Are your members membership sales speakers or membership sabotagers?

 

Titanic sinking. Public domain photo due to age, 1912.

Toastmasters gives clubs points for recruiting new members and shuts down clubs which don't have enough members. 

The membership secretary should give a little speech about the advantages of joining the club, the benefits, after the visitors have been invited to speak.

The initiation ceremony asks new members to commit to attending meetings, when possible. 

However, you should not be pleased when members leave 'because they weren't attending and pulling their weight'.

You should be ensuring meetings are so welcoming and fun that they want to attend. Or that they can see replays and talk to you between meetings.

If the mentor is negative, or demanding, maybe new members should be given an encouraging and patient mentor, and the stricter mentor who wants dedicated speakers should be allocated as mentor to the advanced speakers.

If we are an advanced club, expecting regular attendance, then a leaving member should be introduced to another club. One day they might come back to us.

Often a member is reluctant to join because they won't have time to attend in person meetings.

At the Oscar ceremonies, those who cannot attend often send videos, congratulating or giving thanks. Some companies have a recording from the chairman whose greeting is shown on video to all visitors in offices worldwide. 

I want to a Toastmasters meeting in Singapore at an inhouse club. They insist that all visitors must watch the safety video, and the PR piece by the company CEO. (It was a security systems company.)

District 80 Facebook page has members saying people speaking on zoom need to have the experience of speaking in person.

However, two other factors must be taken into consideration. 

1 You may have members who joined knowing they travel, who won't attend if they cannot join by zoom.

2 Many companies are holding job interviews on line.

3 Working from home is increasing. It saves costs for the company which does not need expensive offices. Facebooks staff work from home.