Concord Breakfast Toastmasters
Club Project:
Annual Awards Celebration

Overview

Awards

Our first year, a ballot was sent out via email to all club members by then club president and awards chairperson Gina Chenoweth. The seven proposed awards were:

• Most Improved Speaker (Club member you think has improved the most in communication)
• Most Improved Leader (Club member you think has improved the most in leadership)
• Most Dependable (Club member you think is the most reliable in doing assigned jobs and will happily take on a last minute task when needed.)
• Most Active Inside The Club (Club member you think does the most within the Club)
• Most Active Outside The Club (Club member you think does the most in Toastmasters activities outside the Club)
• Most Influential Toastmaster Award* (Only New Members can vote) (Club member most influential to your Toastmaster's experience)
  * New Members are defined as those having joined the Club within the last 12 months
• Executive Committee Award(Only Executive Committee Members can vote) (Club member you think deserves special recognition)

Our second year, the awards committee provided each club member with a ballot proposing the following seven awards:

• Back by Popular Demand - Toastmaster Club Member shosen to best run a meeting as Toastmaster - has the ability to project his/her voice, demonstrate confidence, organization and professionalism
• Back by Popular Demand - Speaker Club Member chosen to be the speaker most known to offer something to his/her audience - either entertaining, educational or engaging.
• Back by Popular Demand - Table Topics Leader Club Member chosen to best lead Table Topics - has the ability to encourage members and guests to feel welcome and comfortable speaking in a non-threatening environment.
• New Member Award Club Member most influential to new member's Toastmasters experience
• Executive Committee Award Club Member who deserves special recognition of doing the most work "behind the scenes".
• Most Improved Speaker Club Member who has improved the most in communication.
• Step-Up Award Club Member recognized for his/her effort to "step-up" and fill any needed role without warning or preparation.

Project Timeline

• Executive Committee meeting to discuss, agree upon general outline.
• Proposal to be made to club members at a regular club meeting.
• Committee Chairs to be nominated and agreed upon.
• Club members should volunteer for committees.
• February event date should be agreed upon (ideal target date: the week before SuperBowl)

December: (December is, historically, a short month since the club normally doesn't meet the weeks which include Christmas and New Year's holidays)

• Hospitality Committee to meet to discuss committee member roles and identify likely facilities to propose to the club at regular meeting;
• Club should vote upon preferred facility;
• Hospitality Committee to reserve event facility;
• Awards Committee to meet and discuss award committee member roles and award categories;
• Program Committee to meet to discuss committee member roles and program ideas;
• Invitations Committee to meet to discuss Invitation design, follow-up phone calls, RSVP tracking and continued follow-up.

January:

• Awards Committee to present awards ballot to club at a regular club meeting;
• Club should cast private ballot for these awards and return to awards committee;
• Invitation Committee to design, print and mail invitations.

The Committees

Event Committee

What We Did

1. When - A suggestion was made the event could be held shortly after the super bowl. Possibly in the evening.
2. Where - There are several restuarants in our area which could accomodate such an event.
3. Program - Suggestion was made for a keynote speaker. One suggestion that a contact be made with a special Humor type club in Oakland (?) My suggestion was that we ask someone within the District to be the Toastmaster for the evening. Although we have plenty of talent within our own club.
4. Have the whole club involved and set up various committees for the above items. Thinking possibly of someone who is knowledgeable about the restuarants in our area, e.g., Grace Ellis, Mary Beth Deans. That person and committee would be responsible for locating the restuarant and making sure everything is in readiness the evening of the event.
5. Have each of us, the Exec Committee, involved in one of these committees as well.
6. Mike Elliott is a professional musician and when asked he said he would be pleased to put something together. His portion would be an audience participation and could be done in approximately 15 minutes.
7. Should a short TM demonstration, e.g., like last Tuesday, table topics, etc.?
8. A committee for the awards.
9. Part of 2 above - what price range?
10. Should our spouses or partners be invited? What about the people who were our guests last week? I think there should be no free dinners and that all attending should pay.
11. What inviting important people from the District? Area Governor, Division Governor and District Governor? Or anyone else?
12. Should invitations be printed and sent out to the people in item 11? I have found in my experience in doing this type of thing that it's a good idea to get it planned early so that if there are any last minute changes, etc., they will be easier to handle.

Lee J. Woods

Ideas for Improvement

Another logjam to the smooth flow was in lack of co-ordination between different committees. It has been suggested that for future events, the Event Committee meet at least once-a-month to learn what each other's committees are doing.

