There are three R’s (almost) for school: reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmatic. For Toastmasters, I have 5 R’s for club growth – and spelled correctly! They are respect, recruit, retain, revitalize and retrain. Perhaps you could come up with more!

One of Toastmasters’ core values is respect. Please treat both guests, members and yourself with respect. Listen to your fellow Toastmasters. Help them to reach their goals. Help the club officers to reach club goals. Help the Area, Division and District as well. We are all volunteers and can use all the help you can give. Helping people reach goals is one way to show respect. Guests and members treated with respect are more likely to stay in the club, right?

Find new members! This is difficult so please start recruiting now, even if your club has a healthy number. You never know when members will leave your club! More importantly, more people will have a chance to benefit from the Toastmasters program. You don’t have to dress in a military uniform to be impressive as a recruiter!

Does your club have an up-to-date website? Does your club even have a website? If you think it does, try finding it. Go on, I dare you! Enter your club name into a search engine like Google and check on it. Only a little over 50% of District 64 clubs have a working website. A Facebook page is easier to create but chances are lower that it will be found. There are free website templates available! FreeToastHost is easy enough to set up in an hour or less. If you want something more flexible, try the Toastmasters WordPress or Google templates, linked through the TI website. Another one is EasySpeak, created in another District but free for toastmaster use. These are not just for publicity either. (You can create agendas and email them out immediately!)

Use your own social connections, both in person and virtually to publicize your club and your accomplishments in and thanks to Toastmasters.

If you find a creative way to publicize your club, let us know: tweet it to the District site, put it on Facebook, write about it as a blog post, tell your Toastmaster friends in other clubs, mail a letter, shout it from the rooftop…

To make your membership drive less of a concern, work on your meetings as one way to retain members. Are meetings varied? Do you have laughter at every one? Are mentors assigned and effective? Are time limits observed? Are evaluations effective, that is, do they: focus on the project objectives, have at least one challenge or grow points, have a couple of points about what the speaker did well and show the evaluator listened carefully? Are members working through the manuals? If members are not working the program, you don’t have a Toastmasters program and members are not getting what they paid for. Could it be that’s why your numbers are low?

What about those long term members who seem to be getting tired? Perhaps they can be revitalized. Have these members been challenged to stretch by entering speech contests, being club officers, visiting other clubs, coaching, mentoring or sponsoring other members or clubs, and/or participating in District events? Maybe they just want a year of being a regular club member because they’ve been there and done that. Why not make them the club sage, the member who only has to answer questions? How about a title such as club historian? These members deserve to be honoured. Celebrate their time in Toastmasters, maybe with a special event or an award they will appreciate, such as a party in their honour.

Club officers, take advantage of training to retrain yourselves as well as to train new officers. Ask questions. Bring ideas. Keep an open mind to the ideas that emerge in training sessions.

Club officers, ask members what they would like to see. Sometimes a member has a wonderful idea but is afraid to suggest a change. When there is a suggestion, why not try it! You might like it and the members will notice that their opinions matter. Retraining is never easy but a new way of doing things adds variety and keeps the brain active.

Respect, recruit, retain, revitalize and retrain! Grow your club. Grow your members.