Vision 2020

After we have achieved full division status at the end of my term as Division A Governor, I have a vision. I called it Vision 2020.

Vision 2020 simply means aim for 20 clubs and each club having a minimum membership strength of 20.

When a club's membership falls below charter strength of 20

• meeting quality deteriorates
• club does not enough members to play even the basic meeting roles
• guests who visit the club do not have a good impression of the club and so normally do not even consider joining
• the finacial status of the club is challenged. The membership collections simply cannot cope with venue and meeitng expenses.

When no action is taken , most clubs like this drift into oblivion. There are many examples of such clubs even within our own Division.

After we have attained the minimum requirement of 12 clubs to claim full Division status, it is logical to launch vision 20 20.

More clubs and more members means we have a larger pool of talents to ensure varied and stimulating meetings.

And should you sit back and reflect at this moment, you will realize that the primary objective of you joining the Toastmasters movement is to tap that intelledctual stimulus to spur you towards improvements in leadership and communication skills.

When we have the critical mass, meaning enough clubs and enough members,

• meetings become interesting
• clubs have enough participants and financial strength to organize bigger events
• guests are impressed, and ready to consider joining the club

And all the clubs in the Division is poised for many years of fulfilling and rewarding Toastmasters programs.

Drama

The idea of having a drama or sketch session as a time filler came to me sometime last year while talking to some members. They thought we "must " have "interview " as part of a speech contest.

We interview participants after the speech contest at club level. At the Area level we do the same. Then at the Division level we found ourselves interviewing almost the same few people again. Although we do try to vary the questions, interviews at division level often go without attracting any applause. Interviews become a mundane part of the event.

To fill up the lull between the completion of a speech contest and the time when the results are announced, we can be actually be more creative eg. have a humour session, someone do an advanced project like " talk show" , interview .....or do a sketch, as long as it falls within the objectives of Toastmasters


Well, I am happy that we had two sketches in a recent Division event. The results were astounding. The participants enjoyed it and the audience loved it.

It served two objectives:

1. show our members that we can do more than just "interviews" at speech contests.
2. As true Asians, we tend to be monotonous in the way we speak. We thought by having some drama in our programs, we help bring awareness to this probelm and probably also help to change that tendency in due time. We achieved a certain degree of success at this first trial. The participants were clearly seen trying their best to incorporate vocal variety.

We actually had two groups:

1. The first group had the scripts days before hand. They did well.
2. The second group were given the scripts on the spot but allowed to hold the scripts as they perform. They were asked to concentrate on vocals, like doing a radio show, except that it was almost impromptu.

Both groups did well, and the audience responded with thunderous applause.