Presently I am the Division F Governor for Toastmasters International in District 46. Part of my job is making sure the officers of my clubs get trained so that they can better serve their members. This training comes twice a year, once in the summer, and once again in the winter.
Depending on the makeup of the division you can have a majority of corporate clubs which can pose a problem when it comes to picking a venue to host training sessions for the district membership. More and more corporations are concerned with their privacy and do not want to lend space. This trend can wear a heavy burden on the community clubs who meet in public spaces like libraries, churches, etc. because the same clubs are always playing host.
Well, this year I’m trying something a little different. I have a Toastmasters Training Institute training set at a club that meets in a library which is our Division’s Official training session. However, people need more options to insure as many officers get trained as possible. To this end, I’ve added a Bagels on the Beach training session also.
My clubs are in Nassau and Suffolk counties and we have some beautiful beaches. I thought a morning training session with some coffee and bagels at the beach seemed like a fun way to get more people to attend a training session. Clubs only need four officers to be trained to get district credit towards their DCP goals, but having all seven officers trained is optimal. I thought trying something different could be just the ticket to motivate some of the fence sitters to attend.
I’d love to hear from other Toastmasters, and any different ways they may have handled their training sessions.