Awards Committee

The Awards Committee is charged with:

• Proposing the current awards categories to the club;
• Creating/distributing awards ballots to club members;
• collecting and tabulating awards winners;
• ordering custom engraved awards to arrive before the event;

What We Did

"I have accepted to task of collecting nominations for awards. I just want to be sure that I am clear on criteria so that I may explain if asked. I also wanted to pose to the Committee a few suggestions to fill the blank "other" spaces at the bottom of the page.

Most Improved Leader - is this open to the entire club? How do you measure an improvement in leadership? We happen to have an interesting situation where literally half of our members are new members, and so do not have a history to base their decision on. I have been around for over a year and I am not even sure how to determine who is most improved in leadership. Is this an award others feel strongly about, or may I suggest we replace it with something else?

Most Active Inside the Club - Is it fair to think half the club - especially new members have any idea what goes on behind the scenes and how much work various members are doing. Is this not an overlap with the Executive Committee Award? The Executive Committee probably knows best who does the most work inside the club. I think it is a great idea to have them identify someone who needs special recognition for doing something the rest of the club is probably not aware of.

I like the Most Improved Speaker, Most Dependable, and New Member Awards.

I also noticed a few blank spaces for "Other" awards at the bottom of the page. I would like to suggest a few to add that I feel even new members will have a opinion about.

Back By Popular Demand Awards - If you were bringing a guest to a meeting and you wanted to make a good impression by hand picking who would play all the major roles that require preparation - who would you choose?

1. Who would choose to be in the Speaker line-up - who you know will offer something, either entertaining or educational, and engaging in the sense that we the audience will either walk away with something to think about or a new technique that we would like to add to our own repertoire?
2. Who would you choose to be Toastmaster - that can project their voice well, demonstrate confidence, organization and professionalism - so that your guest will say - "Yeah, I want to run a meeting like that".
3. Who would you choose to lead Table Topics - that can make the exercise truly something all members and especially guests feel welcome and safe to participate in - who encourages folks to do what they came to Toastmasters for - to practice speaking in a comfortable not threatening setting - and they get the sense that anything they say even if it is just introducing themselves is a successful execution of the exercise."

For the 2003 awards, custom engraved plaques were purchased from a local trophies shop; For the 2004 awards, acrylic desk-top awards were ordered from Toastmasters International.

Ideas for Improvement

Also, the award ballots had very little space to write in the name of the person a members wants to cast a vote for. One idea would be to provide a longer line. Another might be to take nominations from the floor prior to preparing the ballot so that names may be printed (along with "other" for a write-in candidate) with a checkbox next to each.

It has also been suggested that we include the Best Evaluator as one of the awards along the line of "Back By Popular Demand Awards".

Hospitality Committee

The Hospitality Committee is charged with:

• Locating an acceptable facility for the event;
• Negotiating the event contract;
• Arranging catering, if appropriate, for the event;
• Arranging appropriate seating, decorations, etc.
• Provide Greeter;
• Arragne for table favors, etc.

What We Did

In 2005 (for the 2004 awards), a Saturday evening catered dinner was arranged at the Oakhurst Country Club in Clayton. The meal, with no desert, cost a little over $23 per person. Add tax and tip, and it came to pennies under $30 each.

Ideas for Improvement

Alternate ideas have also been discussed, including:

• Securing facilities that did not require the use of a specific caterer -- leaving the club free to find less costly meal fares; and
• Arranging to hold the event at a restaurant that will allow ordering off the menu.

Program Committee

The Program Committee is charged with:

• Deciding what activities should take place during the event;
• Arranging for a Toastmaster, Hostess, Keynote Speaker, entertainment, etc. as required;
• Designing and Printing sufficient quantities the program for the event;

What We Did

1. Cover - Toastmaster logo, event name and date;
2. Blank
3. Program agenda
4. Choruses for sing-a-longs
5. Awards list with descriptions and spaces to fill in names
6. Blank
7. Bios for Keynote Speaker, Toastmaster and Entertainers
8. Blank

Ideas for Improvement

In 2005 (for the 2004 awards) the Awards Committee sought and obtained permission from the Executive Committee/Events Committee to present the awards to the winners. This was a deviation from the original plan of the Program Committee. The rationale by the Awards Committee was that an outside Toastmaster was not as familiar with the club members, and may not be able to present the awards with the deserved degree personal information, warmth and enthusiasm. The objection was that the spotlight would be on the club member who was presenting the award, in addition to the recipient, in direct contrast to the program plan of spotlighting only the club members who received the awards.

Different people still have different opinions on the above, and it seems to have distracted the committees from noticing other omissions:

• The Committee Members who helped make the event the success that it was were omitted from the printed program;
• As an afterthought, the Committee Chairs and their members were asked to come forward after the awards had been given, taking the final spotlight off of the awards recipients and focusing it on the Committee Chairs;
• An impormptu photo-op was then afforded the Committee Chairs (which, fortunately, included a group shot of the award recipients);
• No pre-planned photography was available for the award recipients as they received their awards.

