The July 28 TLI is complete! We had well over 200 attendees, which was an incredible turnout given a few factors. First, the planning and recruiting timeline of two weeks was rather short. Second, a Club Officer Training* (COT) event had taken place a month earlier nearby, which attracted many of the would-be attendees to the TLI.
For my part at the TLI, I gave the mandatory one-hour training for approximately 30 Vice President Public Relations (VPPR) officers. I covered the required training material, made sure to allow plenty of discussion among the group, and shared my own club-level public relations strategic process. I got excellent immediate feedback from the attendees and heard good word-of-mouth spreading throughout the day thereafter. I wasn't alone, as I heard good things about several of the sessions that day. This suggests we are doing well to attune our event to the interests of members and engaging them, even in the case where training is mandatory. This was all quite encouraging and I would gladly speak at future TLI events.
As soon as I got home, my focus shifted to the next task at hand: club visits. It was time to directly reach out to each of my clubs and make a specific request to have our initial visit. I did so by writing a straightforward, brief message. I offered three date options based on each club's upcoming schedule, asked what their preference would be, and ensured them I would be there for the date they picked. Two clubs had already been scheduled, two new visits were confirmed within an hour, and two remained by the end of the day. Here's what my formal visit schedule looked like at this point: August 2, 16, 23, and 29, with two clubs pending. A soft goal was to get an initial visit completed with each club by the end of August, although we of course have until November 30 to file the formal reports, which leaves plenty of time for adjustments.
*COT and TLI are two different formats that Districts can use to offer annual training programs. The COT focuses on the bare-bones requirements for training club officers, which is required for DCP credit. Meanwhile, the TLI offers a full-featured program that includes COT as well as several other topics of interest to training all members (e.g. Pathways, technology tutorials, speech contests, leadership, coaching and mentoring, maintaining club quality, team building).