Last week at the last Arlington Heights club meeting, I was elected to serve as the club’s Vice President of Public Relations for the 2009-2010 year.  I never served in that position before, in fact the only other club officer position I never served is Treasurer, which will likely continue as many newer members who want to become officers want to start in that role.

The reason I want to take on the PR position is that I have some ideas we should try to implement to get more guests to our meetings.  The position is usually very neglected not only with the Arlington Heights club but in many other clubs here in District 30, so I believe I can do something to change that.  Some of the ideas I want to try in my club include:

  • Put together press releases whenever we have an event or a member accomplishment, something we never did during my 10 years as a member.  This may be difficult as we only have the Daily Herald to submit releases to.  We used to have the Pioneer Press papers such as the Arlington Heights Post and the Rolling Meadows Review, but they ceased printing the beginning of this year and is just a news website.
  • Enhance the club website, both to increase the number of guests to our meetings and as the primary resource for the members.  To use it as a publicity tool, I’d like to start putting in pictures of our meetings and our members (with their permission as there are those who are sensitive to privacy), plus add a page detailing what goes on in a meeting.  For members, I’d like to upload templates of worksheets we use, plus links to other Toastmasters-related resources.
  • Find local websites to put a link to our club website.  Usually the website is accessed through toastmasters.org, however what if there are those who either never heard of Toastmasters or never thought of finding it through Internet?  Perhaps putting our club link at appropriate local websites can get more people who may not initially thought of us to take a look and realize that Toastmasters can benefit them.
  • Putting together regular printed advertising – we only have done this periodically, usually when we have an open house.  I plan to put together different flyers that members can use to post in places with bulletin boards, such as Panera Bread or Jimmy John’s.  Plus I’m thinking about reviving the club newsletter, which we haven’t had in the last 5 years.  Previously the newsletter was for the members especially before we used e-mail and the club website around the time I joined.  Instead I’m thinking we should use it as a publicity tool and design the articles around the benefits of Toastmasters as well as profiling our members as testimonials.
  • Look at regularly advertising in the municipal TV channels in both Arlington Heights and Rolling Meadows as well as in their respective city/village halls.  We did try that for an open house two years ago, in fact it brought a guest to the event who not only became a member but will be our next Club President!
  • Work with neighboring clubs on doing joint and group promotion of Toastmasters.  One club can’t do this alone, getting a team of PR officers can do plenty.  I plan to contact incoming VP PRs of the neighboring clubs to see if we can collaborate on publicity.  With a new Northwest Division Governor coming in who is not a member of a division club, it would allow me to revive my involvement with the Northwest Division after a 2-year absence.

I’m looking forward to taking on this role in July and work with not just the Arlington Heights club members, but members of other Northwest Division clubs to boost our presence in northwest Cook County.