Page 42 - June-2021-Voices

FIELD NOTES

Dear PR Masters!

How to find new members for a chartering club
Andrew Matthews, EH4 - PR Masters Club President

Dear PR Masters! What does that bring to mind? many Clubs are facing especially as we’ve moved
Dear Abby!, of course (which is all about newspaper into this virtual world. But everybody’s moved
therapy). Dear PR Masters! offers therapy for into the virtual world, not just Toastmasters. One

Toastmasters needing help with Public Relations. way to reach people is to find out their pain points.
We would love to hear your PR-related questions. During the pandemic, many people have been
They will be answered live in a PR Masters Club laid off. That’s a pain point. Right now, people
meeting, and then brought to a future column in are looking for jobs and needing transferable job

Voices! Here is one discussion edited from a recent skills. Toastmasters Clubs have the ability to make
Club meeting: people more confident in having a job interview,
confident in dealing with conflict situations, and
Scotty from Bethany writes: more confidence as a speaker. There’s a great

I am trying to start a new Toastmasters club in the summary of pain points on Toastmasters.org.
evenings. We want to be a club for new and existing That’s going to help people out there who are
members. Because of Tastmasters chartering rules, we struggling now.
are faced with needing to recruit new members in order

to charter. We have half a dozen or so we know will Scotty from Bethany:
join. We need to find another 10 to 14 members to join Thank you Marcy. That’s great advice and that assumes
us from outside the existing Toastmasters community. that I already have the people on the hook and I’m just
We had a head of steam going into the last year but trying to reel them in. I’m still struggling with how

when COVID hit we lost some strong momentum. My to get them on the hook in the first place. We’re in the
question is this: how do you market Toastmasters to Sunset / Bethany area. We are not a club yet.
a community that may have heard of Toastmasters
but either has not yet joined or joined once and may Club member Maren from Tigard:

be interested in joining again. It is nice that so many Try a Facebook group! PR Masters Club started
existing Toastmasters are interested in joining and as a group on Facebook. If you have a few people
helping us but in terms of the magic number of 17 new who can start a Facebook group you have a place
members, existing members will not get us any closer to for people to go. You can make it public or private.

our charter number. I am interested in your thoughts! New Horizons Club has a public Facebook group.
We have 66 Facebook group members in there
Club memtber Marcy responds: and 27 actual members who join our meetings -
Hi Scotty, your problem isn’t unique. It’s one that and it works! We share lots of information there

42 ONE COMMUNITY