MoT #3: Fellowship, Variety, & Communication

1. What is FVC?

If your club does nothing but "plain PIE"-style (Prepared speeches, Impromptu speaking, & Evaluations) meetings, your meetings are bound to get stale in fairly short order. If your members develop into cliques (new vs. old, old vs. young, etc.), you will have a fragmented club. Finally, if your members don't talk to each other, or your officers aren't communicating, you're going to have disconnects between expectations and reality, nevermind difficulty planning anything.

The metrics of Fellowship, Variety, & Communication (FVC) are intended to check on more subjective elements of your club that can have significant effects on membership retention and converting guests into members. People want to belong, feel useful, and have a balance between stability and variety. Taking care of your FVC factors will help.

2. Why Does FVC Matter?

To get a sense of why these factors matter, let's consider two clubs. Club Blah doesn't care about FVC, while Club RDG does.

Club Blah has the same meetings week after week. Its members are rather insular, broken up into a few different sub-groups that have lingering conflicts that often surface during meetings in the form of verbal jabs (or worse). The club does little to foster communication between members, and the officers don't bother announcing much beyond upcoming meetings. Club Blah then wonders why its members feel unmotivated to participate, unprepared for meetings, and guests unwilling to join. 

Club RDG, in contrast, hosts at least one special meeting per month, and regularly has different members (or special guests) rotating through roles. Meetings are more than just "themed"; they involve different, creative roles and really engage the audience. Conflicts are addressed and resolved, using a mediator if necessary, as appropriate. Tools to facilitate communication such as instant messaging and phone lists are provided. Expectations for communicating meeting setup and other issues are made clear; problems and roadblocks are communicated as early as possible so solutions can be implemented sooner and save everyone stress. Officers announce major initiatives such as contests, conferences, elections, and renewals up to two months ahead of time, and do so repeatedly through all the channels available. The club is challenged to meet monthly goals, and has a fun get-together if these goals are met. Club RDG has vastly more motivated members who are prepared for meetings, and guests want to be a part of it - and they know it's because they value FVC factors and actively work to evaluate and improve them.

3. What Factors Should You Watch For?

Toastmasters International has the following six standards when it comes to this MoT:

• Members greet guests and make them feel welcome. 
  
• This is part of First Impressions, but bears repeating here. You may greet guests and get them situated, but if you don't have much support beyond that first moment, you may have a gap.
• The vice president education (VPE) regularly plans enjoyable, dynamic educational programs with exciting, thought-provoking themes. 
  
• Depending on your club, this may fall to the Toastmaster to plan themes. The RDG Meetings course can help with this.
• The club enjoys regularly scheduled social events. 
  
• There are any number of outside the club events you can have; see the later chapter for ideas on this.
• Encourage club members to participate in area, district, and international events. 
  
• This includes contests, TLIs, conferences, and more. Bring these events to the attention of your club members well before they happen - up to two months in advance.
• Promote and encourage inter-club events. 
  
• You can have guest speakers, joint contests, as well as outside the club events. It really helps if you have people in the other clubs as well as your own.
• Issue a club newsletter regularly and maintain a website.
  
• The website will be covered in greater depth in the next course in this series, and you can use it to facilitate your news. After meeting reports also help.

When it comes to thinking about FVC factors, consider the following questions.

Fellowship

• How do the members in your club get along? Are there at least some people with "best friends" in the club? 
  
• Are there sub-groups ("cliques") that do not interact with or push away newer members?
• Are there personality conflicts that haven't been addressed and defused?
• Do members support their representatives in speech contests?
• Do people stick up for and do things for other members that may be going through a hard time?
• Do you have get-togethers outside the regular club meetings?

Variety

• Do you try new meeting formats or locations? (Sometimes even changing the layout of your tables and chairs is something to try)
• Do you have people rotating through roles so you don't get the same people doing the same tasks repeatedly? (this could be a function of not getting new members trained)
• Does your club try new roles or try new variations of existing ones to keep things fresh and interesting at meetings? 

Communication

• Do you have a reliable messaging system for officers and members to communicate? (your club may want to consider using Telegram, which is covered in another chapter)
• Are members (especially officers) responsive, courteous, and helpful when answering communication?
• Do people often excuse missing messages with "oh, I don't check my e-mail" or similar?
• Do officers communicate upcoming events well ahead of time to allow members to be prepared for them?

Lastly, for all FVC factors: Does your club have a plan for evaluating and improving these standards, and does it carry it out?

3.1. Dealing with Abusive or Disruptive Club Members

In my experience, 99.99999% of Toastmasters are well-behaved at their club. While there may be a loss of decorum here and there, almost all of the time people try to get along. What do you do when either these problem issues or problem people show up in your club?

If you don't deal with these up front and in a good way, there's often an element of negativity that will take root in the club the longer it goes unaddressed (or addressed poorly). It also needs to be said that every situation like this has its subtleties; take this content as advice, but be prepared to adjust as needed. It's my sincere hope you never have to use the advice in this chapter.

The best programs for dealing with this are Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability. However, these take some time to study and put into practice (although they are certainly valuable toolkits), so you'll get more immediately usable tips here. 

Start by assessing the situation. Is this a one-off thing? Is it recurring behavior? Is it bothering you, other people, or multiple people? What's the severity? This is not to minimize the situation, but only objectively address it. 

