Idea Factory

At the Vice Presidents, Education Honors Breakfast February 13th, 2010, we passed around a form called an Idea Factory, where people wrote down an idea, then passed it on to their neighbor, who wrote an idea, etc., to create an assembly line of good ideas as a take-away. Here are over 100 of the good ideas we cranked out in under 10 minutes.

• Meet with members one-on-one periodically to ensure they are meeting their individual Toastmasters goals.
• Follow up with speakers two weeks before the meeting to ensure that they are prepared to speak.
• Create interesting themes for each meeting.
• Schedule meetings with topics for new recruits.
• Have a raffle to generate interest.
• Target a local company with invitations to attend your meeting.
• Create a program to follow several new clubs, and have a contest for the "most improved" member's progression in speaking, with his comments as a "motivational marketing" campaign.
• Meet with another club twice a year to see what else is out there.
• Take lots of pictures and upload them to the club website or Facebook.
• Hold your meeting in a new location.
• Run your meeting as a practice contest.
• Run a protest program.
• Have a theme such as "give your views on where our government is going."
• Give ribbons/prizes for speaking.
• Hold a wine tasting.
• Have a club attendance contest.
• Create campus commercials/newspaper articles.
• Give out free Toastmasters advanced speech books.
• Staff a booth at a business expo.
• Leverage the "invitation" of VA to set up a contest at their club with the VA as the "host."
• Give pins to new members in a twice yearly new member acknowledgment ceremony.
• Make a professional website, link to it with freetoasthost and the Toastmasters International site.
• Hold an educational meeting on Toastmasters skills every three months.
• Hold an Open House at least every quarter.
• Talk to the new members and find out their motivation for coming to the Toastmasters meeting.
• Have a guest book for people to sign in (both at the meeting and on the club web site).
• Use Facebook, email, and phone to keep in touch with all members, especially new members.
• Do a game day, whether a sport or a game show for a new theme.
• Drip on people! All the time! {Not sure I'm reading that right. Could be "rip" on people, but I don't condone that....}
• Set up/provide a section on your website for club specific content. {I believe this is aimed at the D57 Toastmasters web site. We do not maintain information on individual standard clubs, because there are other sites that already provide that service, and non-members are not likely to come to the district site for club information. We do maintain information on specialty clubs, because they are of interest to existing members throughout the district.}
• Hold a talent show.
• Hold an educational speaking contest.
• Candid camera.
• Keep recording each member's progress in speech.
• Set up a "live chat" to offer help to members.
• On your web site, remember to invite them to provide their contact information so that you can contact interested members.
• Give a quarterly or twice yearly update to the group about where members are (for example, "John is 2 speeches away from ACB," etc.).
• Put video examples from your meetings on your web site.
• Encourage interaction with groups in your area.
• Have enjoyable debates.
• Have a formal induction ceremony for new members.
• Roast the commander — invite the entire town of Yountville.
• Send out the meeting agenda in advance via email.
• Have some training programs on days other than Saturday. {This appears to be aimed at me (the LGET). We have offered officer training in a variety of locations and times. Saturday is the best day for most people, and will always be the preferred day for TLI and conferences. Any other day of the week will result in fewer attendees. Since most people work during the week and spend family time on Sunday, Saturday is the natural choice for major events, though we know that will not accommodate everyone in the district.}
• Be aware of your Toastmasters club. {Not precisely sure what that means, but it's good advice.}
• Create flyers as a way to advertise club to potential members. {In my club we received some criticism for a non-green distribution of flyers to all of our employees. We have since switched to posting flyers in common areas.}
• Meet at a different location once per quarter.
• Toastmasters in the Park.
• Assign leadership evaluators ahead of time, as you do speech evaluators.
• Maintain a strong mentoring program.
• Serve tea and coffee at the beginning of the meeting.
• Send text reminders to all members prior to the meeting. Another suggestion was to text message all members 30 minutes prior to the meeting.
• Serve healthy snacks at the start of the meeting.
• Provide bottled water or club soda.
• Plan speech schedule 2 months in advance. {Schedule times vary, but a good rule of thumb is scheduling all roles 4 weeks in advance. Establish a policy where the VPE assigns roles if there are no volunteers, and expect members to inform you in advance if they will be unable to attend. Use roles as a way to motivate attendance and help people to achieve their educational goals in a timely way.}
• Bring flowers to the meeting.
