u/mokurai13

How does area, division, district collect information for themselves to improve?

I"ll admit this is a bit of me just venting - but then I started realizing that its one of the tools mentioned for clubs to use, but in my area, division, and district there doesnt seem to be any sort of feedback mechanism for them to determine how they should improve.

I'm wondering what metrics they use for determining how they are doing?

I know i'm being naive. I know that from top down they only seem to care about:

a. number of new members

b. number of new clubs ( and maybe number of clubs folded)

c. put on the events they were required to do ( contests, conference etc. )

does anyone who has been area, division, district director care to speak to this? ( am I completely wrong about this? is there a feedback mechanism that I have maybe been deleting out of my email?)

Is there a moments of truth for area/division/district? I think it might be very useful for the presidents or other officers to get together as a group and share their feedback. For most leaders outside of toastmasters this sort of feedback is invaluable because they may not be aware of the problems. or how widespread they might be

and its not just a bellyache session. And this IS actually a source of novel solutions sometimes!! (and as someone who is not in a leadership position: when I see acknowledgement of the feedback later on and what they are doing about it -> it makes me feel heard which goes a long way towards making me feel like I'm still part of the team and my issues matter. (my employer is 2000+ employees and this sort of thing is done at each level of leadership; sometimes its a survey but I noticed they make actual face to face sessions available to everyone - and they address it)

when things are difficult and there aren't easy solutions even that last bit I wrote can help me feel less discouraged and can sometimes also help with motivation to carry on.

apologies. I know this gets brought up every year this time of year.

why are they so long?!

district made the first one in person ( there are supposed to be more) . I'm not sure who they expected to show up at 8:30am on a saturday. in the summer.

Is there a list of the ones happening online currently?(I saw the stickied post from last year)

on "paper" our club looks like it has 12 members. but in reality we have 4. a number of people left because of other obligations. etc etc. the many times we have asked for a club coach we are turned away( i think the numbers are from last year? or they're somehow different than what I see)

TL;DR : is there a point to trying to keep this thing afloat? how do we run meetings? has anyone ever seen a club come back from dropping down to numbers like this?

last week we had a meeting with 3 members and 4 guests!! ( about an hour before the meeting one of our club officers resigned. and another member said they were sick)

and it was about as rough as expected.

I've been asking anyone who would listen from leadership about getting help. (i've been asking for help since last year october)

they said:

-hold an open house

-contact lapsed members. followup with guests. go find speakers from other clubs.

I don't think an open house is going to fix this. we have guests showing up. we aren't able to convert them into members because our meetings are often appearing to be of low quality. I've tried all the other suggestions. (multiple times)

when I try to contact leadership theres alot of "go talk to this other person" and the area and division director are new and i cant get an email returned from them. we had a national holiday today, so I'm hoping that maybe not getting a response because both of them were maybe on vacation or something?)

I completely get that everyones volunteering and this is not anyones main gig - I'm not judging anyone.

I have an idea to create a regional alliance with a number of clubs so that our members can attend other meetings and help with filling out meetings to make them look bigger and of higher quality, This is something that has worked at toastmasters in the past ( i havent seen it personally but I read it about it online ) Has anyone seen something like this work ?

part of me just wants to call it and walk away. but another part of me is telling mysel fto rise to the challenge more. but I know I would have to sacrifice A LOT to try to put the regional alliance idea together on my own ( without help )

Hope everyone is having a good nurses week so far!!

I appreciate the support and warmth the profession on the whole has amongst our colleagues.

And if your Monday is off to a rough start please know that you can ask for a hand or for help. Or even just say "hey" and vent a little.

Hope everyone has a good week

Ps. Any free swag or discounts you know of for nursing week?

(Lululemon has a periodic discount code they send for nurses and first responders if you register )

Sorry if the "news" flair for this isn't considered news. Wasn't sure which flair to out it under