Preamble

It is mandated by TI that twice a year every Club Officer should have the opportunity to be trained in his/her own Officer Role/s or any other roles of interest. This training must be a minimum of 4 hours long each session and must cover at least the basics of each role in the first of the two Club Officers Training sessions [COTs], usually held at the end of June after Clubs have elected their new Executive Committee [Exco].

TI does not prescribe which role trainings participants have to attend as long as the officers are ultimately empowered to be competent in their appointed roles. Please also note that ANY Toastmaster may attend the training, not just elected officers. Officers pledge to attend the training during their inductions, so as to ensure ongoing improvement of service they are able to render to the members.

It is noteworthy that Club Officers are expected to fill their roles for 6 month periods to qualify for Leadership levels, although many CO’s, as in our District, are appointed for 12 months. This implies that the 2nd COT would not supply basic training to yet another set of new officers but can focus on further development.

The Lieutenant-Governor Education & Training [Craig Strachan] is in charge of the content and foci of the training, and the training is coordinated by the Toastmasters Leadership Institute.

The COT program ideally has to cater for all Toastmasters’ Club Leadership needs, from helping novice Club Officers understand and confidently manage the minutiae of their basic tasks in their roles, to presenting leadership skills that can still be stimulating to highly experienced officers.

Although feedback is received from participants at each COT, this is not always sufficient to ensure that we meet the training needs of our Officers and members optimally. So the questions are: Are we meeting the training needs of first-time Officers in the various roles well enough? Are we meeting the needs of experienced officers sufficiently, without wasting their time or boring them? How can we keep improving the way COT is run so that each next COT better meets such needs?

Introduction

“Oh no, not another COT!” I heard myself think when I saw the date – and I was one of the trainers!

Unfortunately, among the many complimentary evaluations, the feeling of reluctance to attend Club Officers Training [COT] seems to be pervasive. Many people openly admit that they only attend to get the Distinguished Club points for their Clubs.

Every year the Lieutenant-Governor Education & Training [LGET] and Toastmasters Leadership Institute [TLI] coordinators put on thinking caps so that members’ training needs can be met adequately. They endeavour to present programmes that are comprehensive and standardised, yet not boring to experienced officers. TLI has tried to ensure ongoing improvement of the training through feedback forms handed to every attendee at all COTs, but there is always room for further improvement.

The research presented here was commissioned by our current LGET, Distinguished Toastmaster [DTM] Craig Strachan, in the hope that feedback from members will help him to develop an even better COT programme for the forthcoming June 09 training session. It was presented to LGET through verbal feedback report at the Pinelands Toastmasters Club on 19 March, and via email.

The June training, known as COT 1 has an essential focus of ensuring that new Club Officers [CO’s] feel competent and confident in the roles they will assume in July. While the roles are also taught through, for instance, manuals, the Toastmasters International [TI] website, and role hand-overs coordinated by Area and Division Governors, many novice officers feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the duties and tasks expected of them. At COT there is an opportunity to help them clarify their roles and address their questions and concerns practically and interactively.

Some problem areas are: Each COT is mandated to be a minimum of 4 hours, which generally means a Saturday must be used. Venues, refreshments, hand-outs and equipment cost money, and some clubs struggle to pay even the relatively small fee required – about R250. Some Divisions are so spread out that participants may have to travel very far and need accommodation, in order to attend.

Method

I decided to use open-ended questions rather than multiple choice so as not to limit the creative input of respondents. Questions were based on areas of concern raised in previous feedbacks.

The six areas covered were:

1. How to structure the role training so that novice officers have comprehensive training and input from experienced officers, without wasting time of experienced officers – a common concern.
2. What changes in content focus may improve the training.
3. Further needs.
4. Whether to extend the time so as to accommodate requests for e.g. guest speakers]
5. Any other creative suggestions to meet needs of members.
6. Areas of serious concern that go against members’ needs – based on previous COTs

Actual Questions sent out [via LGET] to Club Officers

Please consider what would be most useful, in your opinion, to add to or change about previous COT 1's you have attended [basic training of new officers and further training of existing officers] for the next COT 1.

Findings

There were 66 respondents. A few were not very useful as they used the research as a platform for complaints and threats and gave no pertinent answers to any of the questions. 63 responses were useful as they had an answer to at least one of the questions. Several responses were very detailed and showed sincere interest in the research area; respondents had often put much thought and effort into heir suggestions.

The main findings were:

Q1:

Novice Officers mostly preferred joint sessions where they could benefit from wisdom of experienced officers. Some said they felt inhibited to ask questions or make suggestions in joint sessions with more experienced officers.

Almost all the experienced officers preferred separate sessions or expressed a need not to be bored by content they know very well, while acknowledging they could also learn from novices.

About 1/3 of respondents felt that a mixture of separate and joint sessions would be best, and one respondent coined a useful term which I’ll appropriate, that of “Hybrid” sessions, in which novices would receive basic role training without experienced members, who would later join them for further interactive sharing. This would also allow an officer experienced in one role but a novice in another, to have multiple levels of input.

