The Competent Leader Manual has 10 projects.  Project 8 deals with Motivating People.  Members are required to do three of five roles, at least one of which has to be from the first two roles named.  These two roles both require the member to conduct campaigns or chair a contest.

Problem 1

Chairing a speech contest is not an eligible activity.  This is the text of the relevant role

“Membership campaign or contest chairman.  Your club conducts several membership-building campaigns or contests each year.  With the approval of your club’s vice president membership, organise and conduct a membership building contest, motivating members to participate and helping the club grow.”

This makes no reference to speech contests.  It is quite different.  Unfortunately the wording of the first role is ambiguous until the explanatory paragraph is read.  Either members and club officers don’t bother to read the explanatory material or they know of the problem and ignore it.  This role is very badly worded.  It should be presented as two separate roles

Membership campaign
Membership contest chairman

Problem 2

Members and club officials in most clubs are wrongly claiming credit for successfully completing Project 8.  They are using the chairing of club, area and division speech contests as fulfilling the requirement.  It doesn’t, as is perfectly obvious from Project 6 which lists chairing a club speech contest as a separate role from the two chairing roles in Project 8.  Have a look at at the 6 possible roles in Project 6 and see what I mean.  A club membership campaign or contest and a public relations campaign are there too, separate from a club speech contest.

Problem 3

This problem applies particularly to strong, successful clubs.  They have very great difficulty in providing opportunities for more than two or three members genuinely to complete either of the first two roles.  How many membership contests or public relations campaigns can reasonably be run in a given year?  This is particularly a problem for clubs with effective websites which attract the bulk of their new members.  I know of several such clubs in WA which have this problem.  It might sound incredible, but such clubs don’t run traditional member recruitment campaigns because they already have more than enough new members being recruited from the website.

Project 8 is a bottleneck for strong, successful clubs with many members working on the CL award and needing it to progress to the ALB award and finally to DTM.  .

What can be done about this problem?

I don’t know.  A new version of the CL Manual has recently been published.  It contains the same role requirements as the original Manual.  World Headquarters are not going to publish a revised edition for quite a while which recognises the problem I identify above, even if they agree with me.

Members and clubs which wish to promote the successful completion of the CL award will either have to turn a blind eye to the problem and use speech contests as an acceptable substitute or to find creative ways to conduct membership contests or public relations campaigns.  But read the manual.  Taking part in such campaigns or contests is not adequate – organising them and motivating other members to take part is the requirement.  This is an ethical problem for Vice Presidents Education who sign off the completion of Project 8.

What do you think about this problem?

Do you agree with my analysis?  Have you any creative suggestions for getting around the bottleneck?

Add your comment.

David Nicholas DTM
Member 318284

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David presenting the Award to Gerry

Gerry Prewett was awarded the David Nicholas Award at the Changeover Dinner on Friday, June 25. This is an award to the Toastmaster of the Year in Western Division.

How can I use this for publicity, thought Gerry?  He already had a contact at the Southern Gazette, the Community News paper covering Victoria Park and adjacent suburbs.  He established this as part of the promotion for the new Victoria Park Toastmasters, which he and Sandra Morton chartered recently.  So he rang the Southern Gazette and they were very happy to run a local interest story.  They made a photographer available, and Gerry set up a meeting at his workplace with the photographer and David Nicholas.  Have a look at the Southern Gazette story.

Local papers want local interest stories. They have to be newsworthy. It’s not news that you have a group which wants free advertising. It is news if a member wins an award, or is involved in some special local project. Use your imagination here.

Gerry used his imagination and did something with it. You can too.

David Nicholas DTM
WA Webmaster
0401 011 212

With two months to the closing date of June 30, 2010, there is still time to meet the requirements for Distinguished Area, or even Select Distinguished or the top award of President’s Distinguished.  The table below shows what you need to reach these goals if you started with 4 Clubs.  All our Areas did, except W21 with 3 Clubs, and Peter Law has already reached Select Distinguished, so I don’t need to give him the goals.  If you start with 4 Clubs and gain a new club, that does not change your goal requirements – but it does count towards your goals.

For most Areas the major problem is the 7 CCs. You don’t need them for Distinguished, but you do for Select and President’s.

You can see a summary of all our WA Areas progress at Distinguished Area 2010

If you want to discuss your best methods to achieve Distinguished, Select Distinguished or President’s Distinguished, ring me on 0401 011 212 or email me at davidnic@iinet.net.au

David Nicholas DTM
Western Division Governor

Yes, Fremantle Gourmet, Club 1068213, has already achieved 9 Goals – enough for President’s Distinguished in the Distinguished Club Program.  Congratulations Gourmet.  The tenth Goal is some time away yet – it will come when at least 4 Club Officers attend the second round of training in February.  You can view a DCP report on all WA Clubs.

