Regular Meeting Minutes of South County Toastmasters Club # 1957
Theme: Celebration
Meeting Date: 12/2/2009
Called To Order At: 7:00 pm CDT
Location: Met Life
Presiding Officer: Rich Ullrich, President
Toastmaster: Kathy Denton
General Evaluator: Gina Willard
Time Keeper: Joe Archambault
Ah Counter: Bill Collier
Vote Counter: David Welshon
Grammarian: Richard Hiers
Invocator: Amby Mafort
Camera Operator: Kevin Wilson
Table Topics: Mary Ann King
Joke Master: Jim Salih
Hot Seat: Steve Winheim
Greeter: Carl Hendrickson
The minutes from last week’s meeting were accepted as sent via e-mail to all members.
OFFICERS’ REPORTS:
President:
VP of Education:
VP of Membership:
VP of Public Relations:
Treasurer:
Secretary:
Sergeant of Arms:
Officer at Large:
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
NOMINATING COMMITTEE: Karl Beck is still looking for a Treasurer, Sgt at Arms and and an Officer at large.
MARKETING COMMITTEE:
Present at the meeting: Tom, Carl, Rich, Mary Ann, Sue, Bill and guest Howard
Discussions:
* Consensus that an Education Committee is a good idea – possibly to be chaired by immediate Past President, but that is not a necessity. One key goal would be member satisfaction, which in turn impacts retention. President Rich is already aware of this idea and has indicated he favors it. This committee would like to see someone pick up this ball and run with it. One concern: We don’t want a core group of members who make up all committees – get more folks involved.
* In January, Sue plans to have a Mentoring Meeting, tentatively Jan. 20th. See her separate email for a description. This helps address some of the issues brought up in our survey.
* Tom suggests using a regular meeting slot to conduct a “Presentation Skills 101” workshop, run by various club members. This would be open to the public and would serve the dual purposes of attracting potential members and educating existing members, especially newer ones. Tom had to leave our meeting early so he doesn’t know that the committee agrees with doing this but recommends we do it in late February, in the normal “Speech-a-Rama” slot. That way, we have plenty of time to prepare, to market it to the outside world, and putting it in the speech-a-rama slot ensures we have plenty of content.
* Consensus that remaining at the same membership level as we were a year or so ago, after inducting 25 new members in the last 17 months is a concern. This many new members should result in net growth. If we had the same new member rate as many other clubs, we’d be in trouble.
*Brief discussion about whether this committee needs to meet every month, or go to either bi-monthly or quarterly meetings. If we assign clear tasks, communicate via email, and use Google Documents to keep on top of what’s going on, maybe less frequent meetings will work. We can always get together when asked by the VPM or VPPR. ANYONE HAVE THOUGHTS ON THIS?
This recommendation comes from me as committee chair, so I don’t presume to speak for the rest of the committee members: I recommend the club make a concerted effort to form an education committee – if for no other reason than to stop the bleeding of member losses. Since we’re now forming a new slate of officers, getting the new incoming VPE and president on board with the idea would be great timing.
Kudos to Tom. I visited with 2 new members last night – Amby and Richard – and both said they found us thru our website.
OUR NEXT MEETING IS SCHEDULED FOR JAN. 6. PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDAR.
OLD BUSINESS:
– Max Kaiser told us that the Webster University Speech Contest is this weekend. If you’d like to be a judge, get more details from Max ASAP.
– Dick Shields reminded us about the Christmas Party – Dec. 16th. Details are on the website.
NEW BUSINESS:
A motion by Jim Salih and amended by Howard Brandt was made to allow the use of an email listing the new officer recommendations as one of our two required notices. We also would vote on the new officers on Jan. 6th and havetheir induction that same night.
CORRESPONDENCE & ANNOUNCEMENTS:
– Carl Hendrickson gave a speech about Identity theft to an outside group.
-Kevin Wilson suggested that people who wanted to gt ther “Full Circle Award ” this year that they swap with people who are assigned duties next week. (Note – Kevin has a book which shows what duties you’ve had in the last year.)
– Sue Dickemper said that next week – Dec. 9th, the club is going to have a TableTopics practice before the regular meeting. It will start at 6:15 pm.
– Rich Ullrich reported the dates for New Officer Training
Saturday January 30, 2010
8:30 AM – Noon
Twin Rivers Worship Center
To earn the DCP point for your club – a MINIMUM of 4 officers must attend training in BOTH June and January – even if your officers serve 1 year terms. All of you were successful at getting your officers to training in June – so this now becomes the world’s easiest DCP point for your clubs — and it’s FREE! Also, please encourage anyone you know about who is thinking about being an officer next year to attend to find out what they will be expected to do before they jump in.
GUESTS: Kelly Metcalf
ATTENDANCE
Archambault, Joseph (Joe)
Beck, Karl
Bettag, Jack
Brandt, Howard
Collier, Bill
Denton, Kathy
Dickemper, Sue
Gissel, Erin C.
Hendrickson, Carl
Hiers, Richard
Kaiser Jr, Max
King, Mary Ann
Reichardt, Kevin
Scott, Nilsa
Shields, Dick
Sowers, Judy
Stewart, Brent
Terrific, Tom
Ullrich, Rich
Welshon, David
Willard, Gina
Wilson, Kevin
Winheim, Steve
(Total: 20 members plus 1 guest)
SPEAKERS & EVALUATORS:
Speaker 1: Kevin Reichardt
Speaker 2: Judy Sowers
Speaker 3:Dick Shields
Speaker 4: Nilsa Scott
Evaluator 1: Howard Brandt
Evaluator 2: Jack Bettag
Evaluator 3:Erin Gissel
Evaluator 4: Karl Beck
AWARDS:
Most Improved: Judy Sowers
Best Evaluator: Jack Bettag
Best Table Topics: Carl Hendrickson
Best Speaker: Judy Sowers
OTHER:
Rating for the meeting: 8.5
Meeting adjourned at 9:06 pm CDT
Respectively Submitted, Tom Terrific Acting Secretary
southcountytoastmasters.org 