HOLA Presidency
With entries about the Hall of Learners Advanced Toastmasters Club (HOLA, for short) in my oterh blogs, I wonder if I had to make mention of it here as well. I did make an entry about something similar to this topic in on my Facilating, Coaching and Leading blog, so should I mention it again? Of course not - the link is there for anyone to look into.
But for completist sake, since this is my Toastmasters specific blog, I will touch on it and possibly add some things not found in the other blog entry. For example. I covered how I prepared for the Presidency, and helped form the infastructure to make HOLA run smoothly (if not seamlessly). I already mentioned how suddenly being the Division N Director made me split my time as HOLA President with that. But I made sure I was not forgetting about HOLA.
This is where I mentioned that I had a great team, starting with my twin (upon their insistence) VP Education co-Vice Presidents. Marge and Abby shared the role, and responsibilities by first dividing the tasks. A VPEd had to arrange for each meeting's program - needing to ask members if they were ready to deliver speeches - subtly reminding them that everyone had to respect OMOL - that is, one member, one (pathway) level. Each member had to submit a Pathway level, to ensure they were not taking their Toastsmasters improvment journey for granted.
We had two types of meetings - a regular meeting where we do a full scale meeting with the complete line-up of speakers, table topics session and evaluators, then we had the pocket meetings that happened every 3rd week of the month. It is in this meeting wereh we streamlined the meeting, with just the basics of speech projects, eval and timing. No GE, no other technical evaluator. But we schedued our Educational sessions in said meeting. We used to have them with our regular meetings - but those lasted until 9:30pm or even more. Enjoyable as the meetings were, they were too long, hence these education sessions were instead placed in the pocket session. That said, Toastmaster Marge focused on the regular meetings, while Toastmaster Abby took on the pocket meetings. Aside from this division of labor, they sought evaluators - and in Marge's case, looking for the next GEs.
I initially was wondering why Marge needed Abby, and vice-versa, but I realized later that they both had other goals to pursue, and being a full time VPEd wasn't going to help them. This way, they just needed to concentrae on one week for their meeting date, and ably focus on other things the rest of the month.
The fact that Abby had to leave for Canada some time March of this year, also made being VPEd full time a questionable task. So it was for the best to get both as co-VPEds, Unfortunately, TI did not recognize two VPEds, and only gave Marge access to the online site. Abby, on the other hand, had access to my Canva account, so she and VPPR Sebedi could make the necessary posters and announcements. If there was one thing I would have wanted with VPPR Sebedi, it would have been to be more proactive in promoting HOLA - yes, he did this, but many times he needed prodding, a nudge with a gentle reminder of what shoud be done - but once nudged though, he got things done. Still, I would have wanted something more active - maybe I was comparing things to when I was VPPR. Ah well... at least he was doing his job.
My Sec and Treas just slowly disappeared. In fact they did not renew this new Toastmaster term. Life got in the way. Same with my Sgt at Arms, we had to replace him because he wasn't able to renew his membership mid term - reason? being tight with funds. These things happen. VPM Joyce was mostly in Dubai, but when there were prospective members, she pointed them out, but we had to do the talking on a face-to-face capacity, Still, despite her long distance, she got the job done by guiding them towards joining by sending the needed forms and links, and letting us know what else needed to be done.
Could we have done things differently? Difficult to say, because many of these things happend unexpectedly, and we know that Toastmasters is a volunteer organization. So work always takes priority - that or, as in Secretary Ellen's case, a greater advocasy in helping children in highly isolated areas. This combined with her love for trekking over mountains... let's just say she found a different calling by combining a passion for highlands and helping promote education for children in those areas. Treas. Ross, on the other hand had to help his wife with their flowers business. Working as Entrepreneurs they needed to focus on the business side, and part of that was the marketing area - he was the driver, and model for their budding business. Luckily, HOLA had the self-pay option for members to pay directly to TI for membership renewal. So the roles of Secretary and Treaurer were not in demand as frequent as that of the VPEds or the VPPR/
No deriliction of duty here. Which is why I say it was hard to predict this at tha start of the term. Much as we wish a smooth journey from start to end, we had to make sure the club stayed interesting and helpful for the members who needed our support. This is where the C.A.R.E. group comes in.
This program was on it's second year, and I have to say it helped with the morale of the memebrs to be part of their respective C.A.R.E. group. There was support for their Toastmasters journey, and perhaps even touching on the member's non-TM related goals. It helped come up with support, cooperation and enhanced friendships. The tool used by our C.A.R.E. mentors (a.k.a. CAREbears) were all Toastmasters specific - like the Membership Interest Survey -which also gave us (as the ExCom) to determine common needs and wants from our members - thus making us determine what Educational Talks the memebrs will want to have within the year.
Friends of HOLA - the chatsite I set up tow years ago when I wondered if there was a way to link Clubs in need of Role takers, with Toastmasters willing to help by taking on said roles. But I asked friends to join and support the need. This is where I saw members who were servant leaders indeed. On the other hand, the chat group also became our wider arena for sharing memes, articles or other useful tips for any Toastmaster - and yes, there were the corny jokes too... but all these helped build the community of friends, and through this - get to invite TOastmaster to becoming new HOLAns.
I'd like to think that all this effort helped us reach President's Distinguished roughly a month before the TM year's end. But I was constatnly monitoring this. We got new and renewed members - specially appreciating the renewed members really saying that their memerbship in HOLA was one of the better things that happened in their Toastmasters journey - in other words, worth the membership fee. That made me happy. It proved that we were on the right track. As I said, there were some things we could have done better... but being a strong club on it's second year proves that our frist try to having a Presdient's Distinguished CLub was not a fluke.