• Promote the Competent Leadership manual by example and by encouraging its use at the start of every meeting.
• Have a trophy for Toastmaster of the Day and/or Best Table Topic. Let the member take it home (or back to their desk) for a week, and return it at the next meeting. {Another way to do this is to hand the member the trophy in the meeting, but give them a ribbon to take with them, so that the trophy remains in the custody of the Sergeant-At-Arms at all times.}
• Conduct joint meetings with other clubs, to share ideas and learn from one another. {It's often instructional to schedule a speaker from each club, and have them evaluated by members from the other club.}
• Play music before and after each meeting.
• Give a presentation about Toastmasters at a local Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
• All officers make a point of talking to all members on a regular basis, just to find out what they're thinking regarding the club and their personal success.
• Make sure you and your members attend contests, whether club contests, area, division, district, or international. See how much fun they are, and learn from watching excellent, well-prepared speakers.
• Periodically brainstorm meeting themes with the entire club, to get everyone's ideas on what will interest them most.
• Have a special session at a meeting where you explain to all members how to figure the pro-rated dues on the back of the membership form. {Excellent suggestion! This is not hard to understand, but it can get confusing if it's the first time you've ever tried to figure dues while a new member is watching: getting the dues wrong is a de-motivator for new members, and can make them feel unwelcome.}
• Have a repository of form templates at the district web site for new clubs to use. {Actually, I revived the club and officer information pages just last week. If you have or can think of other forms that we should include, please send a note to webmaster@d57toastmasters.org.
• All officers, make yourselves business cards using the Avery template on the Toastmasters web site. {There's also a copy on the d57toastmasters.org site: BusinessCards-AveryInkjetTemplate8371-district.doc.
• Be proud! Express how great it is to be part of Toastmasters International!
• Include information about each officer on the club web site.
• Give special awards for humor.
• Have each new member read the Toastmaster's Promise aloud at their induction ceremony.
• Have a positive point at each meeting.
• Recognize new members at the start of their first meeting.
• Remember to have each new member 1) give a table topic at their first meeting; 2) perform a role at their second meeting, such as timer or ah counter; 3) give their Ice Breaker speech at their third meeting.
• Buy member pins for all members, and give them to new members during the induction ceremony.
• Change the paper color for the agenda.
• Make the agenda look really snazzy!
• Use the Contest Set-up Checklist to ensure a quality club contest.
• Form an Education Committee to share duties and to prepare your successor.
• Celebrate each educational award with a party!
• Have a Reunion Meeting.
• Plan each meeting, rather than always using the default 2 speech, table topics, evaluation and reports format. {While it's good to use the standard format most of the time, once per month or so it's a good idea to mix it up with a reverse meeting, an informal contest, a debate, a backwards meeting, or something else that will spice things up and keep the experience fresh for your members.}
• Pass out and use one of the alternative Competent Leader manual matrices from the District 57 web site.
• Use video to train members.
• Use Twitter or Meetup.com to communicate about future events.
• Provide a workshop or webinar for new Vice Presidents, Education on how to utilize technology to make the job easier.
• Greet visitors warmly, and follow up before the next meeting.
• Talk about health issues.
• Ensure members are clear on how to complete the Leadership track. {In particular, be certain that everyone knows that while there are 44 tasks they might complete in the CL manual, only 21-22 are required to earn the Competent Leader award.}
• Have a mentor training session, as needed, during your meetings.
• Pass Competent Leader manuals to the member on the right so that they receive credit for meeting roles. {I suggest that you hand the manual to someone who did not bring their C. L. manual to the meeting: this way, they have to read the lesson and they can see how easy it is to meet the requirements for the Competent Leader award.}
• Speak slower.
• The Vice President, Education battle cry: "Show me the manual!"
• Give historical speeches and demonstrations.
• Speech with food.
• Publically track speaker progress, on a chart or in an Excel spreadsheet periodically distributed to all members.
• Use the Better Speaker Series, Successful Club Series, and Leadership Excellence Series on a regular basis. Mix up the presenters to give them credit toward advanced communication and leadership awards. {A trick from Dave Orris: if someone tells you that they "didn't have time to prepare a speech," hand that person one of the presentations from these series, tell them to go in a corner and practice, and have them read it to the club. This way, they get credit toward an advanced award, the club receives good information, there is no dead air in the club meeting, and the member learns that you can't get out of your speaking slot by claiming you're not prepared. :-)}
• Sign up your relatives as new members.
