Help for VPs Education
An overview of the role can be found here:
District 17 - Vice President Education Role Overview
The Vice President Education (VPE) is a very important role in the club, you are responsible for making sure that club member's educational needs are met.
READ THE CLUB LEADERSHIP HANDBOOK!
It is comprehensive and well written.
Assess individual members needs and the club DCP goals
- Ambitions: What level do they aspire to this year?
- Pace: How quickly do they want to progress?
- Readiness: How ready are they for that next speech, role?
- Encourage, coax, challenge, push them to set goals and achieve stretch targets
- DCP goals: How are you going to make sure your club is Distinguished?
Assign meeting roles and plan ahead. Some clubs plan 3-5 meetings ahead, some plan 6 months ahead, a lot will depend on the culture of your club. When planning ahead, take account of the requirements for the advanced manuals. Some of these speeches require longer times, even the whole meeting, so work with the club member and schedule them in over the year.
How do you keep track of meeting roles and future assignments?
Use of an Excel spreadsheet is common, these are simple to set up and update, and easily transferrable to your successor.
Club Scheduler this is excellent software, written by a Toastmaster for Toastmasters. There is some setting up to do but it is well worth it. It is flexible, comprehensive, produces nicely formatted reports, and can save transfer or backup files. It is well worth a look. See http://clubscheduler.com for details.
Remember to continually update and re-schedule as members availability changes
Work with the assigned Toastmaster to ensure all roles covered. Who does the follow-up and finds replacements when necessary? Who produces the meeting agenda? You may delegate these tasks to the Toastmaster, use your resources and encourage them to develop their leadership skills.
Keep Track of members progress use the Pathways reports in Base Camp and approve level completions as soon as you receive notification. Submit the awards also in Club Central after you have approved the level completion requests. Celebrate your members successes.
Conduct workshops, or ask your Area Director to conduct them:
- Successful Club Series
- Better Speaker Series
- Leadership Excellence Series
- Contest Judging
- The Distinguished Club Program
Contribute to Club Executive, Area council, attend and vote at District Council meetings. You represent your club, so ask the members what they want, and vote for your club members.
Organise and conduct club contests
As VPE, you need to ensure that club contests are run according to the TI rules. You can delegate the role of organising, or conducting the contests, but it is your responsibility. Fortunately there are resources available to help, contest guides, scripts and judging forms are available on the District17 website here.
Recruit your successor and train them to take over
Spend some time with your successor to effectively hand over your systems for keeping track of progress, future assignments, contest manuals and accumulated wisdom.
You will be busy and you will have setbacks, last minute cancellations and double bookings. Live with it, learn from it and network with your fellow VPsE. Enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done and keep the impetus for educational goals foremost in your club.
VPE record keeping templates
This is Canning Vale Toastmasters Club meeting programme planner & actitvity/data record keeping sheet.
Use them as a template for your own club.
Pathways Support
District 17 has video guides available to guide you through the basics of Base Camp and Base Camp Manager:
Base Camp & Bsae Camp Manager Videos
Details on all Paths
Details on all paths can be found here.
Member Orientation for Pathways
The VPE is also responsible for orienting new members with Pathways and keeping track of their progress. Give new members the below Pathways guide to orientate them with Base Camp, and use the Path tracking sheets to remain informed where everyone is on their Path.
Individual Path Tracking Sheets:
Additional Educational Resources
Successful Club Series and the Leadership Excellence Series can provide additional resources for club educational sessions.
Details of these can be found here.