How to VPE the RDG Way

• Manage the member site (Easy Speak, if you're following the RDG program)

You should be the primary point of contact and editor of your member site (i.e. Easy Speak). Get familiar with how it works. A cheat sheet is available in the resources section for common tasks.

• Manage rosters: Set up meetings, closes out meetings (closing may be handled by Secretary)
• Collect roles at meetings, via e-mail, etc. and update Easy Speak

You can print out sign up sheets from Easy Speak; make sure to bring one to every meeting. This will dramatically improve the quality of the meeting versus just hoping for the best when it comes to sign-ups. It's highly recommended you (at minimum) pre-assign the Toastmaster for meetings, and make it clear that if someone cannot be Toastmaster, they have to find their replacement.  

A process that works well is:

1. Set up meetings for the next three months
2. Pre-assign the toastmaster for each
3. Bring a sign up sheet to each meeting
4. Enter the sign ups into Easy Speak after the meeting
5. Send out the "Hello Toastmasters" mail (see resources for a sample); at this point the toastmaster for the meeting is responsible for filling remaining roles
6. At the top of a new month, pre-schedule another month of meetings

Your club may want to pre-assign more roles such as speakers, table topics master, and general evaluator; your club's culture will determine how well this works. Some clubs pre-assign all roles, some do very minimal scheduling.

• Assign members educational goals for the year

This can best be done with distributing Educational Award Promise forms to members at the beginning of the year (see resources), then entering these goals into Easy Speak. Easy Speak will track progress from there.

• Manage users on member site

As guests become members, members become former members, and so on, you need to know how to manage your members on Easy Speak.

• Track goals (use Easy Speak)
• Track mentors (use Easy Speak)

Pretty self-explanatory. Check in on these goals at least once every two months, if not every month.

• Orients new members to the Toastmasters program. (This may be handled by your VPM)
  

Signing up members is nice, but if they don't know how the program works or what is expected of them, there's a real danger of losing them.

• Attends and votes in Area, Division, and District business meetings.
  
• Votes at International business meetings. 

You'll do this at least once a year. Most of the time you'll assign a proxy in your name.

• Promotes and coordinates Speechcraft, Success Leadership, and Youth Leadership programs. 
  

These are specialized programs that you can get familiar with as you work through the Toastmasters year. 

• Chairs the Education Committee.

This will be covered in detail further on in this lesson.