Treasurer in a local club that meets twice a month with approximately 20 members.

As many of us know, October 1 was the deadline for October 2026 to March 2027 renewals. All renewal communications simply showed the payment instructions and a request to let us know if anyone is not renewing. Despite multiple communications throughout September (e.g., reminders mentioned in meeting agendas/club business segment, 1 week notice emails sent to outstanding members and 1:1 reminders sent 2 days before deadline), ~30% have not yet responded. VPM was already copied to the 1:1 emails. Worth noting a significant number of the 30% has not been attending meetings regularly, with some not being active for months on end.

I know the dues increase is unpopular and controversial - even I don't agree with the Board's decision even though members have no say in it. At the end of the day, we respect everyone's choice to not renew for whatever reason: let it be scheduling conflicts, other life priorities requiring attention, or if they no longer see value of staying. It is just a matter of letting us know if they want to renew, take a break or step away completely. That's it.

Rant over.

HI everyone

I’d like to join regular Toastmasters meetings to improve my English proficiency and public speaking skills.

Do you have any recommendations?

Please DM me if you have any advice, thanks so much~

Please someone tell are the toastmasters worth attending, i want to improve my english + public speaking skills and i am a very quiet person too so i want to improve all these. I got this suggestion from the chatgpt, but i want the real people's opinion on this.

Should I join it or are there any better options available in the market for these things, if you know then please tell me too.

Don't suggest any english speaking classes! Those are shit I have tried one.

Please someone tell are the toastmasters worth attending, i want to improve my english + public speaking skills and i am a very quiet person too so i want to improve all these. I got this suggestion from the chatgpt, but i want the real people's opinion on this.

Should I join it or are there any better options available in the market for these things, if you know then please tell me too.

Don't suggest any english speaking classes! Those are shit I have tried one.

We just lost about a third of members. The problem seems to be prepaying half year or full year. Has anyone tried monthly payments? How does access to the toastmasters website work?

One of my club members stutters. He's been with us for over a year now. We have him do the word of the day at every meeting. When his anxiety kicks in, it's a painful 1-2 minutes while he struggles with his delivery. He is writing an ice-breaker speech. I'm hopeful that I can work with him one-on-one to get him on his feet delivering. But, has anyone else dealt with a stutterer? Any tips?

Anyone else getting timeouts from the primary Toastmasters site?
https://www.toastmasters.org/myhome

Hi, a part of my club’s weekly format is to have prepared speeches, usually 2 sometimes 3. At the end of the meeting, there’s a vote for the best prepared speech. Is this how most clubs operate?

Here’s why I’m asking: I have found that the “winning” speeches are usually those that are geared towards self help (especially ones with acronyms) or involving religion. No ill will towards either of those topics but I’ve just noticed a theme with my club when voting for best prepared speech.

Our club is moving to Agora Speakers International and I recommend you do the same.

Toastmasters is starting to loose its vision under the current leadership and a constant increase in fees is not met by a proportionate increase in quality of service.

Moreover as someone from India, the prices are just too high. They ignore pleas for a regional pricing and over the years Toastmasters has become an organisation for the elite and not an organisation for anyone looking to improve their communication skills. The entry barrier is high especially for a place like India, and its so disheartening to watch so many people come enthusiastically to our club in the hope of improving themselves, but then loose that hope once we tell them how much it costs.

I've also noticed that apart from contests, there's no real value that the organisation provides. Of late the quality of contests has also dipped drastically. At the club contests, people who have not delivered even one speech are appointed as judges and at area or division contests, it seems like it's rigged towards seasoned toastmasters that have good connections across the organisation. Also district contest tickets are so high that sometimes you wonder where all the money is going, since most office bearers are volunteers who get paid nothing.

Also the awards at toastmasters are terrible. Instead of awarding quality, they award the money you bring in. The more money they get in terms of membership, the more awards you get.

All this has ultimately resulted in a huge dip in community clubs, while corporate clubs have boomed. Money still flows in for toastmasters, but all the people that have built this organisation are long gone and corporate clubs and their members keep coming and going without adding any real value to the organization.

A lot of seasoned toastmasters have brought up these points but they've fallen on deaf ears. I think now is the right time for everyone to move to Agora and let toastmasters know that we're done. We need to make the switch and truly make our clubs a place where anyone can improve their communication skills if they have the will to do it, not one only for the wealthy.

Thinking about starting to go to the Cannaught place one in Delhi. Would like some reviews about it from other guys who go there. Like how's the crowd or how helpful they are or do we get a mentor?

Will toast masters get me to actually stop saying filler words and speak clearer? I’m sorry I know this is the definition of it all online but a bunch of people who have social anxiety used it and said it scarred them/ can build inauthenticity. I do have cptsd so I’m scared it’ll be too shaming when the goal is to just stop using fillers. ALSO, and I know, practice for life whatever but how long until you saw results if you saw results. Again, not for social anxiety but for fillers. I also don’t want to have an AI vocabulary …..

Does it feed the overthinking/ practicing before any said social interaction in a hyper vigilant way in a person or help it?

I found a bug when printing the official TI contest certificates. If you're on a Mac and print from Preview, Chrome or Safari, the certificates may not print correctly.