But not President’s Distinguished yet

To be Distinguished at all, including President’s Distinguished, a club has to have 20 members at June 30 (or have increased low numbers by at least 5 members).  Those numbers will not be recognised until the March Renewals have been lodged.  By then Gourmet will have been joined at the PD level by quite a few other clubs – particularly from Western Division.  But Gourmet has the honour of first to reach 9 Goals.  Congratulations to all Gourmet members, and particularly to President Jackie Perriman and Vice President Education Ross Wilkinson.

Western Division is also tops in the DCP

Only five Clubs in District 73 have so far registered 5 or more Goals in the DCP.  This is the target for Distinguished.  They are all from Western Division!

9 Goals Fremantle Gourmet in W28
8 Goals Canning Vale in W16
5 Goals Fremantle Gateway in W21
5 Goals Victoria Quay in W21
5 Goals Jetty in W29

Yes, each Area has at least one of these clubs.  And the word is out that some more Western Division Clubs will get an extra goal by next weekend.  In particular Canning Vale are confident of 9 Goals.

Western Division is aiming for the top

I have set my goal for my year as Western Division Governor to be the top performing Division in District 73 by Toastmaster International’s guidelines.  We have started particularly well.  Here is a graph which shows progress for all 10 Divisions in District 73 up to Oct 2, 2009.

You can follow current performance for a very large range of District 73 Reports at this site. It includes Club progress as well as District, Division and Area figures. Go to District 73 Reports Analysis Can we stay here on top until June 30 next year? I am confident we will.

Post your comments or suggestions in the box below.

David Nicholas DTM
Western Division Governor
9457 6468

Steve Barry

Steve Barry has added Toastmasters highest award to his illustrious career in Toastmasters.

It began in June 1998 when he was one of 6 participants in a Speechcraft Course conducted at Notre Dame University by Victoria Quay.  At the end of the 6th and final session I invited the Speechcrafters to come next week to the first meeting of a new Toastmasters Club.  It was Steve, in his typical, infectiously enthusiastic manner, who responded immediately and urged everybody to come along.  They all did and so Gateway was under way.  It chartered on October 1 that year and the District 73 Governor, Dick Briggs, came across from Melbourne to join us in the celebratory Charter Dinner in December.

Steve Barry DTM – the shy one

His DTM has been a long time coming because of his shy retiring nature.  Shy?  Retiring??  Yes – bubbling, infectiously energetic Steve likes to be in the back room, encouraging others to come forward and bask in the limelight.  He will do anything for you, but he doesn’t expect anything in return.  He is probably severely embarrassed by this public acknowledgement of his success.

Fremantle Gateway

Steve was the first President of the club in 1998 and he has held most, if not all, officer roles in the club since then.  Gateway has been one of the most successful clubs in the District in those 11 years – in fact it is the second most successful club since the current award system was established.  You can see the evidence for this on a site maintained by a member of District 5 in Arizona, and identify the only club to have a slightly more distinguished record than Gateway.

Since that foundation year Steve has been the only member to maintain continuous membership.  It’s no exaggeration to call him the rock on which the club has built such a powerful record.

Powertalk

And it’s not just Gateway.  Powertalk was having membership problems.  Steve and Glenn Wright offered to help and became Club Coaches.  The success of their diligent work with a lot of help from Ross Wilkinson and Sue Voloczi was recorded this year when the club was Presidents Distinguished in the nick of time in June.

Fremantle Gourmet – why not?

Gourmet is another great success story – in collaboration with Ross Wilkinson again.  Steve was the inaugural President.  You can read the story of the foundation of that very successful club and Steve’s pivotal role in it at Fremantle Gourmet Charter

I have been privileged to know and admire Steve Barry since that first Speechcraft meeting in June 1998. He is a big man with a big record of success and it’s a great honour to be his friend.

David Nicholas DTM

President’s Distinguished Area Governor

President’s Distinguished is the highest award given in these categories

Club
Area
Division
District

This is the third year Michael has been an Area Governor and yet again he is President’s Distinguished. The requirements for this are to meet all 8 targets for Area Governors and to have a net gain of at least 1 club in the Area. These are the clubs in I40

Durack – Select Distinguished Club
Terrace
Riverside
Young Guns – President’s Distinguished Club
Roetoric – a new club in the last month

Will anybody else achieve President’s Distinguished Area Governor this year?

There are two possibilities.

Narayanan Rajaraman, I42 Area Governor, is very close. He requires 1 CC award and 1 AC award from the 4 clubs in his area. I know of the likelihood of that CC and AC being posted in the near future. So I am confident Narayanan will be our second President’s Distinguished Area Governor.

