Selected Resource Summary
Main Resource Page links – to pages that are themselves collections of resources
Resources on the DISTRICT website
- List of regular workshops – check the District Calendar for the next date
- Summary of events run by clubs
- Resource page for Club Officers
- Resource page for District Officers – meet our District Trio of leaders and learn how the District is organised
- The Membership Building Hints page – a must for District Officers, useful to all
- The Pathways Tutorial Page – short videos on how to use Pathways that you don’t have to be logged in to see
Resources on the INTERNATIONAL website – may need member login
- The Toastmasters International Resource Page, newly restructured in 2023 and now mobile-friendly
- The Toastmasters International Club Leadership page, available to all members and an excellent reference work
- A summary of all the Toastmasters educational programmes, including requirements for the Distinguished Toastmaster award
Club Meetings – Resources to give ideas on running effective, high quality meetings
Meeting in Person
- A brief summary of how joining Toastmasters can help you
- What you can expect to see as a visitor or new member
- An excellent four-minute walk-thru of a typical meeting – using the USA as an example. Try before you buy!
- A useful summary of meeting roles, click through for more details
- A guide to visiting a Club as an Area Director – including what the club can expect
- A Guide to formal meeting practice in New Zealand, as recommended by our District Parliamentarian
- Toastmasters has many acronyms; this is a list of the common ones (that you might want to ask about)
- Running an open house, or demonstration, meeting – courtesy of District 57 (Northern California)
- A fun way to run a meeting is to do things backwards. Here are some ideas.
- How to hold a “Moments of Truth” meeting using your club’s meeting timeframe
- What you need to cover in your club’s Annual Business Meeting (the first one in May)
- How you run your Club’s Executive Meetings is up to you, but here are some ideas to get you started
- Its always useful to find what members want. This New Member Survey is a start.
- Inevitably, members leave the club. Use this Exit Survey to see if you could have done anything about it.
Online and Hybrid Meetings
- Tips on holding hybrid meetings (HINT: Think of how a TV studio is set up for a chat show)
- Zoom security issues (NOTE: valid in 2020, some points may have been superseded)
- How to get started with Zoom
- The “Toastmasters Official Guide” to online meetings – from the TI Resource Library
- Highlight your club, on the District 112 website, as one that uses hybrid meetings
Conferences – Hints on running great conferences for your area, division or district
- Conference Bid form, the starting point in running a conference
- Conference Handbook – all you need to know about how to organise a conference
- 2022 Workshop – “Speech as a Sense” by Jon Hunter
- 2022 Workshop – “Don’t Dis My Ability”, session 1, with Toni Sharp. Accessibility isn’t what you think.
- 2022 Workshop – “Don’t Dis My Ability”, session 2, with Toni Sharp. Accessibility isn’t what you think.
- 2022 Workshop – “Confidence With The Camera”, with Walter Neilands
- 2022 Workshop – “How to Eat an Elephant” – or put a podcast together – with Jan Stroup
How to run a contest and enjoy the process – Tips to help you whether you are organising, competing or judging
- Introduction to club contests for newer members
- Introduction to contests at other than club level
- Toastmasters contact list by department at World Headquarters (you must be logged on to use this)
- Clear guidance about what you need to know to compete in an online contest. Recorded in 2020.
- The “Quality Contests Handbook” as published by TI
- The Official Speech Contests Rulebook (July to June) which changes each year.
- The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list forms part of the contest rulebook and must be read as such
- List of forms needed for each contest
- Forms and contest kits (under “Where Can I Find Forms?”)
Councils – How to get the best out of your council meeting, at any level
- Guidelines on preparing for a District Council meeting
- For online District Council meetings, you’ll need our Guide to Online Voting
- Governance of Toastmasters – everything you need to know, and more
- Guidelines and requirements for all District events
- Roles and requirements of all District Officers
- D112 District meeting documents arranged by year and meeting
- Preparing for and running your Council meeting
Events – Past, present, future and regularly repeating events
- FreeToastHost workshop, December 2022 – getting the best from your website
- “Sensational Online Meetings” – recording of Lauren Parson’s workshop on getting the best from Zoom
- Run the Red – how to challenge a world record in public speaking (and win)
Marketing – Getting the best out of your campaigns
- New section, pending advice from Club Growth, June 2024
Membership – Tips to help you get the best out of being a member of Toastmasters
How you can help yourself
- The Toastmasters Guide to Speech Evaluation – essential reading and a great refresher
- Tips on improving speech delivery by improving your speaking voice
- My Speech Class is an external library of speaking resources unconnected to Toastmasters but run by current and past members
- Andrew Dlugan’s “Six Minute” blog site is a thought-provoking source of ideas in six-minute reads
- Interviews are no more than Table Topics, and this interview site shows you how to work with both
- Doing High Performance Leadership (HPL)? This excerpt from the previous education program complements your project
- What is needed to be a Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM)? Find out here!
- Prepare or present a Personal Plan for Success (provided by Glen Murphy DTM, adapted by Murray Coutts DTM, PDDG). There are three downloadable documents:
- Presenters Overview, in PDF format
- Participants Workbook, in MS Word format
- Accompanying PowerPoint presentation
How you can help Toastmasters – and yourself
- A video guide to the revised Speechcraft Course format
- How to become a Club Coach – and what is involved
- Club Coach Appointment Application form
- Training for Club Coaches, Sponsors and Mentors
- How to start a new club
- A Guide to the Toastmasters Educational Program
Officers – What you need to be an effective Club or District Officer
- The Club or District Leadership Handbook, for a start
- Club Officer Tools (login required) has short descriptions to help you understand your role
- So you want to be a District Officer? Here’s how, including the paperwork
- How to cast your international Proxy vote at Convention
- Elected District Officer application process
- If you are sending communications on behalf of the District, use this letterhead
- Area Directors – not sure where to find the Club Visit form? Find out from this short video (Courtesy James Edley, L1 Director, 2023-2024)
- Outstanding Toastmaster nomination guidelines, modified for Pathways, for activities in one club only
- Need more mentors? Use this Mentor Interest Survey to find them
- If you’re not sure who has been trained, find out from this Training Register
Pathways – Understanding the educational programme and how to use it well
- What you need to know depends on why you need to know it – on the role you are playing
- For general information, try the Quick Link from our homepage
- To help you get started as a member, this page gives the “unofficial” basics for tasks such as choosing a path
- As a Club Officer, this page will help you make sense of Base Camp – and help you answer questions with confidence
- District Officers support Club Officers – our District Support page helps you do just that
- Online or hybrid meetings? Here’s how to get started with Zoom
- Need help – either yourself or you club? Find out about our Pathways Champions Group
- To find out more, join the Pathways Discussion Forum – a friendly Facebook group knowledgeable about Pathways
- Most Pathways tutorials are now on YouTube – this index gives an idea of what becomes important and when
- There are many ways of choosing a path. Here you’ll find different way of looking at the process:
- The earliest, and one of the best, guides to Pathways, supplied and maintained by District 4
- A one-page summary of all the paths and required projects
- Things to think about before choosing a path, from Julie Kertesz’s blog
- Julie Kertesz’s Pathways blog – a well-written inspiration to make paths relevant to you
- WordPress course on how to get started with a blog
- There are various ways of tracking progress, especially if you are doing multiple paths in multiple clubs:
- A one page map and summary, which does not allow for speech titles and evaluators
- Multi-path tracker, good for keeping track of your own progress
- How to automate data extraction from Leadership Central – step by step from “Tech for Toastmasters” (some tech skills needed)
Publicity – Help with promoting your club and Toastmasters
- The Official Guide to Public Relations – mentioned here because of its resources (you need to scroll down)
- The Brand Portal has everything you need to know about our copyrighted brand, and how to use it for your publicity
- Let The World Know is the best start you can give yourself in Public Relations
- Low on funds? Ask your District for help with funding promotions!
- Link to the District Funding Application Form NOTE: Not compatible with Firefox, please download first
- Club Banners – and how to get a new one, either “Pull-up” or “Teardrop” (images open in a new tab)
- All About Toastmasters is not just a publicity flyer – its a source of ideas
- The best one-page summary of Toastmasters – for guests, and also their employers
- The Official Toastmasters International Facebook Group – the biggest club in the world!
- Digital version of the District’s Visitor Brochure
- Point your guests to the “Not A Member Yet” button on the District homepage while inviting them to your next meeting
- How your members can help to promote the club, and what they get out of it
- Membership building for clubs – programmes that gets everyone in the club involved
- Membership Building for District Officers – how you can help as an Area Director – at worst, something to talk about on club visits
- A one page summary of how to assess your Club’s social media presence – for members and Area Directors
- Local SEO – boring techie stuff, or the best way to get your club noticed? Read (its mostly in English), and decide!
- Out of ideas? Watch this 15-minute video that will help you make new members out of visitors
- Sample two-minute “My Why” presentation from Sherman Wang DTM
- One hour online presentation on “How to Make Your Publicity Meaningful“
- How to place an advert on Facebook
- Short tutorial videos on Facebook from Lauren Parsons
- Toastmasters Goal-Setting Workbook – good for mentor-protégé sessions
- Link to public files in the District PRM and Marketing Google Drive folder
PR Templates – Starter templates for anything Toastmasters
- A set of 35 professionally prepared Public Relations Templates – use for club or District events, and more. This is a great chance to develop your skills in Canva, as well. Includes templates for
- Posters
- Announcements
- Contests
- Open meetings
- Conferences
- PLUS
- A simple guide to improving your club’s presence on the internet
NOTE: These templates use Albany Toastmasters as a sample club. You, of course, just use your own.
Training – Resources to help with training – given and received
- District YouTube Index page, containing all playlists for District 112
- YouTube Playlist – what people look for, and what they find, when they search for “Toastmasters”
- Understanding Storytelling – tips for telling a good story
- Speechcraft Workshop video
- Club Leadership Handbook – the one book every officer needs to read
- The unofficial, but highly recommended, Book of Leadership
COT Materials – As presented at Officer Training, Round 1, 2024
- Club Officer Tools (login required) has short descriptions to help you understand your role
- How to build a healthy Executive team – and through them, build a healthy club
- Publicity is great – but where to start? Try here:
- Steps for making your club visible on the web – your PRM can show you how to do each step
- Steps to create a basic marketing strategy
- Documents above too big? Here’s a summary of “How to Start Small and Grow” with social media
- Optimising your website is not optional – but not hard either. Example: Google looks first in page headings – to get yourself found, put your keywords there. Check out the Guide to SEO in the “Publicity” section of the library
- Step by step guides are useful for processes you don’t do too often. We have several:
- On-boarding (familiarising a new member with Toastmasters and your club) guide and checklist
- Working as a Base Camp Manager (President, VPE or Secretary)
- A starter example for a Club Budget (Using Firefox? Please download first)
- A quick trip round your resources on the D112 (District) Website
- How to get help – and which website is best for specific information?