So you want to run a speechcraft course

This blog article is for Toastmasters members who are interested in running a Toastmasters International Speechcraft Course.  The planning experience has been a positive and enjoyable and enriching experience for me, so join me on my week by week blog.  Hope it helps other Toastmasters in speechcraft planning or inspires you to take it on as a membership and team/morale building exercise for your club.

My Commitment
I decided to run a speechcraft course.  This would help me ahcieve my Advanced Communicator Gold Award that I wanted to ahcieve in the 09/10 TM year.  I looked at the other projects to achieve this and although they were much less time consuming, I decided that speechcraft was in demand and would be a great membership builder.

The idea was hatched
My Club Kew has a healthy membership, but our neighbouring club Manningham (previously Doncaster) has very low membership, so why not run it in conjuction with the two clubs at the Manningham club, to boost membership for Manningham.  Our area Governor thought this was an excellent idea and put it to the Manningham club.  They were excited too, so the "Manningham Toastmasters Speechcraft Course" was officially launched.

The opportunities were:

• Credit toward my ACG award as being the official co-ordinator
• Membership building for Manningham Club
• Team/morale building for Manningham Club
• Raised awareness of the Manningham Club
• Communications and leadership opportunities outside the club for all involved
• Experience for toastmasters members in the speechcraft program for future courses
• Toastmasters members can run educationals credited to their awards
• Participants will receive high quality value for money course
• Participants will receive 6 months membership to Manningham Club at the end of the course if they take up the invitation
• Participants will receive credit for 3 speeches on their Competent Communicator Award (if they join TM)
• Club will attain DCP points for memberhsip and towards CC & CL goals

Before I started at Toastmasters I would have thought it crazy if it were suggested that "I" run a 6 week public speaking course, (especially for free).  But that's how Toastmasters can give you the skills and confidence that turns your approach to life around, when you give YOU RECIEVE.

The broad details were decided
Between our two clubs we decided to maximise the likelihood of participants joining as Manningham members:

• The venue was to be at the Manningham club rooms, they were available, reasonably priced and the infrastructure was already there, the participants would be familiar with the club rooms.
• We decided on a 6 week program, 2 hr sessions for 10 participants spanning Oct & Nov 2009
• The night was decided as a mutually available night at a similar time to the Manningham club meeting time but on a different night.
• It was decided to run it as a separate couse to the club meeting nights (the co-ordinators manual suggests run it on meeting nights)  this makes the course an event of its own and also will not detract from the meeting goals of the club's regular meetings.
• The price was set at $120pp to cover expenses with no profit.  This covered venue hire, manuals, supper, misc stationary, and six months membership to Manningham Club (the TMI joining fee would come from surplus funds from the course or met by the Manningham Club).
• Participants will be invited at the end of the course to become members, for ongoing support (which will be based on their decision to commit to join the club).

The 6 week schedule was drawn up
I planed each session, a rough agenda drawn up for each night.
My overall schedule covered:

• 4 speeches by the participants (each with a written and verbal evaluation)
• 1 evaluation by the participants
• 1 introduction by the participants
• 1 recieving an award by the participants
• At least 4 opportunities for impromptu speaking by participants
• A Toastmaster for each evening
• A timer/table topics master for each evening
• Evaluators for speeches and table topics for each evening

Educationals on:

• Overcoming nerves
• Selecting speech topics
• Speech structure
• Introducing a speaker
• Evaluations
• Body language
• Vocal variety & word selection

There is a minimum content to be covered according to the co-ordinators guide, this course covers much more.  The schedule is intense and rich in content and maximum speaking opportunities for the participants.
The scheduling did take a bit of time to complete but is an essential step to get the schedule organised in the initial stages to be clear on resourcing.



Call for volunteers
No one can run a speechcraft on their own!  Here is where the leadership comes in.
I ran an educational speech at Manningham and the Wafflers Clubs and an announcement was made at Kew.  The great thing about Toastmasters is you put out the call and people come to help.

I had more than enough Toastmasters responding.

I scheduled 4 Toastmasters members for the first 3 nights, 3 Toastmasters members for the next two and 4 again for the final night to fill the requirements on the schedule.


Assign tasks to resources
This again took a bit of time ot work out the best roles for the experienced Toastmasters and the best roles for the emerging Toastmasters.  I called in specific Toastmasters with exceptional skills for particular educationals.  It is a real show case for the talent we have in our area, the participants are very lucky to have such a skilled team to support them.

Things to think about are that there is no duplication in assigning roles,  ie ensure that a toastmaster is not running a section and expected to evaluate as well.  It is important to not have too many Toastmasters involved in one night, because you don't want more Toastmasters than participants and it gets too hard to organise a lot of people each night (the exception to this comment is if you are running it inconjuction with regular  meetings).  I had an open invitiation to Toastmasters members if they were not involved on the night to come and observe as a learning experience for future courses.

When resources were assigned I sent an email out to each resource for each week with venue details, dates, times, draft agenda, outlined their specific task and educational deliverables for the tasks and timing.
Then I waited for confirmations and/or inabilities.  Then revamped the schedule.


The Participants
We sourced our participants from:

• Visitors t the Kew and Manningham clubs
• Spread the word to Area, Division and District Governors
• Letter box drop of flyers in the local area
• Contacted past enquiries made to District about upcoming speechcraft
• Visited local business networking clubs

Initially our intention was to target participants who live locally who potentially would join the Manningham Club, but invitation was extended to all interested parties.  Participants were only confirmed on the course when they had paid in full.  This was done by direct credit into the Manningham account.


The Response
1 week before the start date we had 8 participants paid up, with another 3 promising to pay prior to the course.  This article was written 6 days before the course commenced.  Participants were sent a confirmation letter with venue details, dates, times, what to bring, and instructions on preparing their first assignment a 2 min Ice Breaker, the message included an outline about the Ice Breaker speech.
Organised some extra participant's manuals to be purchased to cater for potentially one or two extra participants.  Expectation that at least one may drop out before the end of the course.


The Team Building Effect
There has been such a buzz about this course, the feedback from the participants was exciting.  The feedback from the Toastmasters members and leaders has been exciting.  The Manningham club members have joined together to promote and facilitate the administration.  It will be a much more enthused and invigorated club at the end of the 6 weeks.  I am expecting a growth in memberhip too.


Finalizing The Agenda
Preparted the draft agenda, waiting on the final participants payments to go through, to add them to the agenda, will send out agenda to participants and Toastmasters members prior to the first meeting.

IT'S ALL SO EXCITING   -   CAN'T WAIT FOR WEEK 1