Meeting of June 7th, 2001
Round robin Discussion on increasing club membership
This discussion was presented and evaluated as Speech 2 of the advanced manual The Discussion Leader.

Question: How can we get more members?

• Get more, retain whom we have and reinstate members who have dropped out.
• Power of word of mouth advertising. Talk up Toastmasters.
• Keep the meetings interesting, e.g. backward meeting or other occasional special events.
• Tell everyone about it.
• Some papers print articles about organizations.
• Personal contact is important.
• More collegiality needed [meetings need to remain polite and supportive. Evaluations must balance constructive criticism with restraint to avoid offending or hurting.]
• Useful to find out why people join.
• Make better use of the web.
• Welcome letter to give to guest
• Information letter for new members.
• Relaxed atmosphere comfortable and appreciated.
• Mentor program- implement to support new members, follow through, personal contact with members, train mentors (and mentees).
• Immediate feedback.
• Determine goals of guest and new members (need to meet their goals rather than give them ours).
• Codify things we learned (write them down so not lost).
• Manual speeches.
• Advanced manuals (increase support for people working in advanced manuals so they can progress).
• Self motivation.
• Spend money (new member packets, pins, sign?).
• Assign new members task on schedule immediately.