Gladys Lavell, P30 Area Governor, is a possibility. She requires another of her clubs to be Distinguished and two more CC awards. Can she make it?
Trackside needs 2 more new members to be Distinguished and then 1 more CC will make the club Select Distinguished.
Swan already has 1 CC and already is Select Distinguished. Another will give it 8 Goals.
Morning Star already has 2 CCs. It is Select Distinguished with 8 Goals. Another 2 CCs will get it to President’s Distinguished Club.

There appear to be no other Area Governors likely to be President’s Distinguished.

Many major chains – Harvey Norman, Woolworths, Bunnings, Coles etc – use the Loss Leader system. Sell a popular item at a heavily discounted price – perhaps less than cost – to get the customers into the store. They might lose money on the one item, but the increased sales all around the store more than make up for it.

Our leaders at Toastmasters International have been doing some strategic thinking. They have come up with a brilliant loss leader.

Below Cost!!!

Your Second DTM

Unbelievable Value – While Stocks Last

Yes, its true. A second and subsequent DTM has just had its cost heavily slashed. Amazingly reduced. Compare these 2 tables for last year and this year.

Second and Subsequent DTM Requirements

Look at the discount!! This year’s Second DTM “saves” 30 speeches, 10 CL projects, a Club Officer role and 4 minor workshops. Unbelievable value.

But it makes good sense
Our leaders at Toastmasters International have a strategy. They know that long term experienced leaders are an asset to our organization, and they want us to continue working productively for the organization. Giving a lot of speeches?? Come off it! Serving as District Officer? Yes! Founding new clubs? Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!

Second DTMs have not been popular
Look at the record of current District 73 members – only 5 multiple DTMs – Anna Riggs in South Australia, Vivienne Triplett in Victoria and 3 from Western Australia, all from the same club – Victoria Quay – Glenis Nicholas, Alan Smith and me. Second DTMs have not been the flavour of the month in District 73 – or the year – or the decade. But that is about to change. I know 3 members in WA who already have the requirements for their second DTM under the new conditions. And there will be others in South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania.

Is this a dumbing down of the requirements?
No, it isn’t. This is a powerful strategic move to attract experienced, skilled Toastmasters into the ranks of those who focus their experience and skill into repeated District Officer roles and even more importantly, into the founding of new clubs. All States and Divisions will benefit from this activity and in particular Western Australia, as we work towards setting up our own District.

David Nicholas DTM

First get your first DTM
That’s the catch! To take advantage of the Sale of the Century, with its unbelievable discounts and never to be repeated DTM bargains, you need the first one at full price. Buy one and get a second at less than half the price!! Come in now. Beat the rush!

David Nicholas DTM (5 times at the old price)
WA New Clubs Coordinator

Perth Division reached President’s Distinguished Division last Friday, June 20, 2008. At that point Gil Alexander was the only President’s Distinguished Governor in District 73. Congratulations, Gil.

Now Western

And now today, June 25, 2008, Western Division has reached President’s Distinguished. Congratulations President’s Distinguished Governor, Mark Richards.

Plus a triumph for District Governor Mike Helm

Yes, District 73 has reached Distinguished status and may be on the way to Select Distinguished. More of that next week.

For the latest results from World Headquarters for your WA club up to February 8, go to the DCP page

For your Club’s Member Awards go to the Awards page

District Officers may be interested in how our District is tracking at the present time. Read the analysis below.

An analysis of District 73 overall at the present time

The Distinguished Club Program (the DCP) is a powerful incentive for Club success. There are 10 Goals for Clubs to aim at, with three award levels – Distinguished with 5 Goals, Select Distinguished with 7 Goals and President’s Distinguished with 9 goals. A Club must have 20 members to be Distinguished. Areas and Divisions have similar awards.The 2 Divisions and 36 Clubs in WA are doing very well, but overall District 73 is not doing well at this point. Unless there is a marked improvement, District 73 will not be Distinguished this year. There will be enough Advanced Communicator Awards, but the Competent Communicator Awards are lagging very badly.

Perth Division is leading the Club DCP awards in District 73

There are 9 Divisions in District 73 (a Division has 4-6 Areas, and each Area has 3-6 Clubs). 3 Divisions have no Clubs which have reached the requirements for Distinguished Club.

However Western Division is leading the Division Speech awards

This is a count of all the Speech Awards for all Clubs in all Divisions

Here is a summary of the Distinguished Clubs in District 73, sorted by Division.

A final comment on the CC count

Each year there is always a strong increase in the CC count in May and June. However, 82 CCs in over 7 months is not a good base to achieve another 122 in less than 5 months. Division and Area Governors need to encourage their Clubs to work to achieve Distinguished status, and particularly to lodge CC applications.