Q2:

An interesting result was that at least one respondent made a case for extra time and more in-depth training for every one of the Officer’s roles. Several felt that a combination of roles [e.g. VPE, VPM & VPPR] should get more training time than others but the most common sentiment was that the VPE role needed significantly longer training time than what has been allocated till now.

Many also felt that the President role training should focus on areas such as team building, team motivation, leader types, and higher leadership qualities, rather than what was already in the manual.

Q3:

Themes here were varied and included everything from meeting protocols, to fund-raising in clubs and team-motivation.

Predominant themes were:

• “How to be good leaders, not just CO’s”
• COT training should be done by expert presenters who could work interactively and not rely on Power Point slides
• How to market Toastmasters and acquire and retain members
• Case studies and practical examples of what works best
• Application of Toastmasters skills to “real life”
• The necessity of adequate notes to take home

Q4:

The vast majority were firmly opposed to adding extra items to the 1st COT although some proposed that a 5-7 min presentation by a great Toastmaster-speaker [like a contest winner] on a relevant or motivational topic would be useful.

Q5:

Many respondents expressed a need to have hands-on demonstration of how to access online resources and file or register information at TI online.

Several wanted more insight into how the Toastmasters organisation works at District and international level so that they could identify the relevance of their roles and tasks.

Most respondents were very complimentary about many of the previous COTs or many aspects of them, and it was noted that the same factors that were felt by some members to make COT successful in a particular Division, were the ones most irritating to other members, for instance, most members preferred interactive discussion groups but a few members felt that such “unprepared” and “time-wasting” activities would make them leave Toastmasters; many respondents wanted more humour and fewer or no Power Point slides but a few wanted much more focussed and briefer presentations with Power Point.

At some COTs many things reportedly went wrong. A general complaint was that some presenters were “boring”, tangential, ill-prepared and not lively and interactive enough.

Several respondents complained about poor notification of COT, poor organisation, poor venues and refreshments, lateness and general confusion on the day.

Several preferred a week evening to a Saturday – which implies they may not be aware of the 4 hr minimum rule.

Q6:

While again many compliments were given, similar problems to those mentioned for Q5 were repeated here. The word “boring” appeared in almost all 41 responses. Wasting time through poor preparation, presenters’ lack of knowledge, repetitions of other sessions, repetitions of previous COT programmes, and not following agenda timing were major concerns.

Although many compliments were paid, some presenters were described as “appalling”, pedantic, uninterested in members’ contributions, and incapable of humour – which many felt would enliven the presentations.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Please note that these recommendations are my assimilation of detailed answers by several respondents who had proposed practical improvements as well as general findings and all complaints. I have added specifics according to my experience as a TLI trainer and an attendee at COTs since 1999 as well.

1. Ensure timely notification and good organisation:

   • LGET needs to inform TLI at least two months in advance about the required programme.
   • TLI needs to formulate programme at least 6 weeks in advance so that Trainers have enough preparation time.
   • TLI needs to test trainers more carefully and use only the best trainer-presenters for COT.
   • Division Gov should arrange venue and refreshments, as well as the Day Officers at least a month in advance, and communicate arrangements clearly to all Division members.
   • TLI trainers should get a detailed schedule to Div Gov at least two weeks before the event so that it can be sent out to CO’s: this will enable better choices of which breakaways to attend, and less confusion on the day. Numbers attending should reach TLI trainers at latest one week before the day, to ensure sufficient notes and props.

2. Hand-outs should be prepared for all sessions, rather than standardised PPt series.

3. The Hybrid system for roles training should be implemented: The day could, for instance, start with specialised sessions of about 40’ – 55’ for any Officers new to the role they will fill in the forthcoming year, and any other member interested in such a role. These 7 simultaneous Break-away sessions should be lead by experienced Toastmasters in the roles who are also good facilitators, not just by TLI trainers. The presenters could be mentored prior to the day by the trainers.

4. Other Officers and members will arrive, for instance, 30 mins after the 1st session commences, register, and be welcomed to the COT by Div Gov [etc]. Joint and interactive sessions, led by only the best presenters, can then continue.

5. For small COTs where only 1 TLI trainer is available, a resources room may be useful to anyone not attending specific role basic training, and the trainer could supervise various break-away discussion groups based on TLI notes.

6. Adequate time should be allocated for presenters to listen to the members and address their concerns about their roles thoroughly.

7. Each Club President should have a feedback session with all the Club’s Officers who attended COT, within 4 weeks after COT, and send comprehensive written feedback [not just a multiple choice sheet], including recommendations for improvements, to TLI asap.

Please note that I have given detailed summaries of all responses to the LGET, and complaints and suggestions for improvements are receiving thorough attention at the highest level.

I hope that this research will help to make our great organisation even better and help minimise member frustration in future COTs.

A huge Thank You to all respondents from myself and on behalf of the LGET and TLI. Many of you know that my motto is a quote by Gandhi: “You be the change you want to see in the world” – and by participating and giving so generously of your time and wisdom, you are! Bravissimi!

- Reinette Steyn DTM; TLI Trainer