When I was first elected as and took on the role of Vice President Education at Morningside Toastmasters in July 2010, I knew nothing – I had been a member for just over a year, and I had only just completed my Competent Communicator. I knew very little about Toastmasters, there were many folks around me with 10 years or more experience.
Now that I look back there are two things I wish someone had told me.
- There is a plethora of resource available on http://www.toastmasters.org & we very seldom need to re-invent the wheel. This would have saved me a lot of hours. I had thought that all I needed to do was create a meeting program, I didn’t know that I had to talk to members about their needs and encourage new members to take part in the program and assign them mentors.
- I also didn’t know that I could formally ask for a mentor, and because of this I kind of just plodded along, and eventually got it right.
If I had known these two things I would have been more efficient and been able to accomplish tasks in a significantly shorter space of time.
Fortunately, it didn’t take me long to realize the power of http://www.toastmasters.org & of other District websites and still do to this day. I utilise these resources for my own role & encourage other members to do so early in their Toastmasters journey.
From a mentoring perspective I have found that if the right mentor is assigned to a member, any member early on in whatever role they take on, their journey will be much richer.
Ask for help!
#realskills
Nikki Quinn
Program Quality Director