HPL - putting together the team

The great thing about Toastmasters is ask for help and you shall be helped.

After my sharing the vision speech I had offers of help to be on the team to make it happen.

I won't mention specific names but wonderful members of my club offered to help in the various roles I established.

• Catering
• Design promotional material - flyer - web image
• PR - media contacts - high profile community contacts
• Web design
• Contact former presidents
• Contact former members

http://www.kewtoastmasters.org/

I took on the RSVP roll so I could keep a handle on how many guests were attending and who had paid to date.

My toastmaster for the evening was also one of my guidance committee members, this made communication and guidance committee meetings easy. We worked together on themes and agenda details.  I contacted individuals to ensure they would be available for agenda roles (and am still finalising this at present).

The big ace up my sleeve for the night was to invite two of our former members to be guest speakers.  Jock Elliott who has been in the world championship of public speaking 5 times, coming 3rd once.  He had moved interstate.  So I emailed him

I also asked Eamonn Moran our former President, long time member and former District Governor to come too.  He is living overseas.

Having them both live so far away I thought they probably wont be able to make it but the BOTH SAID YES!   I couldn't believe my luck what a great night it would be to have them both back with us.  But this created another problem in scheduling enough time for both of them on the agenda and also having enough time for socialising.  hmmmmmmmmm

HPL the Vision

Kew Toastmasters 30th Anniversary celebration - forming the vision

The 30th Anniversary Celebration of our club was a big task to take on.  Such a special occation for so many people.  I had to make sure it was celebrated in a way that reflected our clubs values and our members wishes. 30 years is a long time for a volunteer organisation to operate, especially one that is involved with peoples greatest fear - public speaking.  Our long gevity is testimony to the success of our club.

My vision for the event was:

• Celebration of Kew Toastmasters 30 year history
• Inspire and instil pride in current members
• promote to wider community to attract guests to the event and/or raise awareness/promotion of Toastmasters for membership growth opportunity for all clubs
• Fellowship, food, drink, fun.

My core values were:

• Inclusion of all:
• current members
• past members (where able to contact)
• guests - potential members
• Fun and entertaining
• Showcase Kew Toastmasters as "the premier toastmasters club" of Melbourne

The idea was to hold the celebration on a regular club meeting night at the club to reduce costs.  As we cannot use club funds for entertainment a small covercharge was to be charged to pay for the catering, promotion and other administrative costs.

I presented my "sharing your vision" speach to the club on 3rd Feb 2010.

High Performance Leadership - HPL background

Kew Toastmasters 30th Anniversary Celebration meeting  - My HPL project.

For me this toastmasters year was the year to do those leadership tasks towards my "Distinguished Toastmaster" award, and the High Performance Leadership was one of them.  But what to choose as a project.  I initally thought of reserecting the speakers bureau for our district.  So I did a lot of research into this and what was involved.  My conclusion was this was a very worthwhile project but a bad choice for a HPL because the speakers bureau would be an on-going task and probably take up all my available TM time.  It is a much better choice to choose a project that has an exact end time so it is more measureable.

With this in mind I decided to organise Kew Toastmasters 30th Anniversary celebration meeting. I started working on this back in November 09 so I have been a bit slack in bloging it to date. 

Toastmasters International provide a comprehensive High Performance Leadership manual/workbook it also includes work books for your guidance committee.  It gives you some theory on leadership, choosing objectives, setting missions and core values and sharing your vision.  There are intervals through the book where sign off is to be done by the guidance committee. The manual gives you a methodology you could use but it may not suit all projects.  I think the value is to read the manual and follow it as long as it adds value to your process, but work closely with your guidance committee, keep them informed of progress, keep the project running successfully.

So with manual in hand, project chosen and guidance committee of two experienced members I started.