Toastmasters Club Officer Positions [EXCO]: Roles and Responsibilities

If you’re new to Toastmasters, there’s certainly a lot to learn about the organization.

Toastmasters was founded almost 100 years ago and is still going strong. Incredibly, today there are over 16,400 clubs in 14 currently around the world.

It’s not just all about becoming a better public speaker when you join Toastmasters. Granted, this is a significant learning objective and often the first reason many people sign up with a local club.

There are those of us with an absolute fear of speaking before an audience. Others may actually enjoy giving speeches but want to become better at it.

Public speaking aside, the other big benefit to being a Toastmaster is that you learn leadership skills.  

More that 5,000 clubs are corporate clubs – a fact that attests to how invaluable the organization has become to help grow leaders in many different industries.

Like any membership association, each individual Toastmasters club relies on a well-functioning executive to keep it running smoothly and growing. Serving on the executive is one of the best ways for participants to acquire leadership competency.

Toastmasters Executive Commitee Term of Tenure

Club Executive Committee positions are held for a year or six months with elections happening at the beginning of May and, in the latter case, again in early November.

The term of tenure is dictated by how often a given club meets. For example, if a club meets less often than weekly, they elect club officers only once a year.

A quorum, or majority of active members, is, naturally, necessary for elections to be held.

If there are no challengers for a specific role and the incumbent is interested in holding the position for another term, they’re for sure able to remain on the Executive Committee.

Toastmasters Club Officer Positions & Roles

The Executive Committee is made up of eight members who represent their club when there are meetings at the area and division level.

Reading some of the Toastmaster Club Officer titles, their roles and responsibilities may seem fairly intuitive.

Certainly, many associations will have someone who acts as treasurer to manage funds and another person in the role of secretary to take minutes and keep track of decisions.

However, in Toastmasters you’ll find some Executive Committee roles with titles that are unique to the organization. Here are the details of what each Club Officer is responsible for at the local club level.

President

As the chief executive officer, the President is responsible for the general operation of their club. Here’s how that looks on the ground.

Leads Executive Committee −

The President works closely with other members of the Club Executive to develop club goals and assist them to meet the obligations of their Club Officer positions.

Regularly scheduled Executive Committee meetings are called by the President. They set an agenda that includes a report back from each Club Officer and a discussion of progress on club goals.

These meetings enable the President to identify members who need additional support and projects that will help promote and celebrate the club and grow membership.

Guides members –

The President is responsible for leading the way for all club members and endeavours to show a good example by their actions.

Further, they make sure that each Toastmaster has the individual assistance that they need to grow and develop within the program.

When it comes to helping other Club Officers with their responsibilities, the President offers guidance and encouragement.

They support other Executive Officers in fulfilling their roles. As well, they strive to create an atmosphere of synergy among Executive Committee members and inspire all Club Officers to step up and collaborate as a team.

Encourages club progress –

The President must keep track of how the club is progressing towards meeting its goals, note any issues to be addressed and take action in cooperation with Executive members.

An important component of the role is to be sure that the club is doing all that it can to support each member’s personal growth as a Toastmaster.

It’s through enabling individual members to improve as leaders and speakers, growing club membership and providing a welcoming atmosphere for all participants, that the Club will attain distinguished status and other awards. The President’s position is central here.

Represents club –

As the main club representative, the President attends a variety of Area and District events and scheduled meetings such as the Area Council.

The President brings information back to the club from these meetings, and suggested related strategies to help the club stay focused on their goals.

Attendance at Area Council meetings is often done in the company of particular Club Officers – the VP of Education and the VP of Membership.

Transferable Skills

As you can appreciate, serving as the President can really boost one’s competence in a number of transferable skills. These include:

• Coaching
• Consulting
• Conflict Resolution
• Leading
• Meeting Facilitation
• Negotiating
• Networking
• Parliamentary Procedure
• Project Management
• Strategic Planning
• Team Building
• Time Management

Vice President Education

As the club’s second ranking officer, the VP Education will take the place of the President at meetings, if needed. They’re also a member of the Area Council.

