Theme meetings are fun – for the club, the Toastmaster and our guests.
This year, to celebrate Toastmasters’ 95th anniversary, we decided to host
themed Open Houses throughout the month of October. We wanted to
encourage guests to attend and to keep on building up our great club.
We brainstormed ideas to make coming to a Toastmasters meetings easier.
How could we attract guests to discover the fun we have as we learn and practice new skills?
We came up with about 15 themes, but whittled it down to four. Our first theme was Meetings That Matter: On Time and On Task. We wanted to show guests how to move your meeting along, allow everyone to speak, and still honour your meeting time limits!
Our next theme was Effective Listening – Improve your Listening With Toastmasters. Our advertising asked – Are you an effective listener? If not, you are certainly not alone. Discover how Toastmasters can help you to carefully listen and present encouraging feedback. We will share the secrets to active listening.
“Have you ever wanted to Ace The Interview?”
Our third meeting theme focused on how you can sharpen your skills to remain calm, cool and collected in an interview. Our final theme of the month was Cocktail Conversations – How to Schmooze With Ease. Social interactions can be difficult for many people. We shared ideas and allowed our guests to practice their cocktail conversations. We wanted to attract guests and we did.
Our highest count was for the Ace The Interview and the Cocktail Conversations themes with four guests at each.
We believe that the themes along with a targeted advertising campaign, made these meetings attractive to non-Toastmasters, and we are looking forward to more themes meetings in January.
Catriona Younger – DTM
Past District 64 Director
Vice President Public Relations
St Ignatius Toastmasters