A few weeks after transitioning, I will admit to a few moments of Separation Anxiety. But I trust the new ExCom. I'll suport them in any way I can... but yes, I can relax now. Specially since I also ended my stint as a Division Director at the same time. It seems I shall still be doing some work for the District... this time, as the District's Disciplinarian.
But for completist sake, since this is my Toastmasters specific blog, I will touch on it and possibly add some things not found in the other blog entry. For example. I covered how I prepared for the Presidency, and helped form the infastructure to make HOLA run smoothly (if not seamlessly). I already mentioned how suddenly being the Division N Director made me split my time as HOLA President with that. But I made sure I was not forgetting about HOLA.
This is where I mentioned that I had a great team, starting with my twin (upon their insistence) VP Education co-Vice Presidents. Marge and Abby shared the role, and responsibilities by first dividing the tasks. A VPEd had to arrange for each meeting's program - needing to ask members if they were ready to deliver speeches - subtly reminding them that everyone had to respect OMOL - that is, one member, one (pathway) level. Each member had to submit a Pathway level, to ensure they were not taking their Toastsmasters improvment journey for granted.
We had two types of meetings - a regular meeting where we do a full scale meeting with the complete line-up of speakers, table topics session and evaluators, then we had the pocket meetings that happened every 3rd week of the month. It is in this meeting wereh we streamlined the meeting, with just the basics of speech projects, eval and timing. No GE, no other technical evaluator. But we schedued our Educational sessions in said meeting. We used to have them with our regular meetings - but those lasted until 9:30pm or even more. Enjoyable as the meetings were, they were too long, hence these education sessions were instead placed in the pocket session. That said, Toastmaster Marge focused on the regular meetings, while Toastmaster Abby took on the pocket meetings. Aside from this division of labor, they sought evaluators - and in Marge's case, looking for the next GEs.
I initially was wondering why Marge needed Abby, and vice-versa, but I realized later that they both had other goals to pursue, and being a full time VPEd wasn't going to help them. This way, they just needed to concentrae on one week for their meeting date, and ably focus on other things the rest of the month.
The fact that Abby had to leave for Canada some time March of this year, also made being VPEd full time a questionable task. So it was for the best to get both as co-VPEds, Unfortunately, TI did not recognize two VPEds, and only gave Marge access to the online site. Abby, on the other hand, had access to my Canva account, so she and VPPR Sebedi could make the necessary posters and announcements. If there was one thing I would have wanted with VPPR Sebedi, it would have been to be more proactive in promoting HOLA - yes, he did this, but many times he needed prodding, a nudge with a gentle reminder of what shoud be done - but once nudged though, he got things done. Still, I would have wanted something more active - maybe I was comparing things to when I was VPPR. Ah well... at least he was doing his job.
Could we have done things differently? Difficult to say, because many of these things happend unexpectedly, and we know that Toastmasters is a volunteer organization. So work always takes priority - that or, as in Secretary Ellen's case, a greater advocasy in helping children in highly isolated areas. This combined with her love for trekking over mountains... let's just say she found a different calling by combining a passion for highlands and helping promote education for children in those areas. Treas. Ross, on the other hand had to help his wife with their flowers business. Working as Entrepreneurs they needed to focus on the business side, and part of that was the marketing area - he was the driver, and model for their budding business. Luckily, HOLA had the self-pay option for members to pay directly to TI for membership renewal. So the roles of Secretary and Treaurer were not in demand as frequent as that of the VPEds or the VPPR/
No deriliction of duty here. Which is why I say it was hard to predict this at tha start of the term. Much as we wish a smooth journey from start to end, we had to make sure the club stayed interesting and helpful for the members who needed our support. This is where the C.A.R.E. group comes in.
This program was on it's second year, and I have to say it helped with the morale of the memebrs to be part of their respective C.A.R.E. group. There was support for their Toastmasters journey, and perhaps even touching on the member's non-TM related goals. It helped come up with support, cooperation and enhanced friendships. The tool used by our C.A.R.E. mentors (a.k.a. CAREbears) were all Toastmasters specific - like the Membership Interest Survey -which also gave us (as the ExCom) to determine common needs and wants from our members - thus making us determine what Educational Talks the memebrs will want to have within the year.
Friends of HOLA - the chatsite I set up tow years ago when I wondered if there was a way to link Clubs in need of Role takers, with Toastmasters willing to help by taking on said roles. But I asked friends to join and support the need. This is where I saw members who were servant leaders indeed. On the other hand, the chat group also became our wider arena for sharing memes, articles or other useful tips for any Toastmaster - and yes, there were the corny jokes too... but all these helped build the community of friends, and through this - get to invite TOastmaster to becoming new HOLAns.
I'd like to think that all this effort helped us reach President's Distinguished roughly a month before the TM year's end. But I was constatnly monitoring this. We got new and renewed members - specially appreciating the renewed members really saying that their memerbship in HOLA was one of the better things that happened in their Toastmasters journey - in other words, worth the membership fee. That made me happy. It proved that we were on the right track. As I said, there were some things we could have done better... but being a strong club on it's second year proves that our frist try to having a Presdient's Distinguished CLub was not a fluke.
A few weeks after transitioning, I will admit to a few moments of Separation Anxiety. But I trust the new ExCom. I'll suport them in any way I can... but yes, I can relax now. Specially since I also ended my stint as a Division Director at the same time. It seems I shall still be doing some work for the District... this time, as the District's Disciplinarian.
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