Invitations Committee

The Invitations Committee is charged with:

• Planning and preparing printed, verbal and email invitations;
• Gathering the information required to go into the invitation;
• Designing and Printing sufficient quantities the invitation for mailing;
• Acquiring the mailing addresses of all the active, inactive and appropriate past club members, as well as District dignitaries who are to be invited, from the club's Secretary or Treasurer;
• Mailing the invitations in a timely manner;
• Tabulating the RSVPs, and collecting payment, if required;
• Phone calls following up with each invitee until either a "Yes" or a "No" is obtained;
• Turning the collected cash over to the Club's Treasurer;
• Providing the Hospitality Chair with the guest list in a timely manner.

What We Did

1. Graphics and purpose
2. Highlights of the event, RSVP request and procedure
3. Where, When, Why and contact info
4. Map to event

Ideas for Improvement

• A clear outline of who was to do what, and when, for the committee members would have improved the flow of tasks.
• The printed invitation kept gathering information until it was over-crowded with information. It should have been re-designed to 5 1/2" by 8 1/2" (one sheet, folded in half). to be less crowded.

Lessons Learned: 2005 Awards Dinner

Awards Dinner Committee (MB Deans)
What Worked:

• Having a Toastmaster from outside our club. David Parks was great and brought a breath of fresh air.
• Having Dan Russell handle our awards so that they were a surprise to most of us.
• The invitations, the program, the restaurant, the meal and the awards were all great. It’s hard to pull together an affordable event like that and I think the entire team did a great job keeping costs down yet creating an evening that was a lot of fun.

What to Do Differently Next Year:

• Draft a budget now for next year’s event. Discuss where the money will come from for each line item so we are not caught by surprise. Confirm the dollar amount of all costs when planning begins for the next event and make sure the club can afford to pay what it has committed to.
• Consider alternatives to keep the event affordable for all our members. Open this up to discussion with the entire club throughout the year so we can get more participation.

Hospitality Committee (Grace Ellis, Hope Ford)
What Worked:

• Invitations were beautiful and so were the awards.
• I thought having the votes going to an outside person worked well and it kept EVERYONE in suspense.

What to Do Differently Next Year:

• It is difficult to find a room that is separate from the restaurant and large enough. Country Clubs and Hotels charge for the room, or the menu is more expensive.
• I believe the Board members who did not attend had other engagements. Almost impossible to get 100% attendance.
• I was not asked to have the cost of the dinner to include the complimentary dinners and the awards. I believe that should be covered by our dues.
• I will make up a form to include ALL THE DETAILS. When I originally checked out the room, it had round tables.  When I arrived at 4 o'clock to check things out one long table had been set up which would have made it difficult to see the speaker.  We had to take all the linen and table ware down and reset. They were not able to have a round table set-up because flooding had ruined the round table cloths, other wise they followed through as planned.
• The area was tight visiting before the dinner.

Invitations Committee (Sarah Cole, Gina Gotsill)
What Worked:

• Sarah did a lovely job on the invitations. Next year I would suggest making them smaller in size so the postage would be less. The envelopes were .52 each to send.

What to Do Differently Next Year:

• The Invitations Committee would have been more organized if:
  • we had more lead time. We were rushed to get invitations in the mail and only allowed members and guests a short time to RSVP.
  • one person received RSVPs. Gina and I both received RSVPs and had to compare lists multiple times.
  • the person collecting RSVPs also provided final list of those attending. There was confusion between Gina, Ken (Treasurer), and me (Sarah). I combined the RSVPs Gina and I received and it got mixed in with Ken's list of those who had paid or not. The treasurer’s list should have been separate from our list.
• Next year we can encourage every member to join a committee even if that only means to provide their input. We could end a couple of our meetings 10 min early for the committee meetings. This way no one has to stay after 8:30.

Program Committee (Orval Mosby, Sarah Cole, Mike Elliott, Lee Woods)
What to Do Differently Next Year:

• If we do a potluck and rent a hall it may be more affordable.
• I do think that the awards need to be covered by the club budget as it is not just those attending who profit from the awards given.
• It did seem that not all who needed to know who were attending had that information.  Ken, Grace, myself, you and the invitation committee all needed to be in the loop as to who was coming and who had paid.

Awards Committee (Kanda Alahan, Mike McGarvey)
What to Do Differently Next Year:

• I think everything went well, very well, with the one exception that I was disappointed there was not time clearly allotted for each award recipient to make a statement of some kind ("I wish to thank my publicist, my agent, my mother, etc.") After all, it is a part of Toastmasters to be able to speak off the cuff.
• Maybe we could have been more transparent about the money issues that Ken brought up later.