This is a busy role with a number of important responsibilities, as follows:

Plans meetings –

The club relies on the VP Education to plan all regular meetings. This involves preparing the agenda for the day and assigning roles.

They’ll reach out to members who’re taking on meeting roles to make sure that they understand what they have to do in the meeting, and if there’s anything required of them ahead of time.

For instance, each meeting has a theme that the Toastmaster for that meeting will decide on.

The person taking on the Grammarian role will come up with the word of the day.

Plus, anyone giving a speech must hand off their introduction to the Toastmaster, and ensure that they have a speech evaluator in place.

It’s the job of the VP Education to align all these pieces properly on the agenda so the meeting goes off without a hitch.

In addition, some meetings might have unique formats like a speakathon or an open house, that the VP Education must plan. In this way, they’re enabling the achievement of club goals.

Supports members’ educational goals –

Helping members reach their educational goals is probably what comes to mind immediately, and it’s definitely a big piece of being a VP Education.

Scheduling and encouraging members to give speeches at meetings is one way that the VP Education assists others.

Away from meetings, they act as the ‘go to’ person for all things Pathways. That’s the Toastmaster education program where members register for different learning programs, take self-assessments and plan their next project.

The VP Education helps members navigate Pathways and register their achievements online.

In this way, Toastmasters International is notified and will officially recognize their successes. There’s a cool option here for the VP Education to notify the member’s employer too.

Tracking a member’s progress allows the VP Education to present them with various educational awards and join the club at meetings in celebrating what they’ve done.

Celebrations are a time that brings members together and inspires everyone to achieve more.

Conducts educational sessions –

One component of supporting the Toastmasters education program, is planning and conducting different types of learning sessions.

The VP Education takes the initiative to discover what learning would be most advantageous and what new types of training would benefit members. Then, they set up those opportunities.

It could be that giving a speech online is a skill that members are interested in, or perhaps doing a presentation with PowerPoint slides, or learning the steps for effective evaluation.  

Organizes club contests –

Here’s a fun event that the VP Education takes charge of. Their job is to prepare the ground work for a productive contest at the club level.

Contests can be about giving different types of speeches, or evaluating speeches. Additionally, there may be a Table Topics contest.

Typically, there will be two contests per year.

The VP Education arranges for contestants, timers, ballot counters and others. They brief them on the rules beforehand and direct the process during the contest.

Subsequently, the VP Education will submit the winner’s names to the Area Director for invitation to the contest at the next level.

There are also 'unofficial' contests like the Tall Tales contest.

Manages mentorship program –

Mentorship can make a real difference, especially for new Toastmasters members. Furthermore, clubs often have a co-mentor program for all members.

Mentors will normally set up regular meetings, or check-in phone calls, with their mentee. This is the time to discuss what the mentee wants to work on, and how the mentor’s experience can assist.

The help requested may be reading the mentee’s draft speech and offering any advice to improve it, explaining the responsibilities of an Executive Committee role the mentee is interested in, or something else.

The VP Education assumes the job of matching mentors and mentees, or co-mentors if that’s the case, and checking in at frequent intervals to ask how the program is serving those involved.

Transferable Skills

Does this role appeal to you? Here’s a list of the transferable skills that you’ll acquire:

• Career Planning
• Conflict Resolution
• Event Planning
• Meeting Planning
• Negotiating
• Networking
• Personnel Development
• Scheduling
• Strategic Planning
• Time Management
• Training

Vice President Membership

The VP Membership is another pivotal position on the Club Executive, and they’re also a member of the Area Council.

This Club Officer has the job of keeping existing members engaged and attracting new ones. All clubs need to sustain a minimum level of membership and, hopefully, to grow – right?

Here’s the low down on what the VP Membership does:

Make guests feel welcome –

Frequently, new visitors will have already been in touch with one of the Club Officers prior to attending. Whoever that is should let the VP Membership know ahead of time so they’re able to look out for them.

The VP Membership must make it a point to greet guests at each meeting, and introduce them to at least a few other members.

Having guests sign a visitor book with their contact information provides a vehicle for following up with them later on. They can also be provided with the member’s Toastmasters business card.

