It’s been exactly six-months since I’ve been appointed president of our beloved club, so it’s time for a mid-term review of the progress that we’ve been making so far.

(Note: For those who do not know what Toastmasters is, we are a worldwide network of public speaking clubs. We do not make toasts.)

At the beginning of the term, we saw three key areas of improvement and set out three specific goals to be achieved by the end of the 1-year term:

1)  The club has never achieved any awards beyond the Distinguished Club award which was achieved back in 2006. Our goal this year is to, for the first time, achieve the President’s Distinguished Club award – the highest honour that can be bestowed upon a club by Toastmasters International. This award recognizes educational and managerial standards achieved by the club.

2) Members are key to the club’s educational capacity and the membership was at unhealthy levels. Our goal is to triple the number of active and paying members in the club by the end of the year.

3) Members were losing enthusiasm from overly procedure-bound meetings and there was a lack of bonding among committees and ordinary members. Our goal is to achieve a sense of deep fellowship and bonding among members and promote livelier and more enjoyable meetings. 

So while the first two goals are quantitative and specific, the third goal is qualitative and subjective. But it doesn’t matter, this is what the new committee believe is necessary for the club.

Assessment:

1) The club has achieved 6 of the 9 goals necessary to achieve the President’s Distinguished Club award. That’s more than half way there!

2) Membership growth is 80% as of this month, which is still quite far from the targeted 200%.

3) I think the energy among members is much higher now. YAY! I love it that certain members like to joke around during meetings and that certainly improves participation from the other (more passive) members. Members also start to actively compete for speech slots, which is always a good sign! And…. It’s great that the regular post-meeting mamak supper culture that I tried to cultivate earlier this term is turning out fantastic! Members and committee members bonded well during these casual sessions.

In addition to that, we are having great collaborative meetings with Shell, Dell and DHL Toastmasters clubs, who are always helpful and supportive!

Six more months to go… And we’re there!