Competent Communicator (CC) and "Out" Syndrome
It's a happy moment when a new member achieves their first milestone in Toastmasters. It called Competent Communicator.
It's equally sad when they fade or leave.
“ CC and Out Syndrome “ is defined as when a new member fades away after achieving their first achievement known as the Competent Communicator, or “ CC “ for short.
It's a critical crossroads. The new member either continues to develop or bails. To the best of my knowledge there is no statistical evidence, only anecdotal.
So why is there no middle ground ? The answer might lie in why people become interested in Toastmasters in the first place. Let's look at that. Humans are complacent creatures of habit. Any start salesperson will tell you that the best prospects are those who are motivated by a compelling event which is always an outside force. Sort of like Newton's first Law of Motion. An object stays in motion unless activated upon by an outside force. Examples of impetus to look into public speaking might be having to speak at a wedding or getting drafted to make a presentation.
The biggest driver is overcoming fear of public speaking. On average, there are 12,100 U S Google searches monthly for “public speaking” and 3,600 for “fear of public speaking”.
By the time a new member delivers 10 speeches, she has:
a ) the basic tools to organize and deliver a speech and
b ) overcome the fear
At this point the problem has been solved. Every day, millions of people stop taking the full bottle of antibiotics because they believe they are well. Chiropractors benefit long term from patients who perceive they are out of the woods because they are out of pain. When they have to go back, they will need extra visits.
A Vice President of Membership ( VPM ) is analogous to a sales manager who is engaged in conservation of matter. He's always losing some on the back end, so there is constant pressure to shove more in on the front end. It is known as “churn”. The consensus estimate from what I hear is about 40 %. Toastmaster clubs will on average lose 4 out of 10 members every year for whatever reason.
Once a new member has been reeled in, there is still pressure to enroll another one.
Successful species have lots of offspring in hopes that a few will survive to adulthood.
Here's a fun fact: Toastmasters has 355,000 members worldwide. Less than 3,500 achieve the pinnacle of Distinguished Toastmaster ( DTM ).
An interesting stat would be how many people join Toastmasters annually and drop out in the first year. Naaah, too depressing.
So what's a VPPM to do ?
In my opinion -
1 ) make sure the new member's mentor really is mentoring and cultivating the relationship, especially as CC is in sight
2 ) don't ignore the new member as he or she is assimilated into the club. Don't assume they are going to continue to progress after the initial fanfare over a new member has subsided.
3 ) continue to emphasize the non-speaker benefits of Toastmasters such as leadership, resume enhancement, making friends, monotony break, etc.
It may not take an entire village, just a club.