Seating the guest next to someone who is willing to engage in a little comforting small talk, and answer any questions as the meeting progresses is a good idea.

The VP Membership is also generally accountable for putting together a visitor package with some information about Toastmasters International and their particular club. These are given to each guest.

While it’s important for the Toastmaster to acknowledge any visitors in their opening remarks, it’s also very useful to ask them to offer any comments at the end of the meeting, or ask if they have any questions.

Inviting comments is done with tact and respect so that the guest doesn’t feel compelled to say too much, but feels included.

Reach out to visitors –

After the meeting, the VP Membership takes the lead to follow up with each guest. This is another chance to answer any questions that the visitor may have.

Sure, some visitors may decide Toastmasters isn’t for them or they’re not quite ready to make a commitment. Either way, the VP Membership will let them know that they’re welcome to sit in on another meeting.

Depending on the level of interest expressed, the member will ask if they can stay in touch with the visitor and let them know of future meetings.

It’s not unusual for prospective members to attend several meetings before they make up their mind to join Toastmasters.

Sign up new members –

The VP Membership not only processes new membership applications, but they’re responsible to make sure that existing members renew their membership bi-annually.

Here, they work closely with the Club Treasurer to ensure that all dues are paid on time.

For new members, the VP Membership gives them a brief orientation, puts them in touch with the Treasurer to pay dues and with the VP Education to explain Pathways and other public speaking and leadership development opportunities.

Another requirement of this role is that they keep accurate membership records and make a semi-annual report on the membership numbers to Toastmasters International.

Promote club membership –

Marketing the club is a separate responsibility that the VP Membership takes on. This can include membership drives, open houses, speaking engagements and other initiatives.

In this activity, the Club Officer partners with the VP Public Relations and VP Education. These are the others with a stake in attracting new members, and supporting current ones to stay.

Besides using available avenues to tell the general public about the club, the VP Membership will dream up other ways to increase the number of members.

This may involve asking each person in the club to bring one guest to the next meeting, or commit to posting meeting information at their local service club or community centre.

Promoting club membership usually means ‘all hands on deck’.

Transferable Skills

If this Executive Officer role sound interesting, take a look at the associated transferable skills:

• Campaign Management
• Career Planning
• Consulting
• Customer Service
• Marketing
• Networking
• Personnel Orientation
• Personnel Development
• Public Relations
• Seminar Development

Vice President Public Relations

This Club Officer position has a critical responsibility – essentially, to safeguard the public face of the club through designing and promoting its image.

It should be noted that the President commonly approves all external communications such as media releases and information published online.

Read on for the details of the VP Public Relations role:

Promote club –

By and large, the biggest job the VP Public Relations has is to spread the word, far and wide, about the club.

For any club to attract new members, it needs to have a good amount of visibility.

People in the community, or the workplace if it’s a corporate club, need to know that it exists and what it’s mandate is.

The VP Public Relations takes advantage of regular opportunities, like local community news pages and corporate newsletters, to remind people about the club and provide meeting dates and times.

Media releases are another route they use, especially to tell people about special events or milestones that the club is celebrating.

They’re also in charge of making attractive posters about an upcoming meeting, or club event, and placing them where potential visitors will seem them.

Posters can be shared online and with members, and with workplace leads in the case of a corporate club, to disseminate

The VP Public Relations is continually looking out for new occasions to talk up the club. That translates into getting on the agenda of various meetings, being interviewed by the media and using available social media platforms.

Of course, if they want to take on the adventure of creating their own podcast to discuss the value of Toastmasters, Pathways has the perfect project for that.

Maintain branding –

Ensuring that the club uses the approved Toastmasters International branding is another thing that the VP Public Relations takes care of.

If other members are putting something together that requires branding, like using Power Point for a speech about Toastmasters, the VP Public Relations is the one who checks that the colours and logos are used correctly.

Create club publications –

Club publications, such as newsletters and magazines, are something else that this role has in their wheelhouse – that is, if the club chooses to have these.

Since producing some publications can be a lot of work, other club members are normally needed to lend a hand.

Manage club website –

This can be a job in itself, but an enjoyable one nonetheless. Designing the website and keeping the information on it current is a significant responsibility.

