I’ve been reading some of the posts in the ToastmastersPrime discussion board in Google Groups in recent months after I found out someone used one of my posts as part of a discussion.  One of the recent discussions was in regards to club officer training in which someone was given a list of reasons to attend officer training, with #1 being “Help your club earn a point in the Distinguished Club Program (DCP)”.  Basically all of the discussions found this disturbing and is somewhat related to some of the recent entries in other Toastmaster blogs about the DCP.  For whatever reason, while I’ve seen some people in District 30, even myself in the past, look at club officer training as a DCP goal rather than a reason for officers to learn more about their positions, what can be as disturbing as that is if a club feels they have to have all 7 officers trained because the club feels they have to reached that standard.

When I was the assistant Winter Toastmasters Leadership Institute Dean in 2003-2004 year, the current (2008-2009) District 30 Governor felt that her club had to have all 7 officers trained both for the summer and winter officer training.  She was their Club President at that time and the club has been know around District 30 as its #1 club because it held the longest consecutive streak of acheiving all 10 DCP goals (3 years at that time, now it is 8 years).  At one of the Winter TLIs she mentioned that one of her officers was being called to military duty during the winter training season, but she remained determine to get that person trained in spite of not being available to attend any of the officer training because she felt her club needs to reach that high of a standard to remain known as the #1 club in District 30.  I told her that there was no need to get that goal of all officers trained as they already reached their DCP goal for officers trained and I think getting all officers trained at whatever cost is not worth going through, both in that year and in the long term when no one really cares about that.  Well they found a way to have this last officer trained without going through a formal officer training session, assuming they did a 1-to-1 training instead.  I was very disturbed by this and vowed when I was the Winter TLI Dean the following year that I would block such a thing as it was basically designed to pump up the club’s numbers and nothing else.  Luckily this club did not try that attempt and was content with not having all officers trained that following year.

Whether it is for getting the DCP goal for officers trained or to get all officers trained for that period, it is must that the club goes through the proper channels to have their officers trained.  Club officer training is first and foremost for the benefit of the officers – reaching the DCP goal for officers trained or a club goal to get all officers trained should not be a high priority.  Years from now, does anybody really care if a club has all 7 officers trained both times in one year?