• Try to see how many members' names you can remember. {That would be an interesting game in a meeting, particularly in a large club!}
• Everyone who has achieved their CC must be a mentor: make that a cultural norm. {Remember that mentors are not only assigned to new members, but also experienced members who can use guidance on areas that are someone else's expertise.}
• Next time you do [an Idea Factory], provide some general brackets. {Thanks for the feedback, but I disagree. I'm impressed with the variety of ideas generated in this free-form fashion. We can organize them after fact...or not. :-)}
• Have social events purely to have fun and enjoy each other's company.
• Display the DCP chart showing the club's progress as a whole.
• VPEs, make sure everyone knows who you are, and what your function is in the club!
• Put an educational point in each meeting agenda.
• Explain the benefits of the Toastmasters Educational program. {There is a Successful Club module on that very subject, in fact.}
• Listen.
• Call members who haven't attended for a while. {My rule of thumb, if someone misses three weekly meetings in a row, or two monthly meetings, you really need to call them: the sooner, the better, though.}
• Have club officers regularly speak about how to get the most out of Toastmasters (roles, offices, leadership, contests, etc.).
• Have a leadership succession plan for the club.
• Where a different hat (cap day).
• Stay in touch with other Vice Presidents, Education in your area and across the district.
• All speeches are based on lessons from the manual when given in a club. {The only time a speaker should not be earning manual credit is when repeating the same speech in preparation for a presentation or contest: otherwise, all speeches should be new (or substantially edited) material in line with the stated objectives of a lesson in the Competent Communicator and/or Advanced Communication manual.}
• Make spare copies of Competent Communicator evaluations. {Caveat: we all love Toastmasters International. The copyright on educational materials is important. If you make copies of lesson evaluations, it should be for the express purpose of stapling them into official printed manuals. Making copies of manual lessons without purchasing the manuals themselves hurts Toastmasters International, and, by the way, is also illegal.}
• Use teams. {Again, vague, but good advice that can be applied across the board!}
• Use social networks to promote your club.
• Encourage learning about different skills.
• Promote signing up for all meeting roles.
• Love your club memebers.
• Use poetry some of the time. {As the Dean of the AllPoetry.com online school, I wholeheartedly concur!}
• Club members wear name badges. {Place cards are also effective, and help people feel welcome.}
• Celebrate the anniversary of your club charter.
• Read the club mission at the start of each meeting. Periodically read the Toastmaster's Promise as a group.
• Have a listening training session.
• Have training sessions for evaluations. {Per Gary Wong, effective evaluation is the heart and soul of Toastmasters. We might be very accomplished speakers, but we can always improve our evaluation skills, tailoring them to the specific needs of each individual.}
• Create and distribute maps to your members showing the area, division, and district. {A link to the district map is available on d57toastmasters.org.}
• Post an availability chart. {Interesting, have members regularly post their availability, rather than their absences!}
• Schedule all roles for active members.
• Reinforce the Toastmasters Promise. {Nice idea: when you catch a member in the act of fulfilling the promise, give recognition in the meeting.}
• Use speaking games.
• Use Turbo Base to fill roles in advance.
• Speaking is about speaking from the heart, not just the form. Content is more important than form. {Agreed: but speaking from the heart is entirely compatible with speaking using the guidelines in our lessons.}
• Consider purchasing a projector for the club to enable members to practice with PowerPoint and other computer visuals.
• Standardize the meeting agenda so that new Toastmasters can run the meeting effectively. {New Toastmasters should be assigned to run meetings in the club's standard format. Including such things as time cues and detailed information on which role should be facilitating which part of the meeting makes it easier for the Toastmaster to succeed every time. Remember that the President (or VPE in his/her absence) should always sit next to the Toastmaster to give guidance during the meeting: do this for all members, not just newbies, because everyone needs a noodge now and again.}
• Run a session on Parliamentary Procedure. {While you don't need to use Parliamentary Procedure for normal business during a meeting or executive committee meeting, it can be useful if you find that you're not able to reach resolution on issues in an efficient way. We do use Parliamentary Procedure at the District Council meeting, though, so it's good for clubs to practice the basics in preparation for the district conferences.}
• Use Table Topics to have people express ideas for getting new members, make improvements in the club, or generally talk about how they think things are going.

Not bad for 10 minutes of effort! If you have additional ideas you would like to contribute to the list, send a note to webmaster@d57toastmasters.org and we'll tack them right on!