Writing blog articles on the website and soliciting guest posts is typically a related function.

What’s more, the VP Public Relations is normally the member charged with submitting blog posts to the Area and District websites, although this activity is open to anyone.

Transferable Skills

If you think this role might be for you, these are the transferable skills you’ll develop:

• Advertising
• Campaign Management
• Consulting
• Designing Publications
• Graphic Design
• Journalism
• Media Relations
• Networking
• Planning
• Promotion
• Writing
• Seminar Development

Secretary

The Secretary’s role is not unlike similar positions in other types of clubs.

In essence, they’re the record-keeper who is responsible for maintaining all files, records, correspondence and other paperwork. This covers the club constitution and by-laws as well.

The Secretary takes charge of administration requirements from Toastmasters International, updates membership records, manages new member applications and keeps past records for the club.

Assisting to prepare Executive Committee meeting agendas and preparing and distributing minutes are other functions of this role.

Finally, they order all supplies and related items for the club from Toastmasters International when required – awards, pins, pamphlets and small gifts for guest speakers, to name a few.

Transferable Skills

As a Club Secretary, you’ll acquire these transferable skills:

• Document Control
• Event Coordination
• Order Processing
• Policy Administration
• Purchasing
• Record Keeping
• Report Writing
• Research

Treasurer

This is another role that you might be familiar with if you’ve belonged to a club of any sort.

Basically, the Treasurer manages the club bank account and pays all invoices.

This position collects membership dues and issues receipts. This is done in collaboration with the VP Membership to track renewals and new applications.

The Treasurer is responsible to forward to Toastmasters International the portion of dues that they require.

They prepare an annual budget, sign off on all expenditures during the year and arrange a small team to join them in auditing the books at year-end.

In addition to the Treasurer’s signature, cheques written against the club’s bank account require at least one other signature.

Working with the President, the Treasurer proactively arranges for several other members of the executive Committee to have signing authority.

Transferable Skills

Accepting this role means you’ll benefit from the following transferable skills:

• Budget Preparation
• Consulting
• Money Management
• Policy Administration
• Purchasing
• Revenue Forecasting
• Revenue Generation
• Revenue Tracking

Sergeant-at-Arms

The Sergeant-at-Arms (SAA) is the official host at each Toastmasters meeting.

In this capacity, they plan ahead to book a meeting spot and bring all the necessary Club property and other items with them, arriving a little ahead of the designated time to set the room up.

The SAA opens the meeting, welcoming guests and making sure all meeting roles are filled and speech evaluators are in place.

They introduce the Toastmaster for that day and hand the meeting over to them.

It follows that the SAA takes responsibility for looking after the club’s property, such as banners, lectern or podium, visitor book, posters, pamphlets and other materials.

Transferable Skills

These are the transferable skills gained in this role:

• Consulting
• Customer Service
• Event Planning
• Interpersonal/Communication
• Inventory Management
• Master of Ceremonies
• Negotiations
• Report Writing

Immediate Past President

The outgoing President will remain on the Executive Committee the next year to take on a mentoring role.

The Immediate Past President is a crucial resource for the new Club Executive. This provides some continuity and supports the new committee to meet their objectives.

While this committee member doesn’t always attend executive meetings, they’re available behind the scenes for consultation and advice.

Several important tasks they have are to assist with the Club Success Plan, chair the Nominating Committee for a new executive and encourage the club to attain Distinguished Club status.

Transferable Skills

Many of the transferable skills for this position are similar to those of the President. However, here are a few that really stand out:

• Coaching
• Consulting
• Leading
• Mentoring
• Networking
• Strategic Planning
• Team Building
• Time Management

Final Words on the Responsibilities of TM Club Officers

As you can see, there’s so much more to the learning that Toastmasters provides than you might otherwise have thought.

Developing expertise as a leader and honing your communications skills in not just something you take on when you attend meetings, or register for the Pathways educational program.

Standing for election for a position on the club’s Executive Committee offers a wealth of wonderful ways to add to and improve a whole range of competencies.

If your interest is piqued, put your name forward at the next election and reap the benefits!