Open House Walks the Talk

by Tom Nosal

N.B. Holding a club open house can draw new traffic and help your community know about your club and the benefits of Toastmasters. We asked Tom Nosal, President of Walker’s Talkers Toastmaster club, to give this report of the open house his club held this past Spring. Tom now reports that four new members have joined the club as a result of the open house. —Ed.

As you requested, this is a summary report on the open house that Walker’s Talkers Toastmasters Club hosted on April 30th, 2009.

Overall the open house was a huge success. We had 40 people register for this event, and 29 guests attended—not a bad ratio for a free event. As for the guests, some of them expressed an interest in looking further into Toastmasters. We are continuing to follow up with our guests to have them attend an actual club meeting.

The purpose of the open house was two-fold. To provide a public service to the community and introduce them to Toastmasters. Our club had been working for some time on trying to figure a way to get the message to job-seekers on the ways that Toastmasters can help them in their job search and beyond. Our club usually does some kind of special events throughout the course of the year where we invite the public through the media. When we started looking at an open house for April, we brainstormed on how we could reach out to job-seekers. It so happened that one of our members was working on a speech project that involved leading a panel discussion. So an idea was born.

The format that the open house took on was a shortened version of a regular club meeting, followed by a panel discussion on topics of interest to job-seekers. The panel discussion was the “hook” to get guests more interested in attending. Once we decided on a format, we had to find a place to hold it because our usual meeting place could not accommodate more than a couple of guests. We were able to secure a meeting room at our Village Hall which worked out well not only for the size of the room, but also for its location and accessibility.

We then had to secure our panelists. We purposefully looked for panelists that were not associated with Toastmasters so that we could maintain a decorum of neutrality. Our panel experts talked on topics of resume writing, working with on-line applications, career transitioning, networking, using the public library, and COBRA & health insurance.

Our marketing for this event was through various different means. We used local newspapers, radio stations, flyers, and direct marketing to job networking groups. We also distributed flyers to local churches and colleges. More than 90% of our attendees indicated that they heard of our open house through postings at local job networking clubs. Only one person indicated they learned about this event through the newspapers.

We also secured some sponsorship’s from local businesses who provided refreshments, printing services, a registration website and also covered the costs of the meeting room. We also worked with a state senator’s office to gain some support. Unfortunately, the local congress people were unable to attend due to their being in session.

At the meeting itself, our introduction of Toastmasters only lightly touched on the public speaking aspects. What we really focused on was the leadership and management training aspects of Toastmasters, linking the roles of club officers and beyond to their counterparts in a business environment. For example, V.P. of Membership = HR Director, Treasurer = Chief Financial Officer.

We only had one speaker for the evening and one Evaluator. For our Table Topics, all topics were related to job-seeking or the workplace. And we had guests pick the speaker from cards in a basket and if their speaker won best Table Topic speaker, that guest also won a prize.

We received great feedback from our guests on the meeting. Most of them had no concept of all the things that Toastmasters can offer them.

This open house was a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. We learned a great deal from this experience and plan to do similar events in the future. And I earned a Competent Leader credit for chairing this event.

I can provide more details on any aspects of the planning or of the meeting itself if you need it. Thanks for the support by District 54 and by Toastmasters International.