Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Crunch time!

We are coming down to the wire for membership renewals! Toastmasters clubs around the world must pay dues twice each year, once by October 1st and once by April 1st. The month of September is special because it also concludes the contest for the Smedley Award, bestowed annually to those clubs who add 5 new, reinstated or transfer members between August 1 and September 30. For more information about membership contests, click here.

To help you renew all your current members and win the coveted Smedley Award, here are some suggestions:

1) Call your current members to remind them to pay their dues to the club treasury. You can divide this task among the club officers, but a call from the President may be most persuasive.

2) Call your past members and guests to invite them to rejoin or attend another meeting. Offer an incentive if they join before September 30. For example, you could reduce or waive club fees or dues for a certain period of time.

3) File membership renewals as they come in. Don't wait until the last day to file! That's what the other 12,000 clubs are doing. Can you imagine the processing traffic jam at World Headquarters?

4) File membership renewals (and other club paperwork) online. It is fast and easy - you can renew an entire club in about 2 minutes! You will need a deposit or debit card linked to your club account (make sure the funds are there first!), or a credit card (get a check for reimbursement!).

If you renew all your members, you will be well on your way to eligibility for the Distinguished Club Program (DCP). If you add 5 or more members, you will win the Smedley award AND accomplish at least one DCP goal!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

You may not want to encourage clubs to have debit cards linked to their accounts (#4). There have been a couple of instances in the past where one of the officers took the money and ran. It's better to have checks that need two signatures to withdraw funds. The better way to pay dues is for a member to use his or her personal credit card and then get reimbursed by check from the club treasury.

Norm Cook, DTM, PDG
Candidate for Toastmasters International Director from Region II
www.ExcellenceThroughTeamwork.com

Welcome to Founder"s District Marketing Blog!

This year we are starting a new communication tool within Founder's District: this blog. We invite you to steal our ideas to improve your club by attracting new members, keeping your current members, and rebuilding your club with special events like Open Houses or Speechcraft.

We also invite you to join with us in achieving your Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) goals. When you join a Demonstration Team or serve as a new club Sponsor or Mentor, you are helping Founder's District grow, bringing the many benefits of Toastmasters to more people throughout Southern California. At the same time, you get accomplish one goal toward your Advanced Leader Silver (ALS) - the last leadership step to the DTM!

When you serve as a Club Coach for a low-member club, you not only accomplish a goal toward your ALS and DTM, you also reap the benefits of learning how to coach, motivate and inspire a group of people to grow, thrive and help their club become Distinguished, Select Distinguished or President's Distinguished. For more information on how a club achieves one of these prestigious awards, view the Distinguished Club Program manual at the Toastmasters International website.

Let us help you achieve your personal Toastmasters goals this year! To find out more about our upcoming training programs for Demo Teams, Sponsors, Mentors and Coaches, please contact me, or visit us on the web for event information and useful files to download.

We wish you all the success in the coming year!

The Founder's District Marketing Team