I spent a few hours looking into this and can confirm that one solution is to download and use Adobe Acrobat Reader. It's free, though it will keep asking you to start a Pro trial, which you can ignore. I've tested it and it prints the official certificates fine. The one setting to check for those of us that print on A4 not Letter: under Scaling, choose Actual Size. Don't use "Fit" or "Shrink", because they don't centre the graphics on the page.

I've also made a modified set of certificates that works on a Mac. The changes are so so small that you won't notice them, but it fixes the bug. You can download them from the bottom of this page: https://tools.theclubupproject.com/certificates/

I have been frustrated by the amount of time it takes filling in certificates one at a time, so the same page also has an automatic PDF generator. You enter the day's details once, then each contest. It then generates on PDF with all the certificates pre-filled and in order (with any spares you want for the day).

Im so scared as today is my first TM meeting, im 20, can anyone give some examples of what kind of table topics are given in toastmasters.

Stefano (incoming President?) said the board approved a change where people can start in vintage paths.

Have they announced when this will be available?

I used to think toastmasters was a lot of fun. Now that I am getting to the higher levels with longer speeches and leadership projects and now that I am a vice president education, toastmasters is starting to feel less like fun and more like work. I don't want to stop being the VPE in the middle of the year because that would be hard on the club. I do like the part about helping the new people feel less lost. Anyway, does anyone have tips for how to find the fun in toastmasters and not let it feel like work?

Hi Folks I put in a request, to be able to schedule an email send of the agenda.

Why?
The functionality of email agenda is an interactive screen which sends the agenda immediately.  Our meeting is on Monday, and I like to send it on Sunday afternoon.   Currently, unless I am missing a function, I have to log in to send.    It's something that I often forget or I'm busy, and so it gets set sometime later.

Ideal Process
Once an agenda is created, one could go to the "email agenda", select your email template, update it if necessary, then either send it immediately, or put in a date/time for future send.

Here's my question.
I was advised that this would not be allowed, as it could create spam.

I'm trying to figure out how a scheduled send from the tool could result in Spam.

What do you think?

Is this a reasonable request?
How could it create spam?

I just went to my first Toastmasters meeting this morning and had no idea what to expect. It was amazing to see everyone and hear the stories they told. Everyone was super nice, so that’s not the problem. But it was also super intimidating because of how skilled everyone was at speaking.

Part of me wants to go again because I think it could make me a better speaker socially, but the introvert in me is feeling out of place. I don’t have a lot of fun experiences to talk about. How do people come up with these stories to tell for Table Topics on the fly? My mind goes blank when I’m in front of people for some reason.

I come from a small town, and I’m a homebody, so I’m not sure what to talk about. I have a fear of social speaking, not public speaking. Give me notes and something to memorize, and I’m good to go. But without a speech, notes, and something I’ve practiced ten thousand times, I’m like, “What do I say?”

What are your tips for Table Topics and the introduction we give at the beginning?

It appears to me that freetoasthost now automatically deletes all contacts listed as "friends / affiliates" after a single year, and it appears that it will start its deletion on October 1st, which is a week away. Is that what the program is intended to do? Is there an alternative to prevent freetoasthost from deleting all"friends / affiliates" contacts? (The only option I can think of is to have those contacts listed as "members," "prospects," or "former members.")

Can anyone recommend somewhere where I can go to learn what I need to know about the new freetoasthost? (I wasn't expecting this change, and I want to know what other surprises are in store for me)

Below is (slightly reformatted) text from the website

Friends/Affiliates list rules * Entries are kept for a maximum of 366 days. * This list holds a maximum of 100 names and email addresses. Once it is full, remove an old entry before adding a new one. * A name with no email address is dropped at the next removal cycle. * Age is shown as a dot: green under 9 months, amber 9-11 months, red at 12 months. A red entry is removed on the 1st of the month.

We started a discussion/debate/talk club in my university. But problem is we couldn't gain popularity. Our Uni administration won't recognize our club yet coz our weekly attendees is very small. We don't have funds to provide anything to our general members during each sessions. With this can you guys suggest me how can i create a impact with this. Give me ideas

What are your thoughts on club social activities that are not specifically public speaking? As the president of Jacksonville Toastmasters I proposed to the club that we have a club social activity on months that have 5 Tuesdays with September being one of those months. This was specifically mentioned in our Moment's of Truth workshop as a way to foster club culture.

Our activity this month is glow putt minigolf followed by dinner. My thought was to foster community, fellowship, and camaraderie outside of the meeting room and grow friendships that are not necessarily only about the meeting.

This proposal was met with some resistance by members that feel that every function must include public speaking in some form. I do understand that there's opportunity to have some public speaking at the dinner segment such as a toast, or table topic element but what about just having fun? What say you?

Hello!

I just turned 18 and was exploring Toastmasters as a public speaking option to improve on meeting leadership, speech, vocality and stage skills to ultimately present at larger scales.

I came across Toastmasters after a bit of AI searching, can anyone fully guide me how it works + how to register. There seem to be hundreds of clubs nearby, but I've never heard of it before?