Get clear on the offending behavior and its effects. For example, if someone often interrupts, this can demonstrate a lack of respect and make the speaker currently in control feel like they don't know what they are doing, or otherwise disempowered. However, consider the content of the interruption - is it someone who reminds the Toastmaster or otherwise of the need for a timer's report before the next segment, or is it someone who tries interjecting their two cents on a speaker when not called upon to do so? The former is a good interruption, the latter much less so.

Next, consider what the end goal is, and then you can work from either direction to determine a plan. If the goal is to stop unwanted interruptions as in the above, you may start with the goal of reducing the number and frequency of interruptions, with the goal of working toward zero. 

Confronting an individual should be done privately. If there is someone in the club that is close to the offender, if they see the behavior and the harm it is causing, they may be an better option to talk to them. This may elicit less defensiveness. If there's a negative behavior that seems to be spreading, it may be a candidate for the General Evaluator to point out instead. 

If you aren't an officer, you may want to raise the issue to your VPM (unless it's the VPM you're having a problem with, of course). If you're an officer and don't know what to do or don't feel comfortable handling it, your area director may be able to help.

If all else fails, there is the "nuclear option" of voting a member out, but this should definitely be a (very) last resort. If the vote fails, it may cause even greater issues. Most conflicts and behaviors only need some dialogue and coaching to work through, but they need to be acted on quickly so toxicity doesn't spread.

If you have more serious problems (criminality, for example), go to your area director immediately. 

3.2. Sample Outside the Club Meeting Ideas

There's any number of possibilities for get-togethers outside the normal club meeting. Which ones your club does are up to you. Some are listed below:

• Dinner
• Movie night
• Bowling
• Billiards
• Mini-Golf
• Driving range
• Painting or other art day
• Day at the park
• Potluck
• Card/Board game night
• Sports event
• Escape room
• Video game night
• Trivia
• Karaoke

3.3. Telegram Setup

What's Telegram?

Telegram is an instant messaging application that's free and secure. It can be tremendously useful to aid meeting planning and general communication. You can also use it to create groups for your club - it's recommended you have an "All Members" group and an officers group at minimum. This can help cut down on e-mail traffic, but you must be proactive about making sure your members join and use the service.

Mobile Client (iOS, Android, Windows Phone) Install

It's recommended you start here. 

1. Visit the app store appropriate for your device, or visit the Telegram website and choose the client appropriate to your device.
   
2. Search for Telegram. You should see an icon that looks like this:  You may also see "Telegram X" - this is an experimental version. It's usable and may have different features, but if you are a tech novice, stick to regular Telegram.
   
3. Install Telegram.
   
4. Open Telegram once it's installed.
5. Follow the directions to complete the Telegram setup. If you are asked for permissions, you should allow access to the phone; you do not have to allow access to contacts.
6. If your club has a contact person to reach out to, use the search function to find them by their user name, and ask them to 

Desktop Client (PC/Mac) Install

NOTE: If you plan to use Telegram on your mobile, install and configure that first so Telegram is set to use your mobile number. 

1. Visit the Telegram website and download the client appropriate for your computer.
2. Navigate to the location you downloaded the client install and run the installer. 
3. Step through the install wizard (change options as needed).
4. Run the client once done. If you've already installed and configured the mobile version, use the same phone number you used for that. Telegram will send a message to your mobile client, so have that ready.

Creating a Group (Admin)

Creating a group will let people post notices, pose questions, etc. for everyone in the group. The intended administrator for the group should create the group, though others can be made admins. You will need at least one other person to create the group.

On mobile, you'll do this:

1. Select the blue & white pencil icon to start a new message
2. On the new message screen, select New Group
3. Add at least one person (you may need to search in the Add people... field)
4. Name the group.

You can set the group's icon from options.

For desktop, do this:

1. Select the "Hamburger" (triple line) button at the top left of the client
2. Select New Group
3. Name the group, then select Next
4. Add members, then select Create

Adding People to a Group (Admin)

To add additional people to a group after starting it (Android, but should be similar for other platforms):

1. Have the person message you at least once.
2. Enter the group you want to add the person to.
3. Select the group icon to open options.
4. Select Add Member.
5. Use the magnifying glass to search for the person's name, then select the name.

Setting Administrators for the Group (Admin)

To set additional administrators after starting a group (Android, but should be similar for other platforms):

1. Open the group.
2. Tap the triple dot button in the top right.
3. Select Set Admins.
4. Turn off All Members are Admins. 
5. Select the checkboxes for those you want to make administrators.
6. Use the left arrow button at the top left to go back and save changes. Use it again to return to messaging.

Joining a Group

If you're not an admin for the group, the easiest way to join a group is to find your group's admin via search and send them a message, asking them to add you to the group.

1. In Telegram, use the search function (magnifying glass) to search for people.
2. Type in the username of your group admin, then tap the correct result.
3. You should then be able to send them a message (just like an SMS text). Say hello and ask to be added to your club's group(s).
4. The admin will have to invite you to the group; once they do, you should be able to participate.

Messaging Someone Directly

1. In the group, there should be an icon for the group. Select this.
2. Details for the group, including members, should appear.
3. Select the person you want to message directly (you may need to scroll the list).
4. Enter and send your message.