About this time of the year with Area and Division contests taking place comes publicity for next month’s Fall Conference.  I’m not sure how much work has been done to promote the conference as I’ve only attended one Area Contest, but I’m sure some clubs are announcing this as often as possible.  The Club President of North Suburban has been promoting this at every meeting since July and has brought up having the club register for the conference under the club fee of $110, which allows every member to attend any part of the conference at no additional charge, with the exception of Saturday lunch and dinner.  District 30 has been using the club registration option since the 2005 Spring Conference and somehow I played a role in getting this to happen.

I was the District 30 Winter Toastmasters Leadership Institute Dean for the 2004-2005 year, which we had a TLI in each Division as oppose to a District-wide one that has been in place the last two years.  One of the issues my predecessor, Pam Melick, felt needed to be addressed with me at the helm was the need to charge for the TLIs as they were free the previous year and gave an image that these TLIs are second-rate as oppose to the Summer TLI, which we charged at least $10 per person for years and was given raved reviews.  We were able to get the D30 Executive Council in September of 2004 to approve that we charge $10 per person for the Winter TLIs for the 2004-2005 year, but the only opponent of this is the Lt. Governor of Education and Training, Bruce Burrow, who oversees the Winter TLIs as part of his role.  Bruce was adamant that they should remain free of charge, using the argument “what do members get for their dues?” and consider officer training to be a member benefit that District 30 should absorb all costs.  I also believed that his upbringing in the Crystal Lake club played a part in his stance as the club insists on using a free meeting place so members don’t pay much for club dues.  While the DEC overwhelmingly supported the idea of a Winter TLI charge, Bruce, with the support of the District Governor, was finding ways to make sure that did not happen.  As we reached mid-October, when we should have already started promoting the Winter TLI (which was to start the 1st Saturday of December), nothing was resolved and I was stuck, trying to find a way to get a solution for this issue.

On October 26, Bruce and I were at the North Division Contest at the Northbrook Library, along with Pam who was the North Division Governor at that time.  Prior to the start of the contest, I brought up the fee issue to Maryann Reichelt, a North Division member who was also a member of neighboring District 54.  She mentioned that District 54 has a club registration option as well as individual registration that was the norm in District 30 conferences.  I remembered seeing this at the District 54 website but never thought of it as a possible solution.  After the contest, Bruce, Pam and I were at the library parking lot with the same set of arguments being sent back and forth about fees.  It was probably about 20 minutes later when I came up with the idea that we should have a one-time club registration of $20 and an one-time individual registration of $5, good for attending any or all the TLIs for the 2004-2005 year.  Pam and Bruce were receptive of the idea, and I immediately get started in developing this for the Winter TLIs, in time for the Fall Conference that November and all the TLIs going on as scheduled.

I did not hear many comments about the club registration idea, something that District 30 probably never did before.  I remembered a few thought this was a great solution and a Division Governor who was also past District Governor slamming it.  It turns out that we made way too much money on this as the Division Deans that ran each of the Division TLIs spent very little of their budget to run their events.  District 30 ended up making the 2005 Summer TLI free for all attendees and we ended up using the money we made to basically pay much of the costs for that event.  So since that time both the Summer and Winter TLIs in District are free of charge.  And my idea seemed to be a flop…

…however, around the time the Winter TLIs were taking place, Ram Gutta, the Spring 2005 Conference Chair, gave me a call and thought about the idea of club registration for his conference.  The past several D30 conferences had struggled to get members to attend, in some cases they lost as much as $2000!  Ram wanted to find ways to get more D30 members to attend a District Conference.  I replied that having a club registration for the conference is a great idea, mainly because I think Bruce Burrow’s belief about member benefits should also apply to conferences, so that if the conference lost money the District could pick up the rest of the tab and the members don’t need to pay as much for the conference as they used to, perhaps not pay anything at all.  While the previous Fall Conference charged a member $49 to attend all events except for meals and $110 for everything, the Spring Conference had a club registration of $96 and an individual registration of $30 if the club decided not to register.  Therefore assuming that the club paid the registration using their treasury (as oppose to members who attended chipping in the club fee which some clubs do), a member who wants to attend the entire event doesn’t have to pay a single cent if meals are not ordered and only $48 for Saturday lunch and dinner.

It turned out that club registration for conferences was a great thing for District 30.  I have never heard anyone complaining about this, which is a rarity for anything District 30 does.  District officers each year since encouraged clubs to use the club registration option, so it appears it has not affected District finances that plagued previous conferences.  Conference attendance went from about 150-250 in the past to as many as 500 when we had the 2006 Spring Conference which International President Dilip Abayasekara visit us.

Perhaps the best reason for having a club registration is that it doesn’t make a member feel obligated to attend every part of the conference and could attend just one part of the conference with little or no financial obligation, whereas in the past that member would feel discouraged from attending because he or she would be charged a fee even if that person could only attend one part of the conference.

So a lesson to be learned from this is that an idea that flopped the 1st time can succeed the next time with a different application.  And it came about at the Northbrook Library four years ago!