News
How Woking Speakers gets new members involved
Sammy Babister recently came up with a great idea for getting new members more involved. I'll let her explain:
Recently at Woking Speakers, a new member who was worried about Table Topics approached me. I responded with the usual (slightly sneaky) workarounds – mostly involving secretly telling her what her question would be long before she was called up. But this time, even this wasn't enough.g in front of the usual meetings because the audience was too large. We had a think about this and came up with a solution... A party!
Here's how it works
- Someone offers to host a party at their home.
- The whole club is invited but only the first 5 people can attend (making a total of 6 attendees).
- Each person prepares to be Topics Master.
- The clock and lights are borrowed from the club.
- When the party starts, the first person stands up to be Topics Master and has a question for each of the other people.
- Everyone answers their topic and the next person takes over as Topics Master.
The benefits are that everyone knows they will be answering 5 Topics before the night is out, so they have enough time to get used to the experience.
This gives new people a chance to practice in an even more intimate environment than the club.
If everyone brings their Competent Leader manual, they can all have credit as a Topics Master, a Topics Speaker and remember you will need a Timekeeper too.
Best of all, everyone who has been involved in these parties (we've held 4 now) has strengthened their bonds with the other attendees, built their skills and gone on to announce they want to host one too.
Samantha Babister, ex Division H Governor and VP Membership at Woking Speakers
This news article was published in the District 71 news letter (July - Aug 2009) which you can download here