President's Tip of the Week

New Opportunities
(7/20/09)

Your Gilbert officers have been at work doing more than just trying to find us a better meeting place—we’ve been working to add more speaking and leadership opportunities and we’ve come up with three additions.

Ballot Counter:
Instead of having the TopicMaster tally votes, the ballot counter will assume this responsibility. Please keep your own ballot on the side to include only if you need to break a tie. When called upon, go to the front of the room and present the awards for Speech of the Day, Best Evaluation, and Best Table Topics Speaker. If time is short, meet the awards recipients half way, rather than waiting for them to walk all the way to the front.

Guest Envoys:
Don’t forget to bring your Competent Leadership manual. Before the meeting, find yourself a seat and reserve the seat next to it. Greet fellow members as usual, but keep a watchful eye out for guests to enter. When a guest enters, one of our two envoys should greet the guest. Introduce yourself, ask the guest to sign the guestbook, and retrieve a guest packet for them while they sign in. When the guest has finished signing the guestbook, introduce the guest to the VPE, VPM, and President, as well as other members as you make your way to your seats.

Once at your seat, make the guest feel welcome by engaging in conversation, answering questions, and/or going over the guest packet contents with them. In particular, ask them how they heard about our club, and why they decided to visit us. Point out the ballots, evaluation forms, and speech objectives in the agenda, and invite them to participate during the meeting by providing feedback to the speakers.

At the start of the meeting, the presiding officer will ask you to introduce your guest. In addition to their names, you may tell everyone how the guest heard about our club and what brought them there that night. Quietly answer any questions the guest may have throughout the meeting.

After the meeting is over, ask the guest if they would be willing to fill out the evaluation for the “Befriend a Guest” project in the CL manual (pg 46), then make sure the guest reconnects with the VPM or other officer.

Functionary Excellence Award:
The recipient of this award will be chosen by the General Evaluator from among the following functionaries: Wordmaster, Grammarian, Ah-Counter, Timer, Jokemaster, Word of Wisdom, Ballot Counter, and Guest Envoys. The GE should select the individual who excelled at filling their functionary role and best met their role objectives. You will likely make this choice at the lectern during the ballot counter’s award presentations, so keep the certificate and a pen up with you.