Ownership and engagement are keys to a successful club. When all the members are engaged you can feel the energy and excitement at every meeting in your club. When they are not, that energy is sometimes hard to find. It is especially hard to generate that energy in the online environment, which many clubs are in right now. It is so easy for members to check emails or have a side conversation when they are not participating in the meeting.

Ownership comes from full engagement and the realization that each member has a say in running the club. By engaging members in club decisions, soliciting opinions, listening to them, and acting on their feedback, the club can build a feeling of ownership in all its members. Members will realize that they are responsible for their club. They realize that their attendance and participation have a critical impact on the club and the other members.

How do you bring fuller engagement to your club? How do we help our members realize how they would impact the club? How do we re-ignite the engagement? When members see clearly that they are learning in the club environment and enabling others to learn, they can find that engagement. Sometimes it can be a few simple words of encouragement, sometimes it may require mentorship or coaching.

Before Pathways, a member of my club was not doing manual speeches. He had been in Toastmasters for many years and was close to retirement. I asked him why he wasn’t doing manual speeches and he said, “I have my DTM and don’t feel the need to get another.” I pointed out to him that we had some new members that would benefit from his examples. If he continued to work on the program, others would know what it is like to give various speeches from the manual and learn from his experiences. A few weeks later, I saw him with a Competent Communicator manual. He was working on the program! The same goes for continued participation in Pathways.