Toastmasters Leadership Institute's Club Officer's Training (a.k.a TLI COTS)

I’m not sure how many newly-elected Club Officers reacted like myself. “Oh dear…now that I’ve just become an Office-bearer, how can I perform effectively to serve our members well?”

Well, the COTS training could not have come at a better time. Organized by the TLI (Toastmaster Leadership Institute) of Division C on the 3rd of July with the theme “Achieving Greatness Together, this half-day event served as the venue to orientate new Club Officers for 2010/2011 term towards achieving success in their roles. It also presented and excellent networking opportunity for Club Officers from each club, to know and meet their fellow counterparts in Division C.

(For those unfamiliar with Toastmaster International’s demarcation of locations, there are 14 Regions around the world (as of 1 July, 2010). About half of South-East Asian countries fall under Region 14, where there are four Districts (51, 75, 80 and 87. You can see this visually here: http://www.toastmasters.org/websiteApps/policyProcedures/SectionVIA99DistrictMap.pdf

Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia make up District 51, where there are 15 Divisions. Division C, consisting of clubs mainly in Selangor and Negeri Sembilan are divided into 7 Areas, in which our own Port Dickson Toastmaster’s Club fall under Area C2.)

More than 130 Toastmasters filled up the entire lecture hall at the PJ Stamford College. Four officers from the Port Dickson Toastmaster’s Club attended, myself included. The session started on time at 1.30pm, was already in full swing by the time I arrived at 1.45pm (now, doesn’t that sound familiar…). Our President Soo Guan, and VPs Kay Ku and Rosa Phua were already seated somewhere in the room, so I quietly sneaked in by the sidelines after the conclusion of the opening address.

Subjects like Leadership, Goal Setting, and the likes has been spoken so often nowadays, and yet I found the presentations very engaging. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the topics focused specifically on the context of running a successful Toastmasters club, and I was bowled over by the level of devotion these seasoned Toastmasters had in advancing the mission of Toastmasters International.

The message from some presentations stood out for me. Sue Chan who came all the way from Seberang Jaya Toastmasters Club presented ‘Charting Course for Club Success’, which exposed me for the first time the scoring system used in the Distinguished Club Programme award. As she detailed out the criteria for success for the club and Club Officers alike, it dawned upon me achieving any Distinguished Club award is no small feat, and can only be attributed to that a great deal of personal commitment of resources and time by our PD Toastmasters Club’s past Presidents and Club Officers – coupled with precise planning and most importantly, teamwork.

Equally outstanding was the presentation delivery by Dennis Wee from D’Utama Toastmasters Club, ‘Attracting New Members’. Here, he detailed out the importance of the need to constantly inject new blood into the club. He also shared many useful promotional tips on how to bring in the crowd to club events – effectively cutting out the work ahead especially for the club’s VP Membership and Public Relations.

A 1-hour breakout session halfway through the afternoon was a welcomed break. It allowed interactions between counterparts of Club Officers, via separate sessions were held in different rooms for Presidents, VP Membership, VP Public Relations, Treasurer, Secretary and Sergeant-at-Arms. These sessions were facilitated by experienced Club Officers who shared many successful practices Office-bearers can use to achieve success in their respective roles.

The COTS training ended at about 6pm. Although it was 20 minutes past the original time schedule, this was quite an achievement in time-keeping looking at the fact that the entire COTS training spanned over 5 and a half hours, and also the tendency for Toastmasters to continue talking non-stop whenever they congregate!

Overall, I felt that the TLI committee did a wonderful job putting the programme together. It achieved its objective of orientating newly-elected committee members, especially those who are holding office for the first time. For the more seasoned committee members who have attended similar events before, they also noticed an improvement in some presentations by some speakers – cementing the fact that even good speakers get better with conscious effort!

All said and done, armed with new perspectives gained from the presentations, it is time for the Committee of each club to get cracking towards Achieving their goals!

VPPR
Chua Eu Chieh

Ps. I'm having some problems extracting the photos taken during the event onto my computer...once I get some expert help, look out for them!

2010 07 12: Still not able to download the photos taken on my 'smart' phone. But, thanks to Soo Guan and Robert Ram, I've gotten hold of these pics. Do enjoy!

During one of the break-out group sessions: