimes it is because of ineffective Club Executive in the past (or present), sometimes it is a matter of location, timing, what day of the week they meet, or other logistical issues. I’ve heard of one club that fell from 40+ members to just 6 in a matter of a couple of years because many members had been transferred out of that location...

If you know how to do things, you will always have a job. If you know why you do them, you will always be a leader. - STRIVE MASIYIWA, founder of Econet Note: This blog is an abridged version of “The Distinguished Club Program and Club Success Plan” manual (item 1111). I have attempted to simplify it for the new member. The Distinguished Club Program (DCP) includes 10 goals that your club should strive to achieve each year. The purpose of the program is to incent clubs to achieve specific goals in both the Pathways education program and the administration of a well-run club. The 10 goals have been grouped into four areas, which will be explained below. The Distinguished Club Program is an annual program, running from July 1 through June 30. Based on how many of the goals were met out of the 10 and whether or not the qualifying requirement (explained below) has been met, the club may be recognized as a Distinguished, Select Distinguished, or President’s Distinguished Club....

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly times pause - Mark Twain So, have you ever heard a public figure, um, stumble over their words and, um, say “um” every few seconds? I have and it’s infuriating. It doesn’t matter if you’re watching the evening news, the late-night talk shows, listening to a podcast or even a highly regarded politician (yes, they do exist 😊). Many professional speakers still fall back on using the “um” filler word. I hear that and all I can think is, “they need Toastmasters”. When you first start on your Toastmasters journey, we fully expect that you will be using filler words (also called crutch words) such as “um”, “ah”, “like”, “you know”, “and”, and the all-time favourite “so”. Don’t be too hard on yourself if you use “so”. Even advanced Toastmasters are known to use “so” a lot. As you progress through the Toastmasters education program (known as Pathways), one of the things you learn is how to avoid filler wor...

It's much easier to be convincing if you care about your topic. Figure out what’s important to you about your message and speak from the heart - Nicholas Boothman So you joined Toastmasters. Congratulations. You’ve taken the first step on your journey to becoming a more confident, self-assured speaker and leader. But now they expect you to get up in front of the others and give your Ice Breaker? Are they kidding? Talk? In front of people? For four to six minutes? Yikes! “My butterflies have butterflies! What am I supposed to talk about?” Relax, your Ice Breaker is the easy one. It’s just to get you over that initial hump of terror. An Ice Breaker is just that – you want to break the ice and let the other members know a little bit about you. You won’t have the time to tell us your entire life story in four to six minutes so maybe don’t start with “I was born in a little log cabin back in …”. Start with something about who you are as an adult. Do you work? Where? Tell us ...