Toastmasters District 22 in Kansas and Western Missouri

Club Officer Training

A strong club starts with the leadership. For the leadership to be effective, they must have the appropriate training and knowledge.

Twice each year the district holds training sessions for the current club officers. This training is referred to by several names:

TLI: Toastmasters Learning Institute
COT: Club Officer Training
MUT: Make Up Training

Purpose: The purpose of the training is to give the club officers the knowledge they need to succeed in the office they are holding. Normally each office is taught separately from all other offices. Every training session is slightly different because of the varying training styles of the trainers.

When and Why #1: The first of two training sessions are usually held each June - July. This is so that the recently-elected officers are trainined before they have spent much time serving in their office. The material covered is normally the most basic information they need. Toastmasters International has training scripts for each office. The trainers are free to add their own lessons and tps.

When and Why #2:The other training sessions are usually held each January - February. This training serves two purposes. One is to train the club officers recently elected in the clubs that elect officers twice each year (only clubs that meet weekly have the option of electing officers every six months). The other purpose of the winter training is to give some additional information to the continuing officers and initially train any officer that is filling a vacated office.

Club DCP Credit: When at least four of seven club officers attend BOTH of the training sessions, the club earns one point towards the DCP (Distinguished Clb Program). It is recommended that as many of the club officers attend both training sessions. Members who are currently not serving as an officer are welcome to attend the training sessions. They might want to attend a session to see which office they may like to hold at some future date, or, get a head start on an office they want to hold at some future date.

Extra Learning: To take advantage of so many leaders gathered together, the district may have general sessions to speak to everyone present. This may include other specializxed training/presentations such as contest judges training, club membership building, and, starting new clubs (including their sponsors and mentors).

For More: To see the Toastmasters International scripts used for training club officers go to http://www.toastmasters.org/artisan/member.asp?CategoryID=1&SubCategoryID=52.

Here is the overview of training expected by Toastmasters International. It contains several downloadable documents (pdf files) which are available here as well:

Additionally, from the district's standpoint, here is the expectation of how